🚀 go-pugleaf

ttweed@wildrockies.org wrote:
> 
> Aldor wrote:
> >
> > I was wondering, how many cell divisions do we have before we die?  I
> > think I might have heard about 30 or so once, but that can't be right
> > because 2^30 is about a billion, and I think that we have on the order
> > of about a hundred trillion or so cells in our body, although I might
> 
> i've read, typically 50-60 for somatic cells, excluding immortal
> cancerous ones.  often (always?) determined by a teleomere gene.  last
> sept's special issue _sci. american_ on cancer had a great openig
> article 'how cancer arises' that (in the course of justifying its
> opening sentence: "How cancer arises is no longer a mystery.") describes
> a common cancer-associated mutation in which the teleomere gene
> terminal, which normally gets one base pair lopped off in every cell
> division cycle (and is 50-60 base pairs long, at which point the cell
> death (apoptosis) program kicks in) has the base pair reattached! (i
> know it's serious, but that hits my funny bone hard.  sorry!).
> 
> philosophically, it's interesting that death, apoptosis, is part of ea.
> organisms staying alive.  but when you consider the dangers of
> accumulating mutations ....

I wonder if anyone has tried increasing the length of units on the
telomeres of mice.  Would they grow bigger, live longer, or neither?