4 ms·
It out of my wheelhouse but isn't telomeres a physical/chemical/biological reason we can't live forever?
by tokai 1y ago
It out of my wheelhouse but isn't telomeres a physical/chemical/biological reason we can't live forever?
- andrewflnr 1y agoI believe the argument would go "there's no fundamental reason we can't fix telomeres".
- chpatrick 1y agoIsn't the reason cancer? Eventually the DNA copying errors add up.
- sodality2 1y agoCancer is not fundamentally unsolvable (AFAIK?). This is a tough question to answer though. Can we prove cancer to be solvable without solving it?
- andrewflnr 1y agoThere are a handful of animals, mammals even, that essentially don't get cancer (some/all large whales and naked mole rats IIRC). So that might be solvable other ways.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- AngryData 1y agoNitpick, it is far less likely, but they can still get cancer.
- adastra22 1y agoYou also fix the copying errors.
- __turbobrew__ 1y agoWe need ECC for DNA, I could probably use a deep scrub.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> isn't telomeres a physical/chemical/biological reason we can't live forever? It’s one component, but not the only reason [1]. Naked mole rats’ telomeres do “not shorten with age but rather showed a mild elongation” [2]. They are long lived, for rodents, and don’t degrade into balls of cancer [3]. They nevertheless age. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senescence#Theories_of_aging https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senescence#Theories_of_aging [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6651551/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6651551/ [3] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abe0174 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abe0174