Month: September 2022

CHRISTIANS have a quaint and pervasive obsession with the subject of immortality. It can be described as the triumph of hope over experience, or an untestable hypothesis. View in LinkedIn

IMMORTALITY is a convenient way to skip the thorn of death. What is the biological function of death? Is it really widespread in nature or are there exceptions? View in LinkedIn

DEFINITION OF BIOLOGICAL IMMORTALITY has been, not unexpectedly, a bone of contention among the quarrelsome and long-eared thinkers in biology. At times, getting biologists to agree on anything appears to be a task worthy of Sisyphus. View in LinkedIn

REGARDLESS OF MOLECULAR TURNOVER. "In its simplest, though still inaccurate form, biological mortality is usually defined as the death of an organism or the termination of its lineage. Immortality would be defined as the indefinite survival of a single organism or of a replicating population regardless of molecular turnover. Imperfect as these definitions are, they do have limited use in understanding some of the fundamental differences between normal and cancer cells." (Leonard Hayflick). https://lnkd.in/esfPTAR View in LinkedIn

MUDDY TERMS. "Normal cultured cell populations are mortal but cells that are immortal are abnormal and most have properties of cancer cells. Nevertheless, this distinction becomes blurred because the terms ‘mortality’ and ‘immortality’ are subject to enormous variations in understanding." (Leonard Hayflick). https://lnkd.in/esfPTAR View in LinkedIn

"BIOLOGICAL IMMORTALITY refers to a stable or decreasing rate of mortality from senescence, thus decoupling it from chronological age. Various unicellular and multicellular species, including some vertebrates, achieve this state either throughout their existence or after living long enough. A biologically immortal living being can still die from means other than senescence, such as through injury or disease. The term is also used by biologists to describe cells that are not subject to the Hayflick limit." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality View in LinkedIn

THE KEEN POINT. "Biologically immortal organisms do die, but they don't seem to age." http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150622-can-anything-live-forever View in LinkedIn

CONTRARIAN'S WISH. "The fact that immortality, in its stricter definitions has never been demonstrated, even in unicellular forms, provides strong support for the likelihood, if not the hope, that it will not be found to occur in higher forms." https://lnkd.in/esfPTAR View in LinkedIn

LESTAT, the Anne Rice vampire said: "when you're immortal that can be a really long and ignominious death." The ennui of an eternal struggle to keep up endless enthusiasm. https://lnkd.in/dsxg8m3 View in LinkedIn

EXPERIMENTAL TEST. "There are at least two ways in which the mortality or immortality of animal cells can be determined. First, cells can be serially cultured in laboratory glassware and second, cells having specific markers allowing them to be distinguished from host animal cells, can be serially transplanted in isogeneic laboratory animals. The transplanted tissue is then regrafted to a younger host when the donor host becomes old." https://lnkd.in/dQ_65Wv View in LinkedIn