h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Very interesting article. A lot of the article is just based in phenotype evolution theory.

There are some scientists, whom i also agree with, that say there are at the branch of each cromossome the answer to the question of how and why we age. This branch are called Tellomeres: they are like millions of coppies of a single phrase. Now imagine you have a page of that line, copied thousands of times, every time you make another new page you copy the phrase, only that now the first and the last line of the first page disappear. So as you grow older there new pages, but the coppied lines are even less as the years go by.

The evolutionary theory that we live longer as generations go by, because we reproduce at an older stage is quite interesting as a subject of study. I would propose to study that factor geneticly.

Maybe deceases like cancer and Parkinson's appear because we live longer and so there are more probabilities of mistakes during cell replication.

I propose to read a very good book called "Genome" from a very promising Cambridge Professor, it is about very good theorys of the importance and apllications of genome sciences and how genes and environment work together.
Biology of Populations is a university study branch, i only studied it for the credits, but mathematically it explains a lot about population phenotipyc and genetic evolution.
There is also a very good internet magazine: "Life Extension Magazine", always updated with the newest discoveries about life extention and aging processes.

Hello Kandarian,

"Very interesting article. A lot of the article is just based in phenotype evolution theory."
Thanks. Not sure what you mean by "phenotype evolution theory", it's a life-history evolution question.

Telomeres at at the ends of the chromosomes (the centromeres are at the centre) and they do "cap" each chromosome off. These exist in all eukaryotes. The problem is, not all eukaryotes age. The main function of telomeres is to deliminate the ends of chromosomes to prevent potentially disasterous (for a species and an individual) chromosome fusion.

"The evolutionary theory that we live longer as generations go by, because we reproduce at an older stage is quite interesting as a subject of study. I would propose to study that factor geneticly."
This is studying it genetically It's a kind of population genetics.

"Maybe deceases like cancer and Parkinson's appear because we live longer and so there are more probabilities of mistakes during cell replication."
But why do we live longer in the first place? Evolution questions are formed in the context of populations. The evolutionary theory of aging is the simplest one out there, and one that has been proved experimentally. It works, so it's used. At the moment it's scientific fact. All other explanations of aging come into difficulties sooner or later.

"Genome" does look like a good book. I'm into genomics myself, and it's what I study at University.

"Biology of Populations is a university study branch"
What do you mean by this? This whole aging thing with the decline in the force of natural selection is entirely based in mathematics, which was subsequently proved with experimentation. Solid stuff.

I wonder how much "Life Extension Magazine" pays attention to this. Not much I suppose, as this theory of aging says it's inescapable



Ste

For two times i went to the "esc" botton and so two big texts were erased.

So i will be very brief:

Hello Ste

Aging is a very complicated subject . So i will advise to read a very good book of Sci-fi from Greg Bear: "VITALS".

And wonder if our mind age as our bodies age?
We are born, we grow our bodies die, but doing so their alements pass to other cycles. So maybe aging is like something of nessessary to keep a stable ecology cycle. And so it exists as a natural selection factor.

I prefer to believe that we are like ants. We age to make a stable progress of the physical colony, but the colony mind is always like a counscious that stays awake and evolves.

Hi again Kandarian

"Aging is a very complicated subject"

But you can describe why it has evolved in simple terms, i.e., the decline in the force of natural selection. That's it! Just because it is seemingly complex doesn't mean we can't explain it. Life is the most complex thing we know about yet evolution elegantly explains it all with a few basic principles.


"So i will advise to read a very good book of Sci-fi from Greg Bear: "VITALS""

But my information is coming from science, not science-fiction.


"And wonder if our mind age as our bodies age?"

Alzheimer's? Parkinsons? Senile Dementia?


"We are born, we grow our bodies die, but doing so their alements pass to other cycles."

What do you mean? I'm sorry, I don't understand


"So maybe aging is like something of nessessary to keep a stable ecology cycle. And so it exists as a natural selection factor."
&
"I prefer to believe that we are like ants. We age to make a stable progress of the physical colony, but the colony mind is always like a counscious that stays awake and evolves."

That assumes that there is some kind of mysterious force that is keeping nature is some kind of equilibrium. There isn't species go extinct and speciate all the time, there's a turnover. Human's are the least stable species out there. If your explanation is correct then this mysterious force should be killing us off SOONER, rather than extending our lifespans, to compensate for the increasing birth rates to stabilise the population. That clearly isn't the case. Evolution is blind and unconscious. How else can you explain the duck-billed platypus?

There is no need to invoke such unknown and unseen forces because all of this stuff can be simply explained in the context of current evolutionary theory. Occam's razor and all that...


Ste

Hi Ste

You would be amazed how accurate many things in science fiction novels. I read a lot of sci-fi that is pure fiction in general history, but you may also call Phillosophy pure fiction. The point is that many sci-fi authors actually read the scientific documents they introduce in their books, and Greg Bear is one that has a very good eye for the future, nevertheless they question the ethics of new researchs and social impact. "Vitals" is a book related to a very recent theory that the cells in general have a way of communicating and by some way bacteria and other types of "simplier" life forms control the entire earth ecossistem. Another interesting thing is that the book tries to explain why do we age and how we could turn that destiny of final death that ag4e brings.

It may sound fiction but really as the basics to put people thinking and to inspire investigators.

I refered to cycles as ecologic cycles.

I don't believe there are less or more stable species to classify but more or less adptable species. I was not aware humans were the less stable, why do you think that? We surelly reached a sentient state, we actually can change nature if we want to.
If we were the less stable specie, why is the world popolution keep growing?

Evolution is not blind. Think of it like scientific progress: We have lot of things to discover, study, research, test and apply, and not all we discover is object of practical use, neverthless we create or imagine and because of that we introduce veriety at random. That is the way evolution works: randomly, always introducing variety, corresponding to the environment stimulation, and improving what creates and exists longer.

There are some scientists who launched the idea there is some kind of unknown genetic trigger. This trigger would be something that would know how many times a being exists or if it is threatened, and at some point of life it could trigger the aging process, and in larger scalle the extinsion of an entire population.

Alzheimer's and other brain deceases are consequence of first physical problems, so if you don't have them your body continue to age but your mind stay's intact. The senile dementia is caused because the brain start to lose main neural conections, and even that don't happen to everyone who ages. The brain has the hability to build new neural connections and so memories and neural functions are kept even if we lost gradually 30% of our brian mass as we age.

There is no simple explanation to aging as you kan see. If there were I would certainly be researching new forms of avoiding that. The best option i believe there is to beat aging is by genetic rejuvenation.

You can't explain what force and energy are by definition as i believe you can't explain how the counscious mind works. Human mind, we are more related to it, is also a mistery.

Hi K

I'm a sci-fi fan myself (Iain M Banks being my favourite). What stuff does Greg Bear talk about in "Vitals"?

The only way we can defeat aging (though it would be very unwise to try and do so - the earth has finite resources) would be to remove the deleterious genes that come into action during late life and completely rewire our metabolism and genetics. This could be possible in the future, but we are going to need a FAR more sophisticated view and knowledge of our genome, right now we are only at the beginning.


"I don't believe there are less or more stable species to classify but more or less adptable species. I was not aware humans were the less stable, why do you think that? We surelly reached a sentient state, we actually can change nature if we want to.

"If we were the less stable specie, why is the world popolution keep growing?""

Exactly. If we were a stable species then our population growth would be stable. Our growth is outstripping our ability to support ourselves. We are bringing about circumstances that will end our species through environmental damage. That is not stability, that's suicide. This is coming about *because* we are smart enough to alter our environment so successfully.


"Evolution is not blind."

Then it is able to see, it is conscious? Why not just call it a God then? Evolution is a completely unconscious process that has as much foresight as gravity.

"That is the way evolution works: randomly, always introducing variety, corresponding to the environment stimulation, and improving what creates and exists longer."

Evolution is not random. Mutation and genetic drift are random, as are chance occurances (such as mass extinctions) that create opportunity for adaptive radiation of new species. Natural selection is the most potent force in evolution and that is emphatically NOT a random process. If evolution were completely stochastic then it would generate nothing.

Evolution does not "always introduce variety, corresponding to the environment stimulation" whatsoever. This is a major misunderstanding you have here. To put it very basically, mutation and drift randomly generate variety (polymorphisms), the ones that fortuitously give the carrier a reproductive/survival advantage are naturally selected.

There is no consciousness or knowledge or foresight behind evolution. It just is.


"This trigger would be something that would know how many times a being exists or if it is threatened, and at some point of life it could trigger the aging process, and in larger scalle the extinsion of an entire population."

Such group selection theories went out of the window in the 1960s because they never found what this trigger was. The phrase "good for the species" is a group selection argument and it holds no ground in modern biology. The trigger doesn't exist and doesn't need to exist to explain aging. There is a far more simple and empirically proven theory of aging, and that is the one I talk about in my entry.


"Alzheimer's and other brain deceases are consequence of first physical problems, so if you don't have them your body continue to age but your mind stay's intact. The senile dementia is caused because the brain start to lose main neural conections, and even that don't happen to everyone who ages. The brain has the hability to build new neural connections and so memories and neural functions are kept even if we lost gradually 30% of our brian mass as we age."

You describe the symptoms. Not the cause. The cause is aging, or the decline in the force of natural selection, which is the current accepted theory of aging in the scientific community, and has been for a couple of decades.

Aging is not a mystery.




Ste

Hi Ste

The Symptons i have described are caused because of main loss of neural connections, because glia cells lose the ability to replicate, brain nutrition system start to lose their ability to sustain the medium equilibrion of pressure and necessary elements concentration nutrition, and so neural cells start to break connections in order to avoid apoptosis, and mantain fundamental connections. All this because of the genetic aging ( so i believe).

I do sustain the theory that environment provokes genetic stimulation and also that if a specie choose a new environment there could be a little bit of provoked mutations by the environment. This is all theorical and a little bit Lamarkian but without further understanding of genetics nothing can yet be proved.

You must tell the tittles of some books of M Banks i would like to try them.

I have already told about "Vitals". It is a book based in a theory that by some way microrganisms control environment and bigger biological beings, but it also refers, fictionally, the research of a sceintist in finding a way to fight back the aging process by reducing genetic drifts (mutations) and degradation by using bacterial genes. The rest is all conspiracy theory, but light to read.

There were a lot of other sci-fi books i enjoyed to read, and mainly they were about of futures of advanced genetic and microtech aplications.

Earth may have finite resources, but with great minds staying alive and strong will, we have quite of a lot of space up there where we could start searching for more resources. We may be starting genetic tech, but i am seing a lot of developments being made aplying genetic therapy, that i believe we are looking to a turning scenario of advanced genetic tech in about 5 years ( parts of organs are already being made, and rejuvenation thecniques shouldn't be far away).

Ut least i hope so, humans are known to break nature's laws, the cause of aging because of natural selection is a step away of becoming artifitial.

Kandarian

"All this because of the genetic aging"
So then, why aren't these clearly deleterious genes selected out of the population? Genetic aging is still a symptom. Just be clear, what are you talking about when you say "genetic aging"?


"I do sustain the theory that environment provokes genetic stimulation and also that if a specie choose a new environment there could be a little bit of provoked mutations by the environment."
There's no evidence for this, and there's no need to invoke such an explanation. Everything can be explained in the context of current evolutionary theory perfectly well. What would be the mechanism?

"This is all theorical and a little bit Lamarkian but without further understanding of genetics nothing can yet be proved."
We know a LOT about genetics, and we can prove a lot with what we know. We aren't at some primitive state in the subject, genetics has been around since the late 1800s!


Most of Iain M Banks' sci-fi stuff is about a civilisation called The Culture, which is his vision of a perfect utopia. I won't say any more, but I'd read them chronologically, starting with "Consider Phlebas" and going from there. They aren't one story that goes from book to book, just one universe that reveals itself the more books you read. "Excession" and "Use of Weapons" are crackers. He writes conventional fiction too, under Iain Banks, without the "M".


Well, bacteria are the dominant group of organisms on this planet. They are the most abundant, widespread, and diverse creatures out there. They are the basis for life, but they don't "control us" per se, but we (and the ecosystem) do depend upon them heavily. Interesting thought though. Oh, and genetic drift and mutation are tow very different processes.


As I said before, we're going to need some HEAVY rewiring to get rid of aging, something which is centuries away, if at all possible.


Ste

Hi Ste

"Organisms that live longer tend to have things that shelter them more from natural selection; wings, intelligence, venom, etc. So they are in a position to outcompete things anyway."

A statment a little bit confusing. Organisms that are adapted to the environment are able to live and reproduce. Natural selection never desapears, because environment and competition always exists.

Another interesting things: A population that tends to reproduce in older age, and lives longer each generation further, even considering that there is the overlaping of generations reproducing acts, would tend to an equilibrium, Where only the individuals of older age would mate because of the evolutive profit.

Again the problem of the genome getting mistakes as time passes appears. I would lounch the theory that your theory about aging is quite right, and that it already happens in nature, but because of genome replication mistakes there is already an age equilibrium and evolutive progress progress against the genome replication mistakes.

I thougth about the rewiring problem of the genome and talk about it with some collegues, well they enjoyed your article as well as me. They put the same questions i have put and we think that using retro-virus and RNA silencing techniques we can actually take down aging processes.

But there is always a big problem with finding immortality: Were would you put all the overpopulation, be it human, plant or animal? And if a bacter or new type of virus takes advantage of the changes in the genome and starts eliminating all the population?

Well, it was just to tell that your article is moving minds.