Aging Article - NASA

http://weboflife.nasa.gov/currentResearch/currentResearchGeneralArchives/agingSpaceflight.htm

This link contains a short input on aging and how it can be related to space travel.
It says that as people age, their bone cycle of building and shedding become off-balance, causing a shift towards more shedding than building.  This is also due to changes in physical activity, and this is what the web page is connecting space travel with.  When astronauts enter microgravity, their bones almost immediately shed mass due to inactivity and loss of body weight support.
"Age- and space-related bone loss seem to have some similar causes: reduced loads due to reduced physical activity or lack of gravitational forces, hormonal changes, and reduced calcium absorption by the intestines."
As the page goes along, it goes to describe how other functioning issues with the body can affect people in space and how that can also be related to the aging processes.
I thought that this was interesting because we talk about old people essentially having some of their body tissues deteriorate, and I knew that astronauts experience the same effects on some level.  I was also wondering if research in space travel has identified any new stimulants for promoting expression of any genes responsible for again, but as of now it seems as if it relates to aging in solely functionality aspects and not so much on the gene stimulant level.

Centenarians

As far as a personal impact on myself, from watching this documentary, I have gotten a lot out of it from the personality level.  As I said in class, most of the centenarians that still seem fairly healthy have the personality of a leader and the attitude of being independent mixed with some spunk.  This actually got me thinking about my own personality and attitude; I am more of a friendly quiet person who likes making friends and doing whatever they want to do.  When I got thinking, I thought maybe if I somehow developed a different attitude, It would lead me on that personality track towards becoming a centenarian.  Now, I know that just changing a personality is more easier said than done and that there's way more to becoming a centenarian than personality, but I believe that it does, however, play a significant role in aging.  I'm not going to change my personality, but the documentary like I said just got me thinking about what my life would and could be like if I did have a different mentality, etc.  The documentary did have many other interesting facts and points, but for some reason, I just can't get over the mentalities and personalities of these centenarians; I think it is so cool that they are still showing that attitude and that they won't take any crap from anyone.  They are over 100 years old and still standing their grounds.  This documentary leads me to believe that there is a significant source of healthy aging inside the mentalities of individuals, and that genetics alone isn't the answer.  I, being a genetics person believe that it is most of the answer, but not exactly 100%.

Life Expectancy

I believe the test did a fairly good job in asking questions; however, some questions I believe could have a better variety of answers that are somewhat more specific. Also, the test may not be designed for students in college who may have different activities than their "norm", but just over their college years.  I, for example, had a very healthy lifestyle until college, and who knows, I may return to that when I graduate.  There are a lot of different stresses in college involving deadlines, projects, exams, work, etc. that can inhibit a student from engaging in a moderately/very healthy lifestyle. I feel like this test would be better for adults who can consider themselves at some sort of consistent daily lifestyle.  

Genetics and Aging

The beginning of the article I found explains how many people believe that aging happens because of wear and tear on the body due to environmental factors; however, geneticists think of it as the body no longer producing products and components that when normally produced answer to normal the wear and tear on the body.  An example used was tooth degradation.  Many people think that teeth become subject to so many years of wear and tear that they start receding, or degrading.  What scientists believe is happening is that genetics play a role in this, as the teeth are completely normal throughout a person's lifetime and don't usually begin degrading before the person is a senior, and as everybody knows, people everywhere are always having teeth issues due to chipping, cavities, etc, but the main thing scientists want people to know is that even though those situations happen to people, there is some mechanism that is always regenerating new teeth tissue/components to cope with things that might happen to it; in seniors however, the mechanism of regeneration begins to slow and even halt, a mechanism that is strongly believed to be influenced by gene regulation.  Mechanisms like this that slow or stop regenerating components for regeneration usually have specific properties about their corresponding gene promoters that influence the regulation such as when it will be expressed, how often, where it will be, and when it will stop being expressed in a lifetime perspective.
There was also a reference in the article about mice, in which when setting the environment aside, still live about 30 times younger than humans, implying that there must be different genetic regulations among different species that regulates their corresponding biological clocks.
This is just a basic genetic intro to aging, and is a lot more complex than this, but for the purposes of this class, I believe this type of information is most relevant.

What Processes Cause Aging

I think it was interesting how the reading selection described aging as oxidizing or browning, and also how metabolism is necessary for life, but also plays a role in collecting byproducts that play a role in aging.  Also, at the beginning of the reading, I think it does a good job of proving a point that even the most accomplished and strict diet follower, body builder, and "fitness nut" can't beat aging.  They can sure seem to slow down the process a lot compared to other people who don't partake in any physical activities; however, eventually aging will eventually catch up to them.  We are only human, not some fictional immortal species.  I also, as a genetics major with pre-vet concentration, thought the bit about the lab that "crashed" after 30 minutes exactly was pretty interesting.  I actually was involved in an internship last summer at a vet clinic, and we had the exact same type of case come in to us.  I thought it was very interesting and still do, how even the smallest alterations in a cell can cause such a noticeable defect.

Why Does Aging Happen?

I thought it was a great point to bring up the concepts of proximate and causal answers; with the topic of aging, according to the article, one person had come up with over 300 different aging theories, most of which were proximate, or mechanistic - the same way it is today.  Sure there are many scientists researching many of the different mechanistic aspects of the aging and evolution spectrum, and though many of them may be able to describe how different processes in the body function to induce aging, they still fail to describe exactly why we age, rather than how we age. Scientists are answering why we age with respect to cellular functions and properties, but they can't describe why species do age - what made species begin to activate as the article refers to as " a suicide switch" and keep aging until the organism dies? To me, this question has no real answer that we will ever know; we may get close to answering it, but we will never know the true reason as to why we age.
As for the different theories of aging, the "good for the species" theory makes sense, but as with the concept I was relating to earlier, it still doesn't answer the question of why exactly do they age.  The reasoning of adaption and natural selection as means to better a species generation to generation gives a reason as to what happens when different species age throughout a lifetime; an animal simply does not wake up one day and say "Hey, I want to start aging and keep aging until I die because I want to trigger positive mutations as a result from my environment in hope of bettering my species under natural selection."  Aging happens whether the organism want it or not, granted some exceptions as we discussed in class.  I think that there are some other theories that will become unearthed and revealed in the future, but as stated earlier, I don't think that there is an answer as to why we age in the first place.  I think it would be one of the greatest answers to know in life, along with what is the purpose of life? However, I just believe that the answer will never be known, in other words, the mystery is unsolvable.  As i study genetics, I like to try and understand how from organism to organism, every different gene, every allele, every transposon, every environmentally induced mutation, and how every everything in the genome relates to it's corresponding functional phenotype.  And whenever scientists can figure out how to incorporate mutations and tweak the genome in the areas that translate into the aging spectrum of phenotypes, then maybe we can begin to figure out all the different factors that disable cells/tissue from being immortal.  Until an even greater, more complete understanding of the genetics of aging occurs, I don't know how much people can expect to know about why they age.  I as well as everyone in the class find it interesting and would love to know why exactly we age in the first place; however, I accept the fact that there is much more research to do on the topic, and until we gain a more clear understanding, I feel that the answer is still out of our grasps...this is why this is such a great discussion and critical thinking topic.  And this is also why I love to work in a lab and research how the genetics of different mechanisms of life work, relate, and communicate.

Intro

Hey, my name is Brandon and I'm a sophomore at ISU; I am from Spirit Lake, Iowa, which is right next to Okoboji.  I joined this class pretty much because I'm interested in the topic of development and aging.  My major is genetics/pre-vet, so I am very interested in the development and aging at the genetic level.