Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

AutoModerator t1_jchcgks wrote

Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our normal comment rules apply to all other comments.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

Next-Mobile-9632 t1_jchev9n wrote

Internet says of the nuts containing the amino acid D-Sirine, peanuts are the highest, so I assume peanut butter would be included--Soybeans are found in a lot of veggie burgers--eggs and shellfish

70

TirayShell t1_jci15m6 wrote

Then all we have to do is eat the mice.

170

Brokenspokes68 t1_jci4vw8 wrote

This smells of a wildly optimistic supplement claim one would hear on AM radio.

78

Xerenopd t1_jcicjet wrote

Is aging a disease that everyone has?

33

whatabouteee t1_jcio1pi wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#2,249,607)

FYI, chat gpt doesn’t actually work like you think it does. It will write something that looks right, but it just makes it up. Look at the references it is citing for the statements and you will see that it is really hit or miss in terms of facts

3

Heroine4Life t1_jcipnbt wrote

Replying to matt2001 (#2,250,315)

I replied to your comment before you deleted (on my side). All 3 references were garbage (1 was incorrect and irrelevant, 2 were fake), and most of the statements it made were unsupported.

1

matt2001 t1_jcitw59 wrote

Replying to Heroine4Life (#2,250,347)

Thanks for the feedback. I hope the next version is accurate, as I do like the format. I have been using it to write code in R, and it has been doing really well. So, this is an eye-opener.

2

tkuiper t1_jciz0di wrote

Replying to Xerenopd (#2,249,595)

Personally that seems a better scientific viewpoint. I feel like there's far too much mysticism surrounding death by aging.

Its a hard and complex problem, but so is cancer and spaceships. It seems strange to fight issues like cancer and Alziehmers, but avoid addressing the mechanism that underscores a majority of diseases: age.

46

chance_waters t1_jcjhph8 wrote

Replying to austinrunaway (#2,251,484)

It's just how systems work in a general sense, energy counters entropy, if you can put new energy into a system you can maintain order. Fundamentally bodies don't need to break down as there's nothing theoretically irreplaceable or irreversible, so long as there is still energy available to inject into the system.

We are biological machines that evolved to reproduce and pass on genes, and the genes that consistently resulted in survival with successful reproduction formed a machine with a lifespan as long as ours. Many other creatures live far longer or far shorter lives.

2

SerialStateLineXer t1_jcjnfj7 wrote

Replying to chance_waters (#2,251,455)

To be clear, you can't reverse aging just by heating up or overfeeding an old person. The point is that aging and death on human time scales are not an inevitable consequence of the laws of thermodynamics. Entropic changes can be reversed using an external source of energy (e.g. you can use energy to set up bowling pins after knocking them down). With the right technology, it is absolutely possible to repair aging-associated damage and restore an old person to a youthful state. It's a very difficult engineering problem, but there's no theoretical reason it can't be done.

15

ZmeiOtPirin t1_jcjrdex wrote

Replying to chance_waters (#2,251,455)

On a very long term timescale, death actually isn't curable. That's because for our genes that are running the show, death is a feature not a bug. It's crucial for evolution and even if it's possible to have a species that evolves without its individuals dying, if that slows down evolution then they would be outcompeted by faster evolving death-based species.

So in order to stop death you would need to devise an entirely different form of life where death doesn't accelerrate evolution AND have it outcompete the previous life.

That seems an incredibly hard task so death may not be curable after all. If the problem is smart living beings don't want to die and are actively fighting it, then nature would simply evolve beings that like dying.

2

Georgie___Best t1_jcjyhdr wrote

Replying to ZmeiOtPirin (#2,251,889)

No.

We evolved in a way in which we die.

That doesn't mean it's impossible to overcome the design flaws of evolution.

We are a very long way away from this btw. We have barely scratched the surface of the underlying biology.

7

Georgie___Best t1_jckp1yf wrote

Replying to ZmeiOtPirin (#2,253,538)

"Flaws" and "features" are arbitrary words that we assign to things as humans. I think you'll find most people, if given the choice, would choose not to die. So in that sense it's a "flaw" for us, isn't it?

Evolution on the other hand isn't an entity with foresight and planning. In that sense nothing is a flaw or feature. It's literally just survival of the fittest.

4

The_Humble_Frank t1_jclcgmf wrote

Replying to Xerenopd (#2,249,595)

its the natural wear down of any operational machine. you can't run a machine without creating wear.

Unlike strictly mechanical machines that are repaired and maintained by an independent operator, electrochemical-mechanical (aka Biological) machines, continuously gradually repair themselves with micro-patchwork fixes instead of whole component changes (though to a limited extent that is possible now with the aid of independent operators, called surgeons and medical teams), and the rate at which those fixes occur happens varies on the available resources, how easily those resource can reach the area (good luck on joint repair), what else in the total system needs repair, and how good the total system is overall operating.

But the repair systems themselves also incur damage, and poor patchwork makes future repairs more difficult. the ability to process materials lessens, the marrow creating the biochemical slurry that transfers resources throughout the system lessens in quality as damage builds up. Harder to repair systems get filled with quick filler scar tissue that doesn't properly mimic the function of the damaged tissue, and eventually one or more of dozens of critical systems can no longer maintain to operations at a minimum necessary levels of function, creating cascading terminal stresses on the remaining functioning systems.

0

ZmeiOtPirin t1_jcmxtmz wrote

Replying to Georgie___Best (#2,253,933)

>Evolution on the other hand isn't an entity with foresight and planning.

A true statement so often absent-mindedly repeated, it actually interferes with some people's understanding of evolution. The metaphor reflects reality better than the nihilistic assertion that nothing matters in evolution.

> In that sense nothing is a flaw or feature. It's literally just survival of the fittest.

Yeah and what I've been telling you is that the fittest species are those that utillise death rather than some immortals. Being immortal is actually pretty bad in terms of the long term fitness of a species.

0

Georgie___Best t1_jcttxk0 wrote

Replying to ZmeiOtPirin (#2,258,457)

>The metaphor reflects reality better than the nihilistic assertion that nothing matters in evolution.

No one made any assertion that nothing matters in evolution. Somewhat ironically, given you are talking about absent-minded misunderstanding, you apparently need to refresh yourself on what nihilism is.

>Yeah and what I've been telling you is that the fittest species are those that utillise death rather than some immortals. Being immortal is actually pretty bad in terms of the long term fitness of a species.

So you're under the impression that mankind is still under the same selection pressures as we were 100,000 years ago? Or is it that that we shouldn't bother with medical interventions, because we are lowering the fitness of the population by allowing people to live/reproduce when they otherwise wouldn't?

It's genuinely amazing how people with the least understanding are always the ones who speak with the most authority. The evolutionary benefit of death is something I would expect a high school student to understand. The fact that we are able to escape the consequences of evolution in the modern world is something I would expect a kid to know.

3

ZmeiOtPirin t1_jcuahjd wrote

Replying to Georgie___Best (#2,270,580)

>It's genuinely amazing how people with the least understanding are always the ones who speak with the most authority.

>The fact that we are able to escape the consequences of evolution in the modern world is something I would expect a kid to know.

Imagine writing these two statements together.

I'd respond to the rest of your comment but I doubt you'll take anything I say seriously. Just FYI though, humanity isn't currently escaping evolution by even the barest stretch of the imagination.

−1

Georgie___Best t1_jcve68m wrote

Replying to ZmeiOtPirin (#2,271,416)

You deny that we are able to overcome any of the restrictions evolution has imposed on us? So any time a child is born premature and survives due to modern medicine, when they would have died otherwise, that is what exactly? Any time someone with a genetic predisposition to cardiovascular disease is saved with at coronary artery bypass, what are we doing if we are not preventing a consequence of evolution?

Maybe try having a few days think before replying this time.

1

ZmeiOtPirin t1_jcvkln7 wrote

Replying to Georgie___Best (#2,273,388)

Dude your comment is so utterly ignorant, you should maybe have a few days to read about what evolution is before writing.

Evolution isn't merely about dying. Yes it's a big part of it, and I did call it "crucial" too, but there's so much more to the process, it isn't even the biggest part. Number one, it's about spreading genes. Procreation is even more important than survival and leads to evolution on its own. Stopping death doesn't stop evolution by any means...

Secondly none of the cases you listed are examples of beating or preventing evolution or anything. They are just examples of a species dealing with problems in its own way.

You don't think beavers building dams or termites building a mound to avoid dying from floods is them cheating evolution, do you? Just because you make things to avoid dying doesn't mean you're avoiding evolution. Quite the contrary, you're fulfilling it. Your beneficial traits allowed you to survive where you otherwise wouldn't have and henceforth the living world will be more filled with the genes providing these beneficial traits. Smartness, culture and transfer of knowledge, as exemplified by humans, are clearly successful traits and they have lead to us becoming the most dominant mammal on Earth. To the point that humans and the species we use for food make up the weight of 90% of all mammal biomass... That's evolution in action.

And when some unfortunate person in Brazil or India or the US can't be saved by a coronary artery bypass because it isn't free and they were born too dumb to have a nice job and afford it, or too sickly to keep up with all their disases or too asocial to have a nice support network; then that would be evolution too. But the far more common type of evolution in the 21st century would be when some human beings are having more kids raised to adulthood than others. Evolution is here, alive and well.

0

Georgie___Best t1_jcvl2vb wrote

Replying to ZmeiOtPirin (#2,273,795)

>Evolution isn't merely about dying.

Please highlight where I said this.

>Evolution is here, alive and well.

Or where I claimed evolution is something that isn't happening.

Like I said, you should have spent more time reading/thinking before replying.

2

ZmeiOtPirin t1_jcvlrgk wrote

Replying to Georgie___Best (#2,273,835)

There's not a single interpretation of "preventing a consequence of evolution" that is factually correct. You do seem to believe and imply that avoiding death prevents evolution. I'm not really sure what you think "consequences of evolution" are, but death is no more a consequence than living, breeding or having a drink by the beach are evolutionary consequences.

0

borntoflail t1_jcz8o9d wrote

Replying to MTI35 (#2,278,688)

Within context of the exchange it would imply that the article was attempting to boost sales of supplements and ultimately wasn’t containing very solid research.

If the supplements don’t exist, then one can infer that the research might be done without ulterior greedy motives.

4