Dear scientists!
I have been watching this discussion very closely since it started,
but I am still missing some kind of overview (I apologize if it was
already posted). I mean you are talking about DNA degradation, higher
mutation rates, inability of neurons to divide, but I think all this
doesn't answer the simple question: why must we die? Why our cels
cannot undergo undefinite number of cell cycles, like it is in
bacteria, or let's say in yeasts? I know the situation there is
somewhat different (single yeast cell cannot divide forever), but why
higher eukaryotes cannot use the same system? I can imagine that we
could live let's say forever (or at least much longer- I don't like
to use word forever) and still be able to reproduce ourselves in a
classic way. I am sure there must be a pretty good reason why this
does not work in real life, but I cannot find the reasonable
explanation. Can anybody help me?
Roman Szabo
Dept. Biochemistry
Faculty of Natural Sciences
Comenius University
Bratislava, Slovakia
szabor at fns.uniba.sk
