The answer lies in the cancer
Most cancers are the result of "immortal" cells that have ways of evading this programmed destruction of telomere. Cancer cells use every trick in the book to gain immortality. One of their cleverer maneuvers is to keep the little caps, called telomeres, at the end of their chromosomes long. As a normal cell divides, its telomeres gradually erode, eventually becoming so short and dysfunctional that the cell is marked for death. As harsh as this may sound, it's exactly what should happen; elim...Man has always longed to live forever. He has continually pushed the frontiers of science in his attempt to reach this goal.Immortality is the ultimate quest for redemption in humanity. Its universal application transcends time, space, and culture appearing in stories from the Epic of Gilgamesh composed some 4000 plus years ago, to novels of the twenty first century
If you are in good health,you can live to 120 years but not much longer,because at age 120 you reach the hayflick limit -maximum times a cell can divide and make new cells.
Telomere, which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration, is thought to be the "clock of aging" contained within the human body. Many scientists believe that the limit on lifespan and decline in health is imposed by the gradual shortening of our telomeres that occurs with every cell division. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that a human cell that does not undergo telomere shortening will divide indefinitely and is, by all available measurements, immortal.
Now researchers have discovered the first compound that activates telomerase – an enzyme that lengthens telomeres – in the human body, potentially opening the door to arresting or even reversing the aging process. Human cells can keep living and dividing indefinitely when telomerase is continually present; i.e. the cells become immortal
A natural product derived nutraceutical known as TA-65, was shown to lengthen the shortest telomeres in humans, potentially extending human lifespan and healthspan. Telomerase activation is thought to be a keystone of future regenerative medicine and a necessary condition for clinical immortality. Although TA-65 is probably too weak to completely arrest the aging process, it is the first telomerase activator recognized as safe for human use.
Bacteria Evolve to Process Lactose in a Test Tube
But “laboratory” adaptations can also be more complex, involving
the evolution of whole new biochemical systems. Perhaps the ultimate
challenge is simply to take away a gene that a microbe needs to survive
in a particular environment, and see how it responds. Can it evolve
a way around this problem? The answer is usually yes. In a dramatic
experiment, Barry Hall and his colleagues at the University of Rochester
began a study by deleting a gene from E. coli. This gene produces an
enzyme th...
notesScientists blocked a gene for digesting lactose in bacteria, which then mutated to have the digestive function taken over by another gene producing an enzyme, which then got progressively selected for efficiency.
