Theological Silliness From Slashdot

[Joe Fulton]

This discussion starts out by asking why the age of 114 seems to be a limit for humanity. While the article is interesting it is the comments at the end that provide the most food for thought.  Some are insightful and some are downright funny :)

See:  http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/02/16/1339234/why-people-dont-...

What are your thoughts?

[Capt. Anand Kumar]

Wikipedia has a List of 100 verified supercentenarians.89 of those lived beyond 114 years. What is really curious that women far outnumber men in living beyond 100. In the list only 9 are men.

[John E. Mead]

(ignoring religious babel)

The one item that things often hinge around are the Telomere length.

Steven Austad was/is a key researcher. my wife pointed me at his work (ask wife, she shall know...<g>)

also look at

http://longevity.about.com/od/researchandmedicine/p/telomeres.htm

approaches for telomere lengthening apparently need more study.

How would one increase all the lengths in all cells.... doesn't sound likely?

actual example:

Dolly:

"clones created from a cell taken from an adult might have chromosomes that are already shorter than normal, which may condemn the clones' cells to a shorter life span. Indeed, Dolly, who was cloned from the cell of a 6-year-old sheep, had chromosomes that were shorter than those of other sheep her age. Dolly died when she was six years old, about half the average sheep's 12-year lifespan."

[John E. Mead]

this is interesting:

ttp://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/traits/telomeres/

[Deb]

I thought the first couple of comments about the Bible quote and "all the begetting" was hilarious.