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Why We Fall Apart

Posted by timothy on from the ask-chinua dept.

DM_NeoFLeX writes "An article in the September 2004 IEEE spectrum raises some interesting ideas comparing aging in organic organisms to aging in Electronic/Electrical systems. From the article: "The [reliability theory] is so general it can be applied to understanding aging in living organisms...In the ways that we age and die, we are not so different from the machines we build.""

5 of 22 comments (clear)

  1. Mirror of article. by tod_miller · · Score: 3, Funny

    According to the article the fountain of use is temporarily unavailable.

    shucks.

    I'll post the article for anyone else having problems with the site:

    Service Unavailable

    The server is temporarily unable to service your request. Please try again later.

    Cryptic, i'll give you that, but I expect they will find out the question to the answer soon enough.

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  2. The general idea is... by Cyclone66 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    that human aging can be modeled according to reliability theory that applies for machinery. The difference is, while machines start off 'perfect' (You don't buy a multi cpu system with 2 cpus dead on arrival) the human body 'ships' as a redundant system with many failures already in place.

  3. Actually that would be "how" we fall apart by hey! · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why we fall apart is simple.

    Sex.

    If we reproduced by mitosis, we'd be effectively immortal, even better, we'd get up to 2^n chances to survive in the nth generation of offspring.

    Given our specific method of sexual reproduction, you have basically one life to live. Anything that breaks down, any bad mutations (cancer), and that's it. Plus, you have to die to make room for your offspring, which I guess happens with protists and such bacteria as reproduce mainly asexually, but the offspring who you are making room for are arguably you.

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    1. Re:Actually that would be "how" we fall apart by barawn · · Score: 4, Informative

      If we reproduced by mitosis, we'd be effectively immortal, even better, we'd get up to 2^n chances to survive in the nth generation of offspring.

      Um. No.

      Identical twins reproduce by mitosis - once. The twins do not live the longer of their lifespans (nor do they get "two chances to live"). Their DNA does, but the longevity of their DNA is not the longevity of the organism.

      but the offspring who you are making room for are arguably you.

      Only in the twisted sci-fi worlds where a clone becomes you, with your memories, and everything else. In the real world, DNA does not define an organism. It doesn't even define how to build an organism. To paraphrase Alpha Centauri, "What we can do with genes is chemistry, because genes code for chemicals."

      Sexual reproduction doesn't help nor hinder the longevity of an organism. It does reduce the genetic diversity of a population, making the population less responsive to changes. Hence the reason that sexual reproduction evolved at all.

  4. Interesting Nature articles by Gamasta · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm not sure if the texts are available to everyone else (I'm reading from a university with a site-license, I think), but here are two good articles published in Nature some time ago. Why do we age? (Thomas B. L. Kirkwood, Steven N. Austad)
    Abstract Full Text

    Oxidants, oxidative stress and the biology of ageing (Toren Finkel, Nikki J. Holbrook)
    Abstract Full text

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