Scenescence

Google "telomere" and "aging" - you will find a lot information about this. The shortening of telomeres is the one of the modern theories of biological reasons for aging. Robert Rosen did a lot of work on scenescence (there is a whole chapter on it in his book "Anticipatory Systems"). He (Rosen) would probably consider "telomere shortening as a basis for aging" a naive reductionist explanation. He has a whole new view on aging based on the global failure of the organism's internal model of itself. If you do not have AS I think you can see a condensed explanation of his theory of scenescence in Judith's post about 6 months ago about Rosen's prospectus for Biotheory.

Lately I was thinking about the process of aging. I
read somewhere life span is determined by the # of
chromosomes' splits. A Russian lady falled in sleep
at 37 and waked up thirty years later with a
appearance of 37. Her appearance changed into 60s in
one year. When asleep, cells are still splitting and
dying but the rate various. How cells split and die
and how the rate changes during the entire life?
Cancel occurs when the cells do not die. I seem find
out some reasons why and how bacteria split and why
bacteria and organism remain at certain size.

I also read somewhere that only about 10% of DNA are
known of its use. Most are not known or find
inactive. Anyone can explain or point out the
reference? I got some ideas why the inactive DNAs are
there.

I am not a biologist by training. I guess that there
are biologists in this list and seek some education
here. Really appreciate for help.

Jerry Zhu

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