>>14378471>I see no scientific reason why living things (including humans) have to deteriorate with age and eventually die.This is partially correct, there are several immortal creatures. Bacteria tend not to age, and some multicellular oganisms show very mild ageing.
>Our bodies are made of cells that are continually undergoing mitosis. I've heard a stat that no cell in your body is more then 10 years old no matter your age.This is incorrect. There are terminal cell lines, progenitor cell, senescent cells, etc... So some cells don't devide, like neurons (there are some regions witth adult neurogenesis form stem cells, but only in the hipocampus and the bulbus olfactorius). So most of your neurons are as old as you are. Other cells are created via assimetrical mitosis of stem cells, but don't themselfes devide. Other cells are from deviding tissue but have entered a senescent state.
>Why do new copies of cells have to degrade over time? They should be new fresh cells and we should never age past adulthood.Why should they be fresh? A copy is just that, a copy. And there are always copying errors. The more generations of copyes, the more copying errors occure. We don't have a preserved master blueprint, from which all cells get new, fresh DNA. They all get their DNA drom their parent cell.
Copying errors occure for a variety of reasons, for instance DNA can loop out and give an extra copy of a region, it can break causing loss of a few nucleotides, and ofcurse a variety of proteins can affect it like the endonuclease (DNA cutter) ORF2 produiced by tranposons which are let close to the DNA when the nuclear envelop breaks down. Also, transposons can just move around the DNA during the normal life of the cell, so there will be a bunch of mutations by the time the cell devides.
>Obviously if you get shot or hit by a bus you're going to die but I think "natural" death is bullshit we shouldn't have to age at all.Natural death is cascade faliur from DNA damage.
