Over the weekend, I engaged in a conversation with a few people about ages. We had each gone around answering questions about ourself including age. I introduce myself and tell how I am often mistaken for an older age. Just after me a girl introduced herself as 20 but told stories about how she is commonly mistaken for a younger age. After the introductions were complete we were given time to more or less discuss what we had learned about each other. The other members of the group quickly noted that they completely had not expected us to be the ages we stated. This brings to mind how aging effects the way we look, not just our abilities or our thoughts, but our physical apperance, and does this physical apperance have any effect on other aspects of our age. Can age be defined in many sects? Could someone appear to be older, have the abilities of someone their age, but have mental capacities of someone younger? or any mix of this idea.
Then today in biology we discussed telomeres- a biological part of DNA which has been determined to directly correlate with aging of cells and organisms. This was awesome for it explained much about telomeres I had not known when reading about the Telomerase Theory of Aging as discussed in my last post.
I learned that the telomere is a strand of DNA which attatches to the end of the lagging strand when the Primase cannot attach a primer to the parent strand (because there is no start position) leaving a portion of the parent strand unpaired. Instead of allowing for the constant shortening of the DNA strand telomerase attatches furthere bases to lengthen the strand. This in turn can lengthen life and decrease the aging process. Tests have been conducted where telomerase was disculded from a rat/mouse species and this drastically decreased their lifespan. I find this interesting as we learn about these aspects of aging (meaning the microbiological and biochemical aspects of life. So how do telomeres correspond to oxidation and metabolism. Or is this just another aspect in the world of aging which shows how complex the subject really is?
If my description of telomeres is unclear let me know and I can be more clear.
Emily,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your interesting anecdote and theory of aging. I know that the U of Iowa has done a lot of research on the length of telomeres in regards to aging. I have also heard that one theory is that telomerase reduces as we grow older but that might also be a protective mechanism as it also reduces the chances for mutations.
Thanks for sharing!
I think you bring up an interesting point when you question how people can look, act, and intellectually be on different age levels. It's something that I have noticed in my own life on occasion but never really questioned in regards to aging processes. Thanks for introducing a new area of aging to think about!
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