Whats the scientifically technical reason for why animals/humans grow old?

**RamenNoodles** · February 20th, 2013, 11:29 PM

Why do we grow old?
I cant find google for any detailed reasons, except..."like meat exposing to air and rotting" i think its some trolling answer

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**Neverfly** · February 20th, 2013, 11:36 PM

DNA tails. Literally.
DNA repair: Definition from Answers.com

Telomere - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

**RamenNoodles** · February 25th, 2013, 09:54 PM

How do we confirm ageing is due to shortening DNA tails?

**sciencematters28** · February 25th, 2013, 10:11 PM

Don't we grow old the moment we transform from a seperate sperm and egg and become a zygote?

**adelady** · February 25th, 2013, 11:27 PM

Everything that lives dies at some time or other. Some insects live for a few hours. Some turtles live for centuries. Some trees live for millennia. But everything dies.

**scheherazade** · February 26th, 2013, 12:31 AM

You may find the article at the link following this excerpt to be of interest.

A useful way to look at this problem is Dawkins's "Selfish Gene" picture of evolution, where the fundamental unit to be maintained by natural selection is not the individual, nor the group or the species, but the gene. Individuals are merely disposable vehicles for the replicating information contained in the genes. As long as the genes survive (that is, are replicated in offspring before the individual dies), the survival or death of the individual is not very important.

The Evolutionary Causes of Aging and Death

**laza** · February 26th, 2013, 02:53 AM

because immortality is not important for survival, some animals live for only one day and less, but only one has the biological capacity for immortality, and that is a small jellyfish, the important thing is to pass your genes in the next generation, after that you are not important

**Neverfly** · February 26th, 2013, 03:15 AM

What jellyfish?

**laza** · February 26th, 2013, 03:35 AM

Turritopsis nutricula

**RamenNoodles** · February 26th, 2013, 09:20 PM

ahh..

noone answered

How do we confirm ageing is due to shortening DNA tails? lol
Did scientists even confirm it?

**sciencematters28** · February 27th, 2013, 03:01 PM

Yes I agree. Life by definition is temporal and limited. To say that something exits truly implies limited existence. I believe it was Hammurabi who said that to say that God exists implies limited existence, therefore God need not exist.

**Neverfly** · February 27th, 2013, 03:40 PM

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

ahh..

noone answered

How do we confirm ageing is due to shortening DNA tails? lol
Did scientists even confirm it?

There were two links in the post I said that in...

**Tamorpgh** · March 3rd, 2013, 09:25 AM

the important thing is to pass your genes in the next generation, after that you are not important

I'm a pensioner. That's put me in my place!

I've got so much I want to do, and so much that I want to learn, that I'm afraid I'm going to run out of time.

No idea why we grow old, but if anyone knows a scientifically proven means of preventing it could they please let me know ... and sooner rather than later.