  How self-organized networks develop, mature and degenerate is a key question
for sociotechnical, cyberphysical and biological systems with potential
applications from tackling violent extremism through to neurological diseases.
So far, it has proved impossible to measure the continuous-time evolution of
any in vivo organism network from birth to death. Here we provide such a study
which crosses all organizational and temporal scales, from individual
components (10^1) through to the mesoscopic (10^3) and entire system scale
(10^6). These continuous-time data reveal a lifespan driven by punctuated,
real-time co-evolution of the structural and functional networks. Aging sees
these structural and functional networks gradually diverge in terms of their
small-worldness and eventually their connectivity. Dying emerges as an extended
process associated with the formation of large but disjoint functional
sub-networks together with an increasingly detached core. Our mathematical
model quantifies the very different impacts that interventions will have on the
overall lifetime, period of initial growth, peak of potency, and duration of
old age, depending on when and how they are administered. In addition to their
direct relevance to online extremism, our findings offer fresh insight into
aging in any network system of comparable complexity for which extensive in
vivo data is not yet available.
