As a side note, alot of research has been put into why cloned animals have shorter lifespans. What has been found is that there are specific bits of DNA that change over time and act as a kind of life clock... Since the DNA used is from an adult animal, the DNA has already counted upwards from it's start position... (they should have set that variable to zero!)
Learning how to set these markers to their original settings may be the fountain of youth, or not... (that moral quandry is left for the reader to decide...) However, I think that if someone were to try to greatly extend their life, they'd have to start early (mid 20's maybe) though personally, I don't feel 80 years is long enough for me to learn all that I want to learn...
eh... that's called decay.
Every cell except certain nerve cells are constantly dividing. Each subsequent cell is not a perfect replica. During mitosis, approximately every millionth base pair is incorrectly assigned. As time goes on, the number of errors in every daughter cell are increased, since subsequent errors are added to existing errors. Tissues that regenerate faster are obviously more sensitive to this issue.
Anyway, this changes is a natural form of mutation. Some mutation creates good results, but most...
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how else would you deliniate?
I believe it is now a standard component instead of an optional add in.