The secret of eternal youth. What are the causes of aging and death
We age not just as a result of the special biological program. But the world is the African naked mole rat, like the mouse and unable to grow old animal. Scientists have discovered why people get older and the diggers — no.
Death for life
I am of the opinion that the life of an individual, some individuals of some species, — a thing very valuable, but there are more important things. Namely, himself. That is, in fact, a complete set of genes (called a genome), which contains in each individuals of this species and, in fact, defines what she is.
In our opinion it is more correct to consider all living beings just as a temporary repository for the genes they got from their parents and give it to your kids.
For the first time, explicitly a similar idea was formulated by probably Richard Dawkins in his famous book “the Selfish gene”.
As a rule, the interests of the genome and its temporary carrier (the living entity) are the same. But sometimes you don’t. And then instantly found out who was the boss — of course genome. If the genome of a species is threatened or she just needs to develop, the carrier can safely donate — the next generation “give birth to new”.
As a result, I am confident that the genomes of most (if not all) living beings contain a special harmful programs. Which by beings nothing good happens, but which are necessary for the development of the species. In the first place, of the death program, providing a generational change and, consequently, evolution. Sometimes they work “fast” way — for example, in annual plants, which die, kill their own seeds after they Mature and sometimes “slow”. And the most disgusting program of slow suicide — is an aging program. Which makes a species, including us, to “deteriorate” with age and, eventually, to die.
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A talk show with a biologist: is it possible to stop aging
Wrong mouse
The fact that we age, and as a result of the activities of the special biological program is not obvious and requires proof. I tried to build it “on the contrary”, showing you an example of an animal that the aging program currently disconnected. Because he doesn’t need that much to accelerate its own evolution — and he is so good! This, as we are, a mammal, a fairly close relative of a normal mouse African rodent naked mole rat! If the mouse lives 2-3 years, time for it to grow old and die of old age, the rat lives for over 30 years and if he sometimes manifested some signs of aging, they are usually not fatal. Most biologists agree that the naked mole rat is a timeless animal (well, to put it more scientifically, an animal with negligible aging).
And in the show it’s time to answer the main “question about diggers” how did he do it? As he turned off his aging??!
Yeshe a couple of years ago, I would have nothing to say on this topic. But in 2017, one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world, “Physiological reviews” we were able to publish a theoretical work that explains the phenomenon of-aging naked mole rat. At the end of 2017, she released her version in Russian.
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Russian scientists looking for a recipe for immortality via computer
It all started, as always, is with the mitochondria. These are the powerhouses that exist in every cell and through which we breathe. I hope that they will be a separate series of our series. The study of mitochondria — the main specialty of academician Vladimir Petrovich Skulachev. In fact, in his laboratory in the late 60-ies it was found out how they work. The last 20 years academic, in addition to mitochondria, interested in the problems of aging and, of course, has taken Herculean efforts to to experiment with mitochondria naked mole rat. Must say that the mitochondria is very strongly associated with aging, but more about that in the next series.
Studies of mitochondria naked mole rat come to fruition. The Institute at Berlin zoo have conducted experiments on the diggers, who came specially from Moscow to the Vladimir Skulachev, a famous biologist Michael High — managed to obtain a tissue sample digger and measure various parameters of the mitochondria in this tissue. Nothing particularly interesting in them was not, except a little weird curve showing the rate of oxygen uptake by mitochondria (they breathe) under certain conditions.