Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday October 31 2017, @09:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the getting-old-is-not-for-sissies dept.

Aging is a natural part of life, but that hasn't stopped people from embarking on efforts to stop the process. Unfortunately, perhaps, those attempts are futile, according to University of Arizona researchers who have proved that it's mathematically impossible to halt aging in multicellular organisms like humans. "Aging is mathematically inevitable - like, seriously inevitable. There's logically, theoretically, mathematically no way out," said Joanna Masel, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and at the UA.

Masel and UA postdoctoral researcher Paul Nelson outline their findings on math and aging in a new study titled "Intercellular Competition and Inevitability of Multicellular Aging," published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Current understanding of the evolution of aging leaves open the possibility that aging could be stopped if only science could figure out a way to make selection between organisms perfect. One way to do that might be to use competition between cells to eliminate poorly functioning "sluggish" cells linked to aging, while keeping other cells intact. However, the solution isn't that simple, Masel and Nelson say.

Two things happen to the body on a cellular level as it ages, Nelson explains. One is that cells slow down and start to lose function, like when your hair cells, for example, stop making pigment. The other thing that happens is that some cells crank up their growth rate, which can cause cancer cells to form. As we get older, we all tend, at some point, to develop cancer cells in the body, even if they're not causing symptoms, the researchers say. Masel and Nelson found that even if natural selection were perfect, aging would still occur, since cancer cells tend to cheat when cells compete.

https://phys.org/news/2017-10-mathematically-impossible-aging-scientists.html

[Abstract]: Intercellular competition and the inevitability of multicellular aging

So, either you die of old age or you die of cancer. Choose wisely !!


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:26AM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:26AM (#590353)

    The fun thing about backups, stored in diverse locations, is that if one backup has 0.98 probability of surviving to be used, then two backups have .99 probability, 10 backups are 0.998, and 1000 backups have .99998 probability of coming through when needed.

    If there were such a thing as a 500TB file that could restore your consciousness into a new body, I would think that all kinds of service providers would pop up with backup sites located in hundreds of diverse locations around the globe, and beyond when that becomes practical. If you could take just one day out every year to make a backup, then when you do eventually die from an accident (on average once per 100 years), you'd lose, on average, 6 months of experiences and with 1000 mostly reliable backups, you're going to average 50,000 successful restorations before backup failure gets you altogether. So, half of the people who start on this scheme will make it to 5 million years old, by which time I would hope that they have learned how to improve their odds against accidental death and multiple backup failure, at least by an order of magnitude or more.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday November 01 2017, @07:44AM (1 child)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday November 01 2017, @07:44AM (#590433) Journal

    I guess your biggest risk would be that for some reason, someone decides that not you will not be restored from backup (you maybe forgot to pay the latest rate of the backup service?).

    Or that someone destroys all your backups. I mean, murder might be harder in that world, but it is still not impossible. And you've got plenty of time to make enemies … and the enemy has plenty of time to figure out how to do it.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.