

Aging, Evolution and  the "developmental drift" - mariorz
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/07/is-aging-an-acc.html

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biohacker42
Crappy article, probably not HN worthy.

Besides, aging aka anti-cancer mechanisms, are often very much designed to
work that way. Working on those mechanisms could increase longevity, however
it will not cure aging.

We only have two copies of our DNA, and if you live long enough and cure every
cancer, you could* still* end up with a left arm that genetically drifts from
your right leg. And they both drift from your immune system.

Deinococcus radiodurans has 4 copies of its genome, but it's only a single
cell. We'd need something like that but with a central place that decides
what's you and what isn't _you_.

Think of it as RAID for your genome somewhere deep inside your chest. But we
are nowhere near anything like that. So I wish the best of luck to Ray
Kurtzweil and the rest of us, but I am not at all optimistic about the
singularity.

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mariorz
>Crappy article, probably not HN worthy.

Sorry. I found it quite interesting.

BTW, about the singularity, I do not think it means what you think it means.

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sungam
This Cell paper was discussed previously on HN. I commented in detail on the
paper in that thread:-

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=256355>

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stcredzero
What about us isn't an accident of evolution?

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geuis
The story is essentially saying that "aging" might not be caused by
incremental damage to cellular systems as we age, but is instead caused by
systems that work properly when we are young but become unbalanced as we age.
As examples, the author refers to some species of tortoises and whales which
can live hundreds of years. All animal life on earth utilizes the same basic
cellular machinery to function, so things like free radicals and environmental
stressors should effect all. However, their preliminary experiments don't
support that idea.

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stcredzero
I was commenting on the headline, not the article

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mariorz
edited to something less linkbaitish.

