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[rubyelf]

It cracks me up when you tell people that when bacteria first started filling the atmosphere with oxygen it was a massive crisis for all living things because oxygen is a highly reactive, toxic, corrosive, dangerous gas that reacts with almost everything it comes in contact with... and they try to tell you that you're making that up and that oxygen

Comments

[bluegerl]

Oh yummy... a lovely dose of Dawkins explained. Not that he needs much explaining but I love the way YOU do it. I get to see Oxygen dressed in weird clothes, waving a spear and a banner yelling 'REVOLUTION -KILL KILL!' teehee. And all these other molecules behaving just like a crowd of people, some saying OK lets join in stopping this ... as in "Je Suis Charlie"

And I am getting old cos my genes are committing suicide? I'm running out of ions? Dammit, so it doesn't help putting cream on my lip wrinkles????

LOVE YOU... this is BLOODY WIZARD!

[rubyelf]

Actually, cell death (and probably aging) has a lot to do with telomeres, which are bits at the end of chromosomes that protect the DNA from getting mixed up with other chromosomes or chopped off during replication. Problem is that every time a cell divides, the replication machinery has to chop off a bit of the telomere because it has to start copying somewhere in the middle, so every cell division they get shorter, and when a cell runs out of telomeres, it can't divide anymore.

[bluegerl]

So IF I should have an epitaph, I could put... 'She ran out of Telomeres.' teehee. Mine are doing pretty damn well at the moment! (is there a mitochondrial sort of superglue??) sorry am silly!

But when you think of the times a cell DOES divide in a lifetime, I'm surprised that we live so much longer than we used to. Av age 400 years ago was 42... and I'm twice that now. likely to be a lot more! And the Economic sods used to base the Pension Age at 60 because most blokes (who were the ones who earned pensions a hundred years ago) had likely died off before they got to sixty. Now...pensioners are living till 90 and 100 more and more... so the telomeres are being restuck on or are evolving to become more tenacious?

edited for spellings!

[rubyelf]

It used to be that people were likely to die of something else long before their telomeres ran out... but now they can treat so many things and keep us alive for so long! Telomeres have not gotten longer or changed their coding... it's just that the process of cells reaching the end of their lifespan is a slow, gradual process that happens across the many years of aging, and the longer we live, the more we see the effects of it.

(Free radicals can also damage telomeres. And cells that manage to develop a mutation that allows them to regenerate their telomeres have taken a big step toward becoming cancerous, because they can divide indefinitely, which our cells aren't supposed to be able to do)

[bluegerl]

Unh Huh... yup! Free Radicals! FREE the buggers...no don't... they're dangerous -- Lock'em up!

(I spose all my years of eating nearly only vegs has kept me young? Ooodles of antioxidants in my diet cos I was allergic to almost everything bad/comforting/chipped!for years and years. OK now.. heh heh and dammit it's about TIME I started ageing.)

Sorry, am all happy and silly... Been for lovely walkies in the sharp warm sunshine, and a healthy shop for vegs to make my superb Veggy Pies with, and then a wicked cup of melted chocolate in our Special 'Chocolaterie' who roasts his own coffee beans... so THAT is a YESSSS for me. Love decent ground coffee. (the chocolate is WICKED.. it is just like melted dark chocolate, and they give you a glass of water with it, cos it's so.... so!) (A tiny cup is really all one can cope with!)