Scientists discover the secret of ageing

I am confused as to why this information is being released again as a new paper. I knew years ago that cell division was the cause of aging and cancer because other scientists had already found that out. So why is it being shown today as a breakthrough...

Originally posted by Dbriefed
Strange, I thought it was the loss of telemeres on DNA strands that caused aging. Each time cells divide, they lose bits of DNA (telemeres) until they reach the Hayflick limit (too many telemeres are lost) and cells stop reproducing. Telemerase prevents the loss of telemeres and aging but can cause immortal cells (cancer).

en.wikipedia.org...

That is covered in the article. You might consider reading it?

Originally posted by loner007
I am confused as to why this information is being released again as a new paper. I knew years ago that cell division was the cause of aging and cancer because other scientists had already found that out. So why is it being shown today as a breakthrough...

The article is very short and answers that. Cell division is a generality. What they uncovered is the exact process.

Originally posted by SaturnFX

One minor issue...the handover of power from one generation to the next would certainly take a long time...imagine your company with managment not retiring for like 280 years..There would have to be rules in place for those wishing to extend their youth/life I think...hell, create a giant space station (or massive cave city networks deep in the earth) for people over 100 to goto and leave the earth to the under 100s or something, donno...but future tech will come with future problems and future solutions.

The old never trust anyone over 30 line, eh? lol

Your answer is to remove the most knowledgeable, most experienced from leadership and society and place the least knowledgeable and least qualified in charge? Sounds like a great blueprint for failure.

I can't even come up with scenario where this thought could remotely resemble the product of critical thinking. It's the sort of idea one would expect from a person under 25, the age at which critical thinking skills are fully developed.

Are you under 25?

As to the population problem. That is only generally a problem of the young. Mature adults are less likely to overpopulate. It would make more sense to come up with a reversible, reliable sterilization method and limit child bearing to those mature enough to know the consequences and the control to know when to satisfy their urges.

An older person is not going to risk an unwanted pregnancy to satisfy a momentary uncontrollable urge. In other words, when lacking a condom, the older person will hold off and go buy one; a young person will give in to the urge and take the risk.

Very interesting topic.

I myself have always dreamed to live an extended life, because as someone else mentioned, you only become wise just before your time is up - I'd want to live for several hundred years, but wouldn't rule out immortality, or just enough of a lifespan to explore several galaxies

Several things did come to mind while reading through the replies:

- Given this is a conspiracy site, I feel it's relevant to bring up the fact that supposedly certain theories claim that our DNA was long ago altered so that we wouldn't live longer lives; If i remember correctly, the old testament gives a few references to ages of certain individuals who lived several hundred years. If the old testament is accurate to that, then it implies there was some sort of change to our DNA which limited the lifespan.

- Cancer and Life seem to have a strong relationship with each other. For some reason, this makes me think of mutations - dont know if this is true or where I even heard/read it from, but during a mutation, the cells will react with whatever is causing the mutation and create a hybrid cell of sorts.

I believe it was Michael Tsarion who had the theory that our planet had some sort of massive nuclear event that was man made, and was large enough to have a significant impact on the planet - Could this be the reason why there is such a strong link between cancer and life?

- If cell division is what causes aging and defeats cancer, is there a way to slow down the rate at which our cells divide? Again, not something I know much about, such as what even governs the rate at which cells divide, or what the rate of cell division will effect - just working strictly on logic. Think of it as time dilation for cell division

Originally posted by Solomons
I wouldn't want to live forever but a good two hundred years or so more would do me just fine.

um.. just curious but.. why not?

why wouldn't you want to live forever..

I mean given that you had absolute perfect health.. and spent your time refining your psychology to more and more pure levels of development, aiding your culture in developing more coherently harmonic existence through learning and discovering the infinite amount of knowledge there is to explore?...

exploring the universe both inner and outer space?...
aiding younger civilizations in refining themselves?
merging with other refined beings in order to co-create newer more perfect beings together?

i wouldn't want to live forever 'where we are now' .. but imagine aiding further advancement into more verdent and elevated levels of being? ... somehow you'd stop at 200 yrs of that journey and say.. uh yeah.. sorry later i want to cease this and let you all down?

sorry doesn't make sense to me.

-

Well I think I would want to live more than 200 years. But then curiosity kicks in. What happens when we die? If I lived a good 1000 years, I will most likely be bored with life, and would want to experience death. But at least 1000 years minimum for me

Double Post

[edit on 16-2-2010 by Maddogkull]

Originally posted by SaturnFX
The baby boomers are starting to get long in the tooth...I imagine alot of science is now going to be about extending life.

Totally not opposed to this, I just hope they are also working on a way to utilise resources more effectively as they continue to extend life for us all. I think a lifespan of 150-300 years in healthy bodys would be absolutely fantastic...(problem is in society, just when you start to really become wise, is typically when your body falls apart and you die).

One minor issue...the handover of power from one generation to the next would certainly take a long time...imagine your company with management not retiring for like 280 years..There would have to be rules in place for those wishing to extend their youth/life I think...hell, create a giant space station (or massive cave city networks deep in the earth) for people over 100 to goto and leave the earth to the under 100s or something, donno...but future tech will come with future problems and future solutions.

I would love to live a healthy life until I'm 350 year sold too, but your right about our society and how it would be able to deal with people who live and work that long. What would have to happen is that maybe our society would have to start exploring the solar system and also nearby stars to find and/or terraform worlds for people to live in. By sending out people who have at least 80 years of experience and close to 300 more years to go, they could help to form a new colony and world with their skills and at the same time open up the jobs that they would leave to the younger people if they want it. Our society is getting to the point that as Carl Sagan said that we will be a multiplanet species in the future, and that will be the only way that we can survive. We have went to Mars, we have the ability to send people there faster and quicker, and I believe we could get to another solar system. With a population that had the life extension of a few centuries, we would have the brainpower and know how to do what should be done in order to lessen population pressure and to allow the restless and the ones that feel disenfranchised a way to form again on another unspoiled planet.

remember this guy?

en.wikipedia.org...

a little off topic, but i think it's worthy to note.

Originally posted by SaturnFX
reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd

 

The science itself is rather old...glad to see they are having more breakthroughs

What sort of took me back was how they downplayed the telomeres role. My biology understanding is that even if we were to make a way for everyone to look 18 years old their entire lifetime, once you hit about 125, there are no more telomeres to shrink and the body in essence starts a full system shutdown. This has been one of the questionmark obsticles when even pondering longevity in a biological aspect.

I am reading doubletalk in this article. most people have no concept of the telomere issue and so wont question their hypothesis...I smell a rat.

Yeah, you're definitely right. Scientists can't solve the mystery of againg because the body has its own shutdown process and a large part of it is through telomeres.

Telomeres are the ends of DNA strands and every time DNA replicates itself, the telomeres or ends of the DNA are clipped, making the DNA shorter and shorter. The shorter the strands get, the slower cells replicate, and the slower the body reacts to diseases or any other harmful factors that cause the body to break down. Essentially, like you said, there are no more telomeres to shrink or clip off.

If they can somehow alter the clipping of telomeres, maybe that is the key to altering the aging process.

Originally posted by SaturnFX

Originally posted by ladyinwaiting
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

No, I just don't want you to plan for it.

[edit on 2/16/2010 by ladyinwaiting]

If you can suggest a alternative viable plan, then be my guest, but simply saying plan A doesn't work witout suggesting a plan B that has equal promise is not adding to a conversation, its actually just being a luddie.

My suggestion is to give a age based alternative. you want the treatment, then you become sterile and stop sucking up the resources of the planet after a certain age...or dont take the treatment and die with the rest of the schmuck...your choice.

now your turn...go.

you realize how moronic your entire plan sounds and how much of an outrage/riots it will cause correct?

rofl@people who speak before they THINK

Originally posted by taker328

If they can somehow alter the clipping of telomeres, maybe that is the key to altering the aging process.

they cap the telomeres with gold.

shhh it's secret.

I've never understood why we humans want to extend life to 150 or more years. To me it simply doesn't make sense to want to live so long.

All those people who's lives are lived in servitude, slaving away for 40+ hour weeks for meagre pay, suffering through all the heartaches of financial struggle, being at the whims of those who pull the strings, etc, is not what I think anyone would want to extend another 100 years of having to do.

Imagine it, how long would you have to work to afford 100 years of retirement? How much more could TPTB squeeze from the plebs until they scream enough?

Nope, not for me. I'm happy to shuffle off this tiny coil anywhere from about 70 years onwards thanks.

reply to post by Frogs


Our bodies are biologically programmed to die, just like every other living organism. I sort of find it disturbing that such technology is being pursued. I mean expanding life is a good thing, don't get me wrong. But if someone is trying to find eternal life they are not going to find it, because it's just not possible.

And for anyone who thinks any sort of resurrection, even for those who decided to be cryogenically frozen, will occur, you are wrong as well (although I cannot foretell the future, it seems obvious to myself and many others this to be true). Even if they do find a way to wake up those who have been frozen, they not only are going to need to perfect cell restoration, but also brain damage, and the cause of death. Not to mention since no one can prove what actually happens when you die, who knows if there would actually be a 'person' within the reanimated body.

If there is a soul, which is something I do believe in although I'm not a religious person what so ever, then I highly doubt your soul will just return to your body upon being restored. And to take it further, let's say there is a soul, and somehow you're ripped away from wherever you're soul is at currently (another body, in spiritual form, on another planet, wherever) OR ripped apart, the devastation which could possibly happen would be unfathomable. Hopefully some more understanding of life after death is found before their is the science to reanimate the dead so there can be some strict laws on this sort of thing, or it banished all together. But to each their own.

I for one say we help those who wish to live longer, live longer. But not help anyone find any sort of eternal life in which we create ourselves. If you reincarnate, that's how things work, but if you force a body back to life and force a soul (if it's even possible) to come back to said body, it would be VERY wrong in my book.

Leave the dead be I say.

And sorry for getting a bit into this, and possibly a bit off topic, but this goes hand in hand pretty much because cell restoration=possible ways to reanimate those who have been cryogenically frozen... and yeah they may have paid many millions of dollars to have this done, but they may regret the day they come back (if they ever do) because of the consequences. I even saw a documentary on this subject, and the one guy was saying how he is taking a huge risk because no one knows what a person would be like once reanimated.

Reanimated... sounds so fake, does it not?

[edit on 17-2-2010 by highlyoriginal]

I hear some say 'its a great time to be alive', but look at the world as it is today, it'd be like winning the lottery and dying the next day,

Great find, great news, though i feel we might be pissin in the wind with this one.

Originally posted by SaturnFX

Can you imagine a world where in a few hundred years, the population would go from 7 billion to about 40 billion because people simply stopped dying?

This overlooks a lot IMO. First off, you will have the colonization of outer space. And there is possible plans to turn mars into an inhabitable planet once again. We could also discover other habitable planets not far out that could be areas for us to live on.

Either you make concessions for it and plan ahead, accept it will never happen even when it could, or accept the extinction level event that it will cause by releasing tech without planning. Which one are you arguing for, because clearly you dont want to plan for it.

The tech support I believe will be there. We are due for a technological singularity to happen in and around 2040-2060.

Also, human cyborgs will be a real and eventual possibility. Being able to transfer ones own consciousness into a life like machine could one day be possible. If and when this happens, will you need the earthly resources that are vital for our earthly bodies to function? Probably not. But this is several years away.

Originally posted by highlyoriginal
reply to post by Frogs

 

Our bodies are biologically programmed to die, just like every other living organism. I sort of find it disturbing that such technology is being pursued. I mean expanding life is a good thing, don't get me wrong. But if someone is trying to find eternal life they are not going to find it, because it's just not possible.

We can and eventually will be able to wind back the biological clock. This is not a bad thing. Just imagine how much you could spiritually and intellectually grow if you lived for 500-1000 years?

Originally posted by Tayesin
I've never understood why we humans want to extend life to 150 or more years. To me it simply doesn't make sense to want to live so long.

All those people who's lives are lived in servitude, slaving away for 40+ hour weeks for meagre pay, suffering through all the heartaches of financial struggle, being at the whims of those who pull the strings, etc, is not what I think anyone would want to extend another 100 years of having to do.

Imagine it, how long would you have to work to afford 100 years of retirement? How much more could TPTB squeeze from the plebs until they scream enough?

Nope, not for me. I'm happy to shuffle off this tiny coil anywhere from about 70 years onwards thanks.

You are thinking that 100 years into the future will be exactly like it is today. More then likely, humans will be out of jobs in the future. Robots will have taken them! That is not to say humans will not be inc harge of overseeing things, and writing a course for direction. Just that we will have more time to spend with family and friends etc.

More than likely, communism will be in our future. And it will be all thanks to technology. I am a proud capitalist through and through. But Communism per definition is not a bad thing. And the type of communism I am talking about doesnt exist in the world today and never has. It could be a scary, or it could simply be awesome. That is what is so exciting about the future. It is far from certain.

My father told me he takes CoQ10 enzyme and "Seanol" sea weed extract
to slow the aging process.

Im not sure, but he looks fantastic for his age, could be that we are Swedish, though