/sci/ - Science & Math

The Hayflick Limit

lets understand it

I am very interested in biogerontology and more specifically the slowing down or reversal of the aging process. Does anyone have any resources they could share for learning more about this. I was very disappointed to find this journal( http://www2.technologyreview.com/sens/docs/estepetal.pdf)) after reading Ending Aging, and am hoping to find more reliable sources.

DAMN TELOMERASE!

Need some help with bio homework, I'm doing a talk on human immortality and I need to explain the function of telomere and telomerase, only I'm not sure i've understood it correctly.
Here's what i've come to understand: Telomeres are the end regions of DNA that cap it off and protect it. Because you need primers to replicate DNA on lagging strands, it leaves a gap at the end of the replication sequence (at the last primer), so we need telomerase enzymes to extend the telomere to fully replicate.

So then, does the telomere continue to extend with each replication sequence until the telomerase stops functioning (at around age 25), then does however much the telomere's been extended over that time now become like a lit fuse slowly deteriorating, eventually dictating when we will die? Is that correct?
It just doesn't seem like i've got it all. Wouldn't early DNA replications become cancerous very quickly due to their short telomere? etc etc...

what do you know about this? fact or fiction?
Discuss..

I had a dream last night. I was a doctor who was having a press conference of a new treatment. The treatment consisted in a pill that encapsulated a special strain of bacteria which gave maintenance to your body's telomeres by producing a virus that always kept your telomeres at a 20 to 30 year old's length, theoretically making you immortal until severe disease or accident did you in. The bacteria had a kill switch since we wanted people to need to keep buying it and keep the "you am play gods" people a little at bay. I also did the moral thing and made it accessible in price. Still, the press conference in the dream was filled more with questions about the effects of this new condition of humanity on morality, economics, politics, and position of mankind in the universe (which is a fetish of mine, the whole point of long life was interstellar travel). So I was wondering, what impacts do you guys think theoretical eternal life would imply on the way we conduct our lives?

This is the video that inspired the dream I believe, it was posted yesterday and it is about how bacteria actually cooperate and communicate, and a little about how we are actually sacks of flesh to carry bacteria in.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bonnie_bassler_on_how_bacteria_communicate.html

TL;DR: I dreamt I made an immortality treatment. What does immortality mean regarding morality, economics, politics, and space exploration?