Cure of the Aging Disease

Just what we need, immortality, forever labouring in a foul factory, living
in poverty, smacks of a description of medievil Hell.

If Satan doesn't have it, man's greed will invent it.
 
Zwelgje said:
The individual is not important and thus emphasis lies upon keeping the species for as long as possible instead of the individual.

Would it not be a priority of the US ( at least the republican party) to find a way to stop aging, as it obvious is a communistic idée. :)

More on Topic;

Well, it's prob in our reach to stop aging; Genetics will give us the final answer.

One of the more interesting things is the telomeres on the chromosomes, which every time a cell splits gets shorter; when they get to short the cell dies. Experiments have shown that the cell can be kept alive by modifying (making them longer) them and even have it behave as it was younger.

This would indicate that we could live forever (not die by age) and even become younger if we wanted to. Let’s hope so.
 
vonork said:
Well, it's prob in our reach to stop aging; Genetics will give us the final answer.

One of the more interesting things is the telomeres on the chromosomes, which every time a cell splits gets shorter; when they get to short the cell dies. Experiments have shown that the cell can be kept alive by modifying (making them longer) them and even have it behave as it was younger.

This would indicate that we could live forever (not die by age) and even become younger if we wanted to. Let?s hope so.
Cool you know about this, collegues of mine are working on this subject and it's extremely interesting. Telomerase is the enzyme that can elongate telomeres and indeed when you induce telomerase the telomeres keep their original length and the cells won't age and eventually die.
There is one downside though: presence of telomerase is correlated with cancer...
 
I read an interesting discussion on the elimination of death - the author's hypothesis was that such an affect would dangerously slow biological and social evolution - leading to the inevitable decay and collapse of any society which implimented it.

Death is the ultimate motivator ;)

Which fits with my idea that human evolution - social and technological - since it's too early to say on biological - has been most marked during times of extreme stress - such as war. And societies featuring the most vigorously evolving social ideas and art forms also typically feature :hmm: most uncomfortable conditions.


Also, our cells have a finite reproductability - that is, a limited number of reproductions available. Though I don't think the exact number :rolleyes: is known, one obvious example is in cloning: Where a cloned product, essentially, begins where it's parent body was when the cells were taken - Dolly, though born naturally, didn't live a 'full and happy life', since she ended up with approximately the same lifespan as that of the parent donor... EDIT: :rolleyes: I mean the clone baby was, to all physical purposes, as old as it's donor.
 
Zwelgje said:
You're body isn't designed to decay after a while, it's designed to last for as long as it takes for you to reproduce in order to keep the species alive. The individual is not important and thus emphasis lies upon keeping the species for as long as possible instead of the individual.

My body is designed to decay. After the age of 30, I will start to lose 10% of my muscle mass every decade. My immunological system will start to weaken after I turn 30 years old, as another example.
With a healthy diet and exercise I can only alleviate or postpone consequences, but the end result is the same, because it is programed to happen that way.
My body it is NOT designed to last for as long as it takes for me to reproduce. If I decide to reproduce when I turn 150 I will not reproduce bacause I will be dead.
Nature gives me a window of opportunity to reproduce, if I miss it, I die (death caused by aging) without reproducing, no matter what.
Aging is a failsafe way for removing living beings out of the path of evolution.




vonork said:
One of the more interesting things is the telomeres on the chromosomes, which every time a cell splits gets shorter; when they get to short the cell dies. Experiments have shown that the cell can be kept alive by modifying (making them longer) them and even have it behave as it was younger.

This would indicate that we could live forever (not die by age) and even become younger if we wanted to. Let’s hope so.

Thank you very much, vorork.
I've heard of the aging process on the Discovery Channel, but I couldn't summarize or do some research about it before I started this thread.

As more and more cells die we get older.
See how the aging process in a programmed disease? The telomeres get shorter for no reason whatsoever, they just do. It is not the wear and tear of everyday life that causes our bodies to grow old, is our faulty genetic makeup. And it needs to be corrected, I am serious about this.

The fact that telomeres are designed to get shorter is undeniable proof that aging is something programed to kill us all.
 
The reason why telomeres get shorter is that the machinery that copies the DNA misses the last few basepares of the chromosome so by each cell division the chromosome gets a bit shorter. Telomeres basically are the non-coding end parts of the chromosome and are of such a length that each cell can undergo about 60-80 cell divisions.

@Zhukov: evolutionary you're not supposed to reproduce at 150. :)
Your body essentially is ready when you're about 10-15 years old and the female is the limiting factor agewise as from about 40-50 years she won't have ovulations anymore, so nature essentially doesn't care about the individual beyond that age.
 
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