Can somebody explain to me in layman's terms how fucked are we in terms of life extension?
Because as a total noob I'm getting completely opposing angles.
One is that telomeres shorten with each division until the cell can't divide any longer. Extrapolate to the whole body and obviously at some point it's gonna start deteriorating with a point of no return.
On the other hand there's hyperoptimistic people that say 'oh we're just gonna reverse everything to pluripotency and we'll have fresh and young cells anew'.
I want you to pretend there is a glory hole. A glory hole in whore city. I want you to pretend that whore city is full of only men. The rest are QT trap waifus. They only use that ONE glory hole. If you took the sum-total of them and multiplied them by the reproductive rate of a rabbit you would only reach the surface quantity of a theoretical manifold crystal of Nth size made up of infinitesimal small spheroids, these spheroids represent fucks.
That is how fucked we are.
Cameron James
Pictorial.
Adam Diaz
Biology is a very complex science. Modern biology is a very very young science (not even 50 years), we don't fully understand. There are no law in biology (like in physics) that says you do this and you obtain this.
Each time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter. When they get too short, the cell can no longer divide; it becomes inactive or "senescent" or it dies. This shortening process is associated with aging.
BUT
It's not the only process associated with aging.
Landon Hall
We didn't build the human body. We don't know fully how it works. Therefore we don't know how to do correct maintenance. Doesn't matter anyway, we were designed to die to help the species survive. If we all lived forever we would not evolve/adapt and would be obliterated.
Blake Cook
>we would not evolve/adapt
That's not how it works. Evolution is not about death, it's about transmitting our genes (and beneficial mutations) to the next generation.
Live forever but make babies. Problem solved.
Matthew Nelson
well you cannot turn that cell on the right into a pluripotent one, but the one on the left and the second one on the left, sure
Jaxson Murphy
I've read a lot of stories of people trying to achieve immortality/life extension. Most notably the Chinese on their quest to find an elixir of eternal life for the emperor, they found/created many things such as gun powder but no life extension.
What i'm trying to say is life extension is just a meme and you like everyone else on this ball dirt and rock will die of old age if illness doesn't get you first. So stop being a faggot and dwelling on this persuado science. Lord Kelvin back in the early 19 hundreds already stated we were nearly at the end of discoverying everything about physics and since every other science field branches off it. It would also mean they to are coming to an end.
Elijah James
>What i'm trying to say is life extension is just a meme and you like everyone else on this ball dirt and rock will die of old age if illness doesn't get you first. So stop being a faggot and dwelling on this persuado science. Lord Kelvin back in the early 19 hund
>Persuado
WHEW
Owen Taylor
If you really wanted to know the procedure for immortality...the process is horrific... >.>
Are you sure you still want to know?
David Ross
Planet would get overpopulated..
Brayden Garcia
Ok, maybe I overdid it with layman's terms, because you started spewing metaphors and meme talk.
I actually wanted to know if the telomere thing is irreversible and if it's universal.
That is, let's say we have skin or liver cells that multiply on the constant. Do these have longer telomeres in comparison to other cells? What about stem cells, these are supposed to be infinite replicators (I'm a noob here, pls no bully), how does it work in this case?
Tyler Nelson
>how fucked are we in terms of life extension?
The main problem is called Replication crisis >en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis Replication is when other scientist redo a study & check if they get similar results. Kind of "Double Check"
When the Replication get a different result then it can be: (1) Human Error, Mistake (2) Intentional Fraud, Fabrication or Bias (3) It's a Pseudoscience (4) It's a Placebo (5) Mechanical Failure of Instruments & Equipment (6) Statistic / Math Error
So we have thousands of studies that says that Eggs CURE Cancer, Eggs CAUSE cancer , Eggs are UNRELATED to Cancer, NEITHER, BOTH at same time, ETC.
It's the same thing that a Ill person who go to see another doctors to listen a "SECOND OPINION" because He don't trust in the doctor.
This Problem affect mainly Fields that have less Math such as Life Sciences (Medicine, Biology, Biochemistry, Neurology) Social Sciences (Economics, Psychology, Sociology) Geosciences (Geology, Environment)
But this problem sometimes apply to more Mathematical Fields as well. For example when CERN supposedly detected Neutrino faster than Light, but It was just Measurement Error. >en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_anomaly
The conclusion is that Most studies are not reliable and cannot be trusted. That's a Huge Problem.
So We have to double check by ourselves any study claim.
Hudson Perez
Telomere length can be maintained or increased by an enzyme called telomerase. Stem cells have telomerase. There is also a process known as alternative lengthening of telomeres that can also do this if you are interested. Skin and liver cells that multiply constantly do not have longer telomeres. Stem cells which have maintained telomere lengths become these cell types when they are properly signaled to.
The problem that arises from trying to keep telomeres from shortening and making cells immortal is that they can divide forever. This is a key step in tumorigenesis. If you were to attempt to keep someone's telomeres long, you would more likely give them cancer than extend their life.
Also there are many things that keeping long telomeres does not resolve for aging. Most age-related diseases would not be effected such as supra-cellular process like accumulated wear-and-tear on the cardiovascular system, nerve cells that do not divide would be unaffected, somatic mutations leading to cancer, etc.. Studying and alleviating these issues is probably more likely to lead to extended lifespans.
Aging is a complicated process which cannot be explained by just telomeres.
Telomeres are very fascinating pieces of DNA! I am considering studying them for my PhD. Rotated through a lab that studies the DNA damage response at telomeres.
Hudson Russell
actually, yes, you are right. Active stem cells (and immortal cancer cells) are some of the only cells that have an active form of the enzyme telomerase, which acts to extend telomeres. just read this post after writing ^, this user is 100% correct. user im linking, did you read about the twin study with the astronauts and how scott kelly's telomeres not only were extended in space, but seemed to return to normal after a very quick period of time? nature.com/news/astronaut-twin-study-hints-at-stress-of-space-travel-1.21380
Evan Edwards
listen OP ur gunna die. but once you die there is no longer you to perceive things and 1 second might as well be 100 trillion years. the moment you die, everyone dies with you, it does not matter how long someone extends their life they will eventually cease to be via entropy. so if you live 1000 more years it doesn't matter, everyone will die with you the moment u die
Dylan Clark
so actually taking telomerase as a supplement or some shit would be a bad idea because it will also help cancer cells rite so if i did get cancer id legit be giving my cancer steroids
I remember hearing about this. Haven't seen the actual data. Could potentially be something interesting but an N=1 doesn't really convince me of anything.
Ian Edwards
what do you have to be convinced of though? why would his telomeres have extended? It's so strange and completely the opposite of what the expected. I know what you're saying with sample size but still, this is so unexpected
Aaron King
Go back to /pol/
Levi Perez
ive never been on /pol/ in my life, why are you saying that?
Jason Russell
Trained as a scientist. It's my job to be skeptical.
Who knows what happened? Maybe there is something biologically significant here but we will just have to wait until they publish the full story.
i wanna live till i'm 120 with fragile bones, wrinkles, and pooping my diapers
Christian Long
Yeah, I wish I could speculate why his telomeres are longer but the article doesn't tell us much. Is it longer is cell types that already have telomerase its regulation has been altered? Is there a disruption in stem cell differentiation and a there is an influx of somatic cells with longer telomeres? What cell types were affected? Was there an error in the assay? Did all of the telomeres grow longer or some more than others? Was the telomere lengthening a result of telomerase? Were the t-loop structures altered? Was TERRA expression influenced? Did DNA damage occur? etc.
Noah Baker
OP here, thanks for the thorough answer!
David Murphy
For evolution you need competition for reproduction. In nature, things work out by competition for living, as unfit specimen die because of their unfitness.
With immortal beings you'd need to have other methods of controlling reproduction to steer for wanted traits. Dystopian scifi suggests birth control laws and reproduction for the richest, but who knows.
Christopher Cox
What about brain, I know with reading/performing mental task you can keep it "strong" when eldery but degeneration is a problem.
