I notice that Sea Breeze said the following on page two of this topic thread. "The problem is that modern thinking is infected with Naturalistic Materialism." In actuality Naturalistic Materialism is NOT an infection. The belief in supernaturalism is an infection (an insidious one) of the mind of most humans and that infectious disease has existed throughout recorded history and probably started thousands of years prior. It has been spread from one human mind to another (it is a meme). Paul was heavily infected with the thinking when he spoke of having a battle with the forces of darkness. [Paul died for his false beliefs pertaining to Christ and his idea of the resurrection.] In contrast, I have a battle against teachings of supernaturalism.
Scientists (including David Sinclair, who I mentioned in the Naturalism topic I created) using the mindset of Materialism and Naturalism are now reversing biological ageing! Think of how much could have been accomplished 1000 years ago if humanity had abandoned belief in supernatutalism over 1000 years ago and fully embraced science, naturalism, and scientific materialism! over 1000 years ago! See https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/12/health/reversing-aging-scn-wellness/index.html and https://time.com/6246864/reverse-aging-scientists-discover-milestone/ . Much like one of the WT's Bible (Job 33:25) based teachings (but without the supernaturalism) of flesh returning to youthfulness scientists are now restoring flesh back to youthfulness - but without supernatural means! Lab animals that were made prematurely biologically old have been made biologically young again - by means of Naturalistic Materialism!
Sea Breeze, David Sinclair (a molecular biologist) uses the terminology of information theory in regards to the human genome and epigenome. That is something you can relate to for you also use that terminology. The CNN article article says in part the following.
'The combined experiments, published for the first time Thursday in the journal Cell,
challenge the scientific belief aging is the result of genetic
mutations that undermine our DNA, creating a junkyard of damaged
cellular tissue that can lead to deterioration, disease and death.
“It’s not junk, it’s not damage that causes us to get old,” said Sinclair, who described the work last year at Life Itself, a health and wellness event presented in partnership with CNN.
“We believe it’s a loss of information — a loss in the cell’s
ability to read its original DNA so it forgets how to function — in much
the same way an old computer may develop corrupted software. I call it
the information theory of aging.”
Jae-Hyun Yang, a genetics research fellow in the Sinclair Lab
who coauthored the paper, said he expects the findings “will transform
the way we view the process of aging and the way we approach the
treatment of diseases associated with aging.”
... “The astonishing finding is that there’s a backup copy of the
software in the body that you can reset,” Sinclair said. “We’re showing
why that software gets corrupted and how we can reboot the system by
tapping into a reset switch that restores the cell’s ability to read the
genome correctly again, as if it was young.”
It doesn’t matter if the body is 50 or 75, healthy or wracked with
disease, Sinclair said. Once that process has been triggered, “the body
will then remember how to regenerate and will be young again, even if
you’re already old and have an illness. Now, what that software is, we
don’t know yet. At this point, we just know that we can flip the
switch.” '
The Time magazine article says in part the following.
'In the Cell paper, Sinclair and his team report that not
only can they age mice on an accelerated timeline, but they can also
reverse the effects of that aging and restore some of the biological
signs of youthfulness to the animals. That reversibility makes a strong
case for the fact that the main drivers of aging aren’t mutations to the
DNA, but miscues in the epigenetic instructions that somehow go awry.
Sinclair has long proposed that aging is the result of losing critical
instructions that cells need to continue functioning, in what he calls
the Information Theory of Aging. “Underlying aging is information that
is lost in cells, not just the accumulation of damage,” he says. “That’s
a paradigm shift in how to think about aging. “
His latest results seem to
support that theory. It’s similar to the way software programs operate
off hardware, but sometimes become corrupt and need a reboot, says
Sinclair. “If the cause of aging was because a cell became full of
mutations, then age reversal would not be possible,” he says. “But by
showing that we can reverse the aging process, that shows that the
system is intact, that there is a backup copy and the software needs to
be rebooted.”
In the mice, he and his team developed a way to reboot cells to
restart the backup copy of epigenetic instructions, essentially erasing
the corrupted signals that put the cells on the path toward aging. They
mimicked the effects of aging on the epigenome by introducing breaks in
the DNA of young mice. (Outside of the lab, epigenetic changes can be
driven by a number of things, including smoking, exposure to pollution
and chemicals.) Once “aged” in this way, within a matter of weeks
Sinclair saw that the mice began to show signs of older age—including
grey fur, lower body weight despite unaltered diet, reduced activity,
and increased frailty.
The rebooting came in the
form of a gene therapy involving three genes that instruct cells to
reprogram themselves—in the case of the mice, the instructions guided
the cells to restart the epigenetic changes that defined their identity
as, for example, kidney and skin cells, two cell types that are prone to
the effects of aging. These genes came from the suite of so-called
Yamanaka stem cells factors—a set of four genes that Nobel scientist Shinya Yamanaka in 2006 discovered
can turn back the clock on adult cells to their embryonic, stem cell
state so they can start their development, or differentiation process,
all over again. Sinclair didn’t want to completely erase the cells’
epigenetic history, just reboot it enough to reset the epigenetic
instructions. Using three of the four factors turned back the clock
about 57%, enough to make the mice youthful again.
“We’re not making stem cells, but turning back the clock so they can
regain their identity,” says Sinclair. “I’ve been really surprised by
how universally it works. We haven’t found a cell type yet that we can’t
age forward and backward.”
Rejuvenating cells
in mice is one thing, but will the process work in humans? That’s
Sinclair’s next step, and his team is already testing the system in
non-human primates. The researchers are attaching a biological switch
that would allow them to turn the clock on and off by tying the
activation of the reprogramming genes to an antibiotic, doxycycline.
Giving the animals doxycycline would start reversing the clock, and
stopping the drug would halt the process. Sinclair is currently
lab-testing the system with human neurons, skin, and fibroblast cells,
which contribute to connective tissue.'
I encourage people to read both articles in their entirety.
See also https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/31/europe/immortal-jellyfish-study-spain-scn-intl-hnk/index.html .
