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Tumor-suppressing Gene Contributes to Aging
Van Cutter Romney writes "Scientists have discovered a tumor suppressing gene which also leads to aging in stem cells. The gene also known as p16INK4a when removed from 'knockout' mice resulted in older mice having organs as healthy as younger ones. However they didn't live any longer than normal mice. The new study was confirmed by three independent researchers from Harvard, UNC Chapel Hill and University of Michigan."
There is only one catch and that is Catch-22, which specifies that turning off p16INK4a for one's safety of your organs in the face of dangers that are real and immediate will cause cancer. Giving yourself cancer is not the process of a rational mind.
The trick might be to turn off the expression of the gene temporarily to rejuvenate aging organs, then switch it back in again to suppress cancer. That way, maybe Yossarian can have is cake and eat it too...
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Does the same thing apply to a cell?
In other words, as a cell ages is it more likely to have a cancerous mutation? And how does this likeliness compare to the chance of having a cancerous mutation through a cell's reproduction process? (these are for the biologists out there)
If you have a greater chance to have the mutation a cell reproduces then you'd want cells to live along time so they have to reproduce less. If you have a greater chance as the cell sticks around (ages) then you'd want more reproduction and a shorter life span (even though this would be less energy and resource efficient, but maybe more efficient than fixing/killing cancerous cells).
Wishful thinking. As much as people would love to blame the cause of aging on one particular gene or process, the truth of the matter is that aging is a complex and multi-factorial phenomenon that can't be addressed that easily.
Sure, stopping this particular gene might allow for more somatic cell repair but what does that do for the damaged mDNA due to free radicals in the mitohondria? And what about the telomeres protecting the ends of your chromosomes which would decrease with every replication? And what about damaged cells whose replication could cause the very cancer this gene was probably "designed" to prevent?
Not to be discouraging of this kind of research, but really it is just pie-in-the-sky type of stuff and should be regarded as such; the science just isn't there yet. And the irony of it all is that immortality most certainly won't be obtained in our lifetimes. Joseph Heller has to be smiling somewhere about that one.
-Grym
Actually, the majority is almost always conservative, no matter what generation you consider. We have had rather few progressive Presidents, wouldn't you say? Didn't matter whether the boomers were young or old. The Boomers were too young to vote for Kennedy. The choice in 1964 was between Goldwater, who wanted to expand the war in Vietnam, and Johnson, who claimed he didn't, but did. Johnson was a fluke. Nobody knew he had a liberal social policy agenda, he was a conservative Southern democrat who Kennedy put on the ticket in order to win Texas. After Johnson we elected Nixon, by landslides, just when the boomers started voting en mass. Then we chose Carter, a conservative, religious southern Democrat, over the half-dead Jerry Ford, hardly a progressive choice. Then 12 years of Reagan and Bush I -- our most conservative Presidents since Hoover -- during the prime years of 30-something Boomer voting! 8 years of Clinton, who cut welfare to the bone and accomplished nothing on any progressive agenda. Then 8 years of (gack) Bush II.
John Stuart Mill said, "I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it." Mill goes on to say that since there are undeniably a lot of stupid people, the Conservatives will always be a very powerful party. Perhaps this is closer to the explanation you are looking for.