5 ms·
This "hard-wired cease of regeneration/renew" is a nice high-level theory, while attempts to find a single cause (or a single gene) to stop or reverse the proce
by dschiptsov 12y ago
This "hard-wired cease of regeneration/renew" is a nice high-level theory, while attempts to find a single cause (or a single gene) to stop or reverse the process, is, probably, waste of time. There is no single process to be stopped, leave alone reversed. Each major subsystem (if not each major cell type) probably has its own "enough markers". That's why there are so many different causes of "natural" death.
- uniformlyrandom 12y agoWell, it is possible that every subsystem has its own self-destruction procedures, but that would be such an inefficient way to design a system. And nature is usually a very efficient designer.
- edanm 12y ago"And nature is usually a very efficient designer." In what sense? For most senses of the word efficient, I think I'd disagree with that.
- dschiptsov 12y agoIt is not self-destruction, I think, it is rather "never evolved/selected for a long run". Everything "important" is supposed to happen in youth, at peak and then "doesn't matter". It is rather "stopping investing in repair" rather than "intentional self-destruction". But I think there is no single "marker/indicator" for this. So, they could keep regeneration of some specific kind of cells in a lab animal, by manipulating some hormone, but it doesn't affect the other parallel processes in different kinds of cells.