is there a maximum on how long cells can live? are we going to keep living longer and longer or is there a finite limit?
2006-12-22 05:52:58 · 27 answers · asked by nemo_liber 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
medically there's a limit, as the muscles, heart, bones, and all degrade over years.....if you want to be immortal be immortalized in a project or place or so on. That way your name and your being will live on. Look at Shakespeare.
2006-12-22 06:03:50 · answer #1 · answered by texas_shammer 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Some scientists calculated that the maximum possible human age was ~125, due to deterioration of the DNA after 125 years of replications and other cellular factors, but I think that figure is now in doubt. The oldest verifiable human age is ~125, maybe it's 121 or something, I forget . . . We have no evidence of any organism living forever, so there's no reason to think that humans would be any different. There are bacteria that have been revived after being dormant for thousands of years, and we've sprouted seeds that were many millennia old, but that's different.
However, each time a cell divides the new cell is really just an extension of the original cell that split off, and sperm and egg cells are the same way, so you could think of all of life on Earth as one split-up cell that's never stopped living since life started 3,500,000,000 years ago . . .
2006-12-22 06:02:41 · answer #2 · answered by tedschram 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Even if we overcome all environmental factors, we cannot be immortal because, with each cell division, the telomeres on our chromosomes become shorter. When they reach a certain point, cell division stops. That is partly the reason why old people tend to shrink, and it also is the cause of a true natural death i.e. excluding all environmental factors.
2006-12-22 05:55:45 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
There's a finite limit.
2006-12-22 06:00:36 · answer #4 · answered by Lil' Gay Monster 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
YOU ARE ALREADY IMMORTAL....YOUR SOUL IS IMMORTAL IT'S HOUSED IN A NOW MORTAL BODY ....YOUR BODY WILL LIVE AS LONG AS YOU TAKE CARE OF IT... NO LONGER THAN 120 YRS........AFTER DEATH YOUR YOUR SOUL GOES ON FOR JUDGEMENT...AT THE ABSOLUTE END YOUR BODY WILL BE RESSURECTED AND ALL BITS REASSEMBLE BY A SINGLE WHISTLE FROM YOUR GUARDIAN ANGEL ...AND YOUR SOUL AND BODY ARE RE-UNITED & READY FOR THE LAST WHITE THRONE JUDGEMENT OF GOD WHERE EVERYONE WHO EVER LIVED WILL BE ASSEMBLED --A REVIEW WILL BE MADE OF YOUR LIFE PUBLICALLY FOR ALL TO HEAR GOOD & BAD WEIGHED IN THE SCALES OF TRUE JUSTICE, ONLY JESUS CAN TALK ON YOUR BEHALF , PROVING WHAT SOLID GOOD YOU HAVE DONE IN 'THE LAMB'S BOOK OF LIFE'...NO MENTION OF EVIL---IF YOU ARE NOT FOUND IN THE BOOK , YOU WILL EVENTUALLY FALL DOWNWARD INTO A LAKE OF FIRE FOR ALL ETERNITY....OTHERWISE YOU WILL REMAIN IN HEAVEN--THE ONLY PLACE GOD COULD BE,( FOR ALL ETERNITY )ENJOYING THE PRESENCE OF GOD AND HIS MANSION HE HAS PREPARED FOR YOU...JOY-COMPLETE & EVERLASTING....ALL KNOWLEDGE REVEALED....
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2006-12-22 06:25:55 · answer #5 · answered by Dave F 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We already are immortal. Our physical bodies aren't, but we are. I don't see what purpose it would serve to infinitely prolong just one particular physical experience. It would hinder the entity's development.
2006-12-22 05:57:22 · answer #6 · answered by CO_Hiker 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
With us as matter, no...in another or higher state of existance, we can hope so..........proving that to be true is just about the oldest question that mankind has pondered. Good question.
2006-12-22 05:59:49 · answer #7 · answered by itsbob1 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We can keep living longer, but it is doubtful that we could ever live forever.
2006-12-22 05:56:44 · answer #8 · answered by Blunt Honesty 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
It may increase, but it will always have a limit.
2006-12-22 06:00:45 · answer #9 · answered by . 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No! We need to die in order for a new generation to come up!
2006-12-22 05:55:22 · answer #10 · answered by Trapped in a Box 6 · 2⤊ 2⤋