What is the biological reason for why things die?
- Thread starter Guttural Engagement
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There isn't a reason why the body dies, there is only a cessation of the reasons for it to be alive.
The usual reason given is "free radicals", which are complicated to explain.Guttural Engagement said:
Various things we can do slow down the process, lifestyle, diet, exercise, and of course medical science repairing the damage of simple wear and tear (and other conditions) but nothing to halt the process entirely has yet been invented, or if it has it hasn't been revealed to the public.
There are always rumors about some kind of immortality somewhere, but the bottome line is that if a scientist DID manage to find a way to halt the aging process, the last thing any responsible person would do is release it to the public (even the elite) because overpopulation is already an issue.
If your talking about a good philosophical reason for things dying/why we would die.
Well the biological reason for it would be over crowding, imagine everyone who has every lived, plus every animal that has ever lived. Earth would have ran out of room and resources ages ago.
Well the biological reason for it would be over crowding, imagine everyone who has every lived, plus every animal that has ever lived. Earth would have ran out of room and resources ages ago.
The cells divide, and when they do, their "telomeres", the part that is, for the purpose of this comversation, unneeded, gets cut down a bit each time, and then important DNA gets cut into after long enough, and that kills the cells. Normal human cells get 50 divisions.
honestly I think it's the liver shutting down(acts as a filter) ergo, your body gets more and more toxic until the last sleep so to speak.
Major factor in it is the impurities in the air (that 1% of assorted compounds and elements) - there's been experiments on this but I'm not exactly sure on the details but I think the results showed that a lab rat survived a lot longer than the average rat if subjected to an atmosphere of pure oxygen. [Don't quote me on that I'm hazy on the details]Guttural Engagement said:
Also every cell can only undergo a certain number of divisions before it undergoes apoptosis (cell suicide) and any damages in a cell's DNA will be passed on during replication resulting in less stable cells.
The body's like a factory - you keep having to put substances into it to keep it going but eventually the machinery will decay and stop working
...Yeah I do biology so this stuff gets crammed into my head daily
Guttural Engagement said:
close, except we actually are NOT programmed to die, we are only programmed to live, the reason we die is because our DNA is damaged over time, and the repair process in our bodies worse and worse (this explains ageing and the slowness of healing as you age) However rest assured, in your life time we could have something that allows us to live thousands of years, A certain scientist featured both in the Chicago museum of science and Industry, and on the Discovery network has already shown us he is working on it, has made a mouse that normally lives 2 years live five, and has made nematodes (small microscopic worms) live instead of maybe a day, to 6 months. With in 20 years we could have something that would work as a life elixir.yayforgiveaway said:
I think I know why our DNA is programmed like that. Think about the basic principle of evolution: The organisms that are better adapted to the environment will produce more offspring and have a higher chance to survive...AssassinJoe said:
Now consider that organisms need resources, some resources are finite, others are renewable, but only up to a certain point.
Now consider that its preferable that new organisms are born, so that the species as a whole can adapt to the environment... and if no organism would die of old age, eventually there would be no resources left...
It makes sense that our DNA is programmed to make us die of old age. It "makes room" for future generations.
1. The ability for cells to self-replicate becomes more and more degraded each time (there are little "hairs" on the exterior of cells which allow division that get shorter each time).Guttural Engagement said:
2. Some cells (heart, brain, etc.) cannot divide at all, and eventually die.
3. When a cell divides/dies, sometimes a little "junk material" is left over that other cells cannot metabolize, leading to problems such as cancer.
4. While 99.99% of oxygen in the body eventually becomes water, some becomes a poisonous acid that begins to eat away at you that the body cannot metabolize.
Funny, stem cells, surgery, and that new Russian medicine can address all of these issues and extend an individual's life indefinitely.
Oh, I forgot. The reason most plants die is because they often cannot live upon the same resources for more than one generation, killing them all. There are exceptions, though.
Because DNA has some bugs causing cells to regenerate worse and worse over time.
Maybe someday they'll bring out a patch fixing these bugs.
Something like a potion of ethernal youth or something like that.
Maybe someday they'll bring out a patch fixing these bugs.
Something like a potion of ethernal youth or something like that.
Contemporary evolutionary theory sees death as an important part of the process of natural selection. It is considered that organisms less adapted to their environment are more likely to die having produced fewer offspring, thereby reducing their contribution to the gene pool. Their genes are thus eventually bred out of a population, leading at worst to extinction and, more positively, making the process possible, referred to as speciation. Frequency of reproduction plays an equally important role in determining species survival: an organism that dies young but leaves numerous offspring displays, according to Darwinian criteria, much greater fitness than a long-lived organism leaving only one.
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Think of our DNA replicating as taking a photcopy of the original. Like a real photocopy, the new DNA isn't quite as good as the original. Incredibly minor damage, but it builds up over time. If you try to photocopy the photocopies too many times, they eventually become illegible. When this happens to our DNA, cells no longer function properly. When enough cells stop functioning and can no longer duplicate, organs fail, leading to eventual death.
Over time, DNA in cells gets damaged or mutated.
While cells can repair damaged DNA, the repairs are not always perfect.
In response to this damage, the cell will often undergo programmed death.
Otherwise, cancer is more likely to occur.
The accumulative effect of programmed cell death, in addition to the build up of harmful things like free radicals, is aging.
Experiments over producing the molecules that protect against cancer (such as PTEN) resulted in mice that were resistant to cancer... but aged faster and died younger.
While cells can repair damaged DNA, the repairs are not always perfect.
In response to this damage, the cell will often undergo programmed death.
Otherwise, cancer is more likely to occur.
The accumulative effect of programmed cell death, in addition to the build up of harmful things like free radicals, is aging.
Experiments over producing the molecules that protect against cancer (such as PTEN) resulted in mice that were resistant to cancer... but aged faster and died younger.
