Thread 16757780

We have humans who have such weird fucked up birth defects, where you can have fewer/extra chromosomes, 8 arms, and weird shit like Harlequin Syndrome.

But how come there hasn't been a single person, out of the tens of billions of humans who've ever been born, experienced a birth defect where their their DNA's telomeres did NOT shorten? Or some other sort of DNA alteration causing you to live, if not an immortal life, an exceedingly long human life (200+ years)?

>>16757780 (OP)
humans were immortal so far, they never died once they popped up. they just lose memories, and change genetic structure on the way

>>16757780 (OP)
to have non-functioning telomerase is a death sentence lol

>>16757780 (OP)
If humans did not age, we would go extinct.

>>16757780 (OP)
Genetics only dictate the first few years. The growth towards adulthood.
After that there is no plan. You just accumulate damages until the organism can't sustain itself anymore.

>>16757780 (OP)
Telomeres aren't the only aspect of aging
Aging isn't the only way one may die
There could be humans who've lived to 200 and you wouldn't know

>>16757780 (OP)
>But how come there hasn't been a single person, out of the tens of billions of humans who've ever been born, experienced a birth defect where their their bones would be UNBREAKABLE?
Some M Night Shyamalan logic here.

>>16757780 (OP)
Amyloidosis takes you out.

>>16757879
Right, but surely there must be a way to fix those damages so that the organism can continue sustaining itself. In fact, some animals are perfectly capable of doing it for much longer than humans.

We just have really shitty DNA repair mechanisms.

>>16758015
>just
breh

>>16758016
Yes, that's an English word.

>>16758015
Do you know fucking anything about the mechanics and factors of aging? Did you skim a 10 video and then rush to /sci/ to tell us how you solved biology's greatest problem and it's actually dead simple and everyone else is an idiot for not just figuring it out earlier?

>>16758024
Please point out exactly where I said "it's actually dead simple", I'll wait. All I mentioned is that some animals are better at repairing DNA, not that it would fix aging. Those animals are still dying of old age.

You retards need better reading comprehension, Jesus Fucking Christ.

>>16758042
>Please point out exactly where I said "it's actually dead simple"
NTA but
>We just have really shitty DNA repair mechanisms.
I would qualify that as utterly fuckheaded clinical drooling braindead retard oversimplification of aging.

>>16758042
>but surely there must be a way to fix those damages so that the organism can continue sustaining itself

>>16758051
>>16758055
NTA but could you explain to a fellow retard why gene therapy'ing better DNA repair doesn't help with cancer and longevity?

>>16757780 (OP)
thermodynamics

>>16758072
Because there is no such things as a "better" DNA repair. A great deal mutational damage we get right now already involves DNA repair in one way or another, and making it more active would only increase the amount of mutations.

Improving DNA repair is not about it being "good" or "bad", it's about it's peculiarities perfectly fitting the growth speed, the metabolic rates, the carcinogenic substance intakes, the radiation backgrounds that the organism experiences. Once we can have a solid enough description of those for a hypothetical man whose life we would like to extend (we currently don't), we can begin figuring out what exact modifications can be made to our DNA repair in order for them to fit those conditions better and thus show superior performance that would give the organism less cancer and more lifetime. And still it would be "less" and "more", not "none" and "infinite".

>>16758072
Aging isn't just your DNA, it's damage done to your cells and their proteins and organeles. It comes from a variety of factors, and some of this damage simply cannot be fixed. Also mitochondrial DNA is a lot more responsible for aging than nuclear DNA

You can't just "gene therapy" away something like this. I mean, you literally can't do it at all with modern biotechnology, and with sci-fi magic biotech it's a tossup how much you can change without becoming another species entirely.

As OP correctly pointed out, aging is highly variable between species. This means that "fixing" aging is entirely within the capabilities of biology/evolution, but there are associated benefits and drawbacks that lead to different organisms optimizing for different niches.

Even if we had a magic "aging vaccine" that optimizes your DNA so that you stop aging, we can't even guess what side effects the required changes would have on our metabolism. Maybe you'd need to sleep 18 hours a day, or keep your skin moisturized at all times, or breathe 5% oxygen air only.

>>16758072

Primarily due to genomic payload of mobile elements, some of which exploiting DNA repair to "reawaken" ... which in turn triggers cell stress, potentially cancer and all other kinds of nasties. One of several problems (aging is them all adding up) but pretty close to the main problem. It is loss of chromatin fidelity if you will.

>>16757780 (OP)
Read the Bible, it's explained there.

>>16757857
which is why every immortal creature has gone extinct right?

>>16757780 (OP)
because DNA mutation doesn't work the way it does in X Men

>>16757780 (OP)
Start with a smaller, less complex animal, preferably mammal, and go from there. Why haven't scientists figured out how to make lab rats immortal?

>>16757780 (OP)
Definitely not smiling at it

>>16758384
>Why haven't scientists figured out how to make lab rats immortal?
Because every study done on mice only attempts to change or fix small things. There was never a study attempting to extend a mice's lifespan as long as possible with everything we know so far.

>>16758453
Then get bryan Johnson to fund it

>>16758353
This proposition is perfectly valid and would neatly explain why we don't know about immortal creatures.

oh, it already happened
Jesus Christ was a hydra vulgaris in a man suit
hydra vulgari are considered "biologically immortal"
Jesus Christ was levitated to Heaven and spun into a star, which I believe promotes his immortality to the level of elements and features a metabolic cycle that includes fusion (!)
we have Heaven for dealing with immortality / necromancy

>>16757780 (OP)
there literally have. But they are super fucked up and cant function without help

>>16757780 (OP)
Because it's not the will of God. If you read the Bible, after the flood, God limited man to 120 years. Feel free to prove God wrong by living forever though, nerd

>>16757780 (OP)
It has happened accidentally.

There are multiple cell lines which are technically immortal, but they are mostly cancers lol, they have however helped us understand a lot of this kinda stuff.

>>16757780 (OP)
There could've been people with mutations like that. They just stepped on a pointy branch and died from an infection or got heart disease or cancer or they were male and ugly.

>>16758082
>Lobsters

>>16757780 (OP)
>born with incredible birth defects and mutant chromosomes
>can’t even die

>>16760219
>If the rule that you follow brought you to this place, of what use was the rule?

>>16760219
We all make telomerase. One of the things cancers do is make more of it than usual. But telomeres shortening isn't the only reason we age.

>>16760256
thank you anon i didn't know it

>>16757780 (OP)
They live among us without you knowing.
If you were immortal you wouldn't go public about it, would you.

>>16757780 (OP)
HeLa

>>16757857
all the lights in the sky are stars