• Question: why do people and animals age

    Asked by cowen to Asif, Laura, Lena, Sean, Viv on 14 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Laura Waters

      Laura Waters answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      Because we cannot regenerate our cells forever. It is part of life, hard to imagine what would happen if we didn’t.

    • Photo: Sean Murphy

      Sean Murphy answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      We have something called telomeres on the end of our DNA. Each time our cells and DNA divide, we lose a small amount of the telomeres. After many years of living, we run out of telomeres and we start to lose important DNA each time our cells divide. After a while the cells stop dividing because of this loss. This is when we stop being able to regenerate our organs and something ends up failing.

Comments