Another point of view would be error replication leading to mutation since they cannot die. So a million years in the future how much different would they be from their original species.
Comment on Immortals must be riddled with cancer thanks to gene errors in their dna replication.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Other way round: they are immortal because they don’t have transcription and replication errors.
mrfriki@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
BremboTheFourth@piefed.ca 5 weeks ago
Yeah, isn't aging straight up caused by degradation during replication, like oxidation or something? I feel like being immortal would necessarily imply we fixed that shit
neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
Yes. Your telomeres start to fray at the ends as you get older.
If we could solve that we’d be effectively immortal from death due to age related issues.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 5 weeks ago
Arteries clogging up suggests that your time would still be limited for many
neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
There are ways to prevent heart related diseases caused by co-comorbidities. A healthy diet would still be required. Obesity increases your morbidity rate regardless of whether or not you’re getting gray hair because your telomeres are fraying.
BigBenis@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Just scrub them out with a pipe cleaner from time to time you’ll be fine
BakerBagel@midwest.social 5 weeks ago
Telomere also don’t matter when replication enzymes add a random adenosine into a gene that controls genetic proofreading.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
what even is aging? How do you measure it? Is it really just changes to your DNA? Is that really all of it? I don’t think so.
I think the DNA largely doesn’t mutate through your life. This is evident when you consider that probably a billion generations have passed since the beginning of life, with even more cell divisions, and you’re probably not a cripple because of it, so replication is not inherently doomed to lead to degradation over time.
Instead, it’s probably a mixture of factors. Some cells degrade because of DNA replication errors, some telomeres shorten, but also some kind of chemical clock ticks in our body and that in turn acts as a hormone on cells, making them act like they do in older individuals, on top of that old dysfunctional cells die but aren’t properly eaten up and removed, so they linger around and kinda take up space, then there’s misfolded proteins accumulating and clogging up the system, but it’s a lot of factors, not just a single one.
I guess tackling aging means tackling all of these things, one after another.