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Geeks and Guinness: the formula for sexy science
by Guardian
Reposted from;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/apr/13/sciencenews
Geeks and Guinness: the formula for sexy science
Science cafes are booming, although the subject is failing in our schools
Lucy McDonald
It is a chilly Tuesday night and outside the Dana Cafe in London a queue of young people spills on to the pavement. A glamorous woman with a walkie-talkie and clipboard guards the bar's door and turns away anyone who is not on the guest list.
The attraction is not the latest band, exclusive club or film screening, but a science lecture. Inside, Aubrey de Grey, a scientist from the Methuselah Foundation, a research group, is swigging from a bottle of Guinness as he tries to persuade a sceptical audience - which includes designers, artists and television producers - how society would benefit if we all lived forever.
The crowd fires questions at him, not only about the feasibility of his theory, but its environmental and social consequences. At one point someone even shouts: 'Rubbish!'
Welcome to the science cafe, a passionate and irreverent forum for people from all backgrounds and occupations to discuss topics as geeky as nuclear fusion and nebulae - all while enjoying a drink and a night out.
'It's great, as you get to think about things you wouldn't normally talk about in everyday life,' said 24-year-old Madeleine Milan, who works in communications. 'It's all really relaxed and you don't feel intimidated about challenging speakers' beliefs or scientific research. Science is becoming more part of our lives, and I want to hear about it from the experts.'
Scenes like those at the Dana Cafe happen in bars and cafes each week up and down the country. Events are often sold out and their increasing popularity challenges the perception that the general public is disengaged from modern science.
Clutching a glass of red wine, Alex Wilkie, a 32-year-old design lecturer, believes that science is undergoing a revolution and should not be dismissed as nerdy. 'It's an increasingly scientific society that we live in,' he said. 'Understanding what's going on in science helps put everything in context.'
De Grey gives more than 30 such talks a year and believes that people are excited by the humanitarian potential of science, rather than the theory. 'By and large, young people are more open-minded about my message, but I wouldn't say that implies they're more interested in science,' he said. 'I think for most the interest is in the "why" first and the "how" second.'
Most science cafes are loosely affiliated through an international umbrella organisation called Café Scientifique, which was founded in Leeds in 1998 and inspired by the French Café Philosophique movement. There are now more than 30 across the country.
In a rare reversal of cultural exchange, it is one trend that Britain has exported to America, which is now home to 60 cafes. There are a further 120 worldwide. Founder Duncan Dallas said that by taking science out of the classroom it changed the expectation of both audience and speaker. 'Science is the most important force in our culture and is increasingly impinging on our public and personal lives, through subjects like genetics and climate change. So public engagement with science is bound to increase,' said Dallas. 'But, for me, the whole point of science cafes isn't to promote science or make more kids become scientists, but is about everyone being able to discuss topics which are revolutionary.'
The subjects discussed are diverse. One night at the Dana Cafe, in South Kensington, a hot debate raged about robotics, specifically a man-made fly-eating machine going by the name of 'EcoBot', which was invented by the Bristol Robotics Laboratory. Other topics include the smell of romance, the science of sleep and marine pollution.
While science may be thriving in these pubs and bars, it is in a state of crisis in schools. The number of students choosing to take physics A-level has dropped by more than a third from 43,416 in 1991 to 28,119 in 2005. This trend is echoed at degree level and experts fear this could damage the future of homegrown science.
The government, large corporations and research institutions are pouring money into initiatives to encourage scientific debate and thus make science more accessible.
Some cafes even receive government funding. Others are sponsored by universities or organisations such as the medical research charity the Wellcome Trust. They relish the opportunity to introduce their research and experts to a new audience, such as 33-year-old Lara Taylor. Tuesday night was the lawyer's first science cafe experience and, despite not knowing an atom from an ion, she was impressed.
'There's no dull theorising, so it was really accessible,' she said. 'It's better than staying in and watching television every night.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/apr/13/sciencenews
Geeks and Guinness: the formula for sexy science
Science cafes are booming, although the subject is failing in our schools
Lucy McDonald
It is a chilly Tuesday night and outside the Dana Cafe in London a queue of young people spills on to the pavement. A glamorous woman with a walkie-talkie and clipboard guards the bar's door and turns away anyone who is not on the guest list.
The attraction is not the latest band, exclusive club or film screening, but a science lecture. Inside, Aubrey de Grey, a scientist from the Methuselah Foundation, a research group, is swigging from a bottle of Guinness as he tries to persuade a sceptical audience - which includes designers, artists and television producers - how society would benefit if we all lived forever.
The crowd fires questions at him, not only about the feasibility of his theory, but its environmental and social consequences. At one point someone even shouts: 'Rubbish!'
Welcome to the science cafe, a passionate and irreverent forum for people from all backgrounds and occupations to discuss topics as geeky as nuclear fusion and nebulae - all while enjoying a drink and a night out.
'It's great, as you get to think about things you wouldn't normally talk about in everyday life,' said 24-year-old Madeleine Milan, who works in communications. 'It's all really relaxed and you don't feel intimidated about challenging speakers' beliefs or scientific research. Science is becoming more part of our lives, and I want to hear about it from the experts.'
Scenes like those at the Dana Cafe happen in bars and cafes each week up and down the country. Events are often sold out and their increasing popularity challenges the perception that the general public is disengaged from modern science.
Clutching a glass of red wine, Alex Wilkie, a 32-year-old design lecturer, believes that science is undergoing a revolution and should not be dismissed as nerdy. 'It's an increasingly scientific society that we live in,' he said. 'Understanding what's going on in science helps put everything in context.'
De Grey gives more than 30 such talks a year and believes that people are excited by the humanitarian potential of science, rather than the theory. 'By and large, young people are more open-minded about my message, but I wouldn't say that implies they're more interested in science,' he said. 'I think for most the interest is in the "why" first and the "how" second.'
Most science cafes are loosely affiliated through an international umbrella organisation called Café Scientifique, which was founded in Leeds in 1998 and inspired by the French Café Philosophique movement. There are now more than 30 across the country.
In a rare reversal of cultural exchange, it is one trend that Britain has exported to America, which is now home to 60 cafes. There are a further 120 worldwide. Founder Duncan Dallas said that by taking science out of the classroom it changed the expectation of both audience and speaker. 'Science is the most important force in our culture and is increasingly impinging on our public and personal lives, through subjects like genetics and climate change. So public engagement with science is bound to increase,' said Dallas. 'But, for me, the whole point of science cafes isn't to promote science or make more kids become scientists, but is about everyone being able to discuss topics which are revolutionary.'
The subjects discussed are diverse. One night at the Dana Cafe, in South Kensington, a hot debate raged about robotics, specifically a man-made fly-eating machine going by the name of 'EcoBot', which was invented by the Bristol Robotics Laboratory. Other topics include the smell of romance, the science of sleep and marine pollution.
While science may be thriving in these pubs and bars, it is in a state of crisis in schools. The number of students choosing to take physics A-level has dropped by more than a third from 43,416 in 1991 to 28,119 in 2005. This trend is echoed at degree level and experts fear this could damage the future of homegrown science.
The government, large corporations and research institutions are pouring money into initiatives to encourage scientific debate and thus make science more accessible.
Some cafes even receive government funding. Others are sponsored by universities or organisations such as the medical research charity the Wellcome Trust. They relish the opportunity to introduce their research and experts to a new audience, such as 33-year-old Lara Taylor. Tuesday night was the lawyer's first science cafe experience and, despite not knowing an atom from an ion, she was impressed.
'There's no dull theorising, so it was really accessible,' she said. 'It's better than staying in and watching television every night.'
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Posted: Monday, May 19, 2008 | PermalinkComments 1 - 34 of 34 |
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers2. Comment #182365 by rod-the-farmer on May 19, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Sounds great. How do I find out if there are any near me ? Other Comments by rod-the-farmer
3. Comment #182373 by albemuth on May 19, 2008 at 9:51 pm
http://www.cafescientifique.org/... google is your friend :) (and mine too in this case)Other Comments by albemuth
4. Comment #182378 by riki on May 19, 2008 at 10:10 pm
That link should be http://www.cafescientifique.org/ Other Comments by riki
5. Comment #182382 by mordacious1 on May 19, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Science cafesI'll drink to that!
Nextstopearth:
Sacramento? hahahaha
Davis? Probably never, but more likely.
Berkeley and Stanford, San Jose even. I could see these cities eventually having something like this, but not Sacramento. I live nearby, by the way.
Other Comments by mordacious1
6. Comment #182383 by steve_kap on May 19, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Hey RDF, be very careful before you become part of is guy's echo chamber! Several of this group have been trying to push him and the "Methuselah Foundation" on You Tube. They also have been trying to associate his name with Dawkins'.For some background, search "how De Grey Fooled the world" on You Tube, and other videos that they put out. Their big pitch seems to be "don't let ethical concerns keep us from ending aging". That's a debate that anyone could win, but there real question should be, I think "are these guys credible".
Also note on their vids that they have nothing but praise in their comments. I wonder what happened to the negative comments?
Other Comments by steve_kap
7. Comment #182388 by gav1970 on May 19, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Try herehttp://www.cafescientifique.org/world-links.htm
Other Comments by gav1970
8. Comment #182389 by Szkeptik on May 19, 2008 at 11:23 pm
De Grey doesn't know what he's talking about. He has huge dreams but no science to back it up.Many other people and research groops are doing real work in the field of aging and how to slow it, but what De Gray is talking about is not scientific, at least yet.
Other Comments by Szkeptik
9. Comment #182397 by sent2null on May 20, 2008 at 12:02 am
What specific aspects of De Grey's ideas do you find are un-scientific or lack science Szkeptik?The recent advances (regeneration of skin in mice, affects on aging of calorie restriction in rats..etc.) in pinning down the cellular destabilization that attends aging seem to point toward exactly what he's been saying. I see no reason to think we can't live continuously extended lives, should we figure out how to repair or replace what needs repairing before it kills us, do you doubt we will ever have this knowledge? If so, keep in mind that today we have the knowledge to build incredibly complex chips with millions of microscopic circuit components. I see the job of reverse engineering biology, now that we actually are deciphering the code will be much easier precisely because biology will only need to be reverse engineered. We have the blue prints (DNA) and the finished products (organism) we just need to figure out the encodings and then determine where they lose efficiency over time ie. "age" Mind you I am looking at the problem from the perspective of an electrical engineer and software designer, a perspective I think that has been sorely lacking in the realm of biology (no disrespect intended to any biologists reading that have tried to bridge the gap) In our realm we have to design systems from components and we usually don't have a ready made example of the construction that we can use to figure out how best to write our code or design our circuits.
The task of deciphering our biology will and has been difficult but the rate of advance is rapid, actually faster than I thought 8 years ago when I seriously started thinking about these ideas. What mostly stands in our way is a mountain of difficult computations that simply need more computer horse power thrown and them and that continues to come at about the rate that Moore predicted still.
I am interested to read what your specific objections are..
Other Comments by sent2null
10. Comment #182401 by steve_kap on May 20, 2008 at 12:33 am
"we just need to figure out the encodings and then determine where they lose efficiency over time ie. "age" "1) That word "just" covers a lot of ground!!
2) Your idea, that aging is due to some lose of efficiency over time, thats not well accepted in the scientific community. Most believe that aging has to do with development, that is, genes that have positive effects in the early stages of development may have negative effects in later stages. Kind of an evolutionary cul-de-sac.
As to "deciphering our biology", our ability to predict how an amino acid chain will fold is quite poor, never might knowing what the folded shape will mean, what it will do.
Outside of the science, of which others are more expert then me, there is the question of credibility. This movement smacks of viral marketing and sock-puppetry more than science to me. Others can judge for themselves.
Other Comments by steve_kap
11. Comment #182406 by Enlightenme.. on May 20, 2008 at 1:36 am
These are fantastic, very informal, and friendly I went to my local one last night!
James Ladyman, philosophy professor from Bristol Uni gave us a talk on quantum mechanics, and he had a Guinness in the bar afterwards.
We opened a new science cafe at @Bristol last week, where I saw Dr Ainsley Newson give a talk on Biomedical ethics.
I will be at the local church on Wednesday (St Mary Redcliffe, virtually a cathedral in fact) to listen to 'Who Are We?' - A Scientist looks at Religious Views of our Origins' a talk given by Dr Pete Moore, organised by the British Association for the advancement of Science, and I already have my ticket booked to see Richard at the Cheltenham festival to talk about Charles Darwin in June..Yaay!
Other Comments by Enlightenme..
12. Comment #182408 by Incredulous on May 20, 2008 at 2:09 am
De Grey gives more than 30 such talks a year and believes that people are excited by the humanitarian potential of science, rather than the theory.
This strikes me as being the tack that scientists have to take. I had my first computer techie job 30 years ago and it was definitely seen as a nerdy occupation.
Ten years later I was an Microsoft student as a result of spending a year there whilst doing my degree. The idea was that windows would make computing accessible. It was still a geek's pastime, though.
Now, everyone I know has a pretty good understanding of computing generally, admittedly this doesn't make everyone a software engineer or electronics expert.
I see no reason why Science cannot become just as interesting and just as accessible as computing has become. Making science part of a popular lifestyle choice surely has to be welcomed.
Obviously, we do have to make science more attractive to the young so they keep up our traditions of exploding myths and understanding the world around us alive.
I've been going through Penrose's Road to Reality for the last 9 months and it is easy for me to see why people stay away from Physics at A level and beyond.
Especially when you can do Media Studies and be chatting to women all day. Bliss for us guys, maybe not so good for the girls.
Other Comments by Incredulous
13. Comment #182411 by Synchronium on May 20, 2008 at 3:05 am
I wrote an interesting article on the ethics of ageing for a module of my degree. I might post it somewhere...Other Comments by Synchronium
14. Comment #182415 by epeeist on May 20, 2008 at 3:45 am
There is a Cafe Scientifique in Manchester (UK). This provides a link to the RSA and some of their events, including one by Steven Pinker - http://www.rsa.org.uk/events/events_all.asp Other Comments by epeeist
15. Comment #182416 by DamnDirtyApe on May 20, 2008 at 3:50 am
Here's ours :)http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/dfc/site/CS/
Other Comments by DamnDirtyApe
16. Comment #182420 by cafe.sci.s1 on May 20, 2008 at 4:28 am
It's worth noting that the format of the Dana Café is not typical of Science Cafés in the UK. Most do not have bouncers and guestlists and £15 tickets.Most operate on a free participation basis in a café bookshop or bar.
We here in Sheffield, use the Café attached to a local cinema.
In answer to the questions about finding Cafés in the US, NOVA sponsors these and you can find American info at http://www.sciencecafes.org/
Best Wishes,
CS Sheffield.
http://www.sciencecafesheffield.org/
Other Comments by cafe.sci.s1
17. Comment #182424 by Colwyn Abernathy on May 20, 2008 at 4:43 am
Gives a whole new meaning to the term "beer goggles." Neat idea tho.
EDIT: Did some prelim searches. KEWL! UPenn has regular events dubbed "Science Cafe" in University City. They even have one "Surviving the Body of Evidence" at the Philadelphia Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology. Part of the "Year of Evolution" series celebrating the 200 year anniversary of Chuck Darwin. Anybody gonna be in the area? ;)
http://www.phillyfunguide.com/event.php?id=20960
Other Comments by Colwyn Abernathy
18. Comment #182429 by dansam on May 20, 2008 at 4:59 am
There is something like it in NY:http://secretscienceclub.blogspot.com/
Other Comments by dansam
19. Comment #182433 by calyx on May 20, 2008 at 5:29 am
Someone should send this article to the person that was asking for an atheist church. Other Comments by calyx
20. Comment #182442 by Johnny O on May 20, 2008 at 6:15 am
There's one in Salisbury, about 15 miles from where I live... sweet
Edit: It has talks on the first tuesday of every month... I take my daughter to her horse riding lessons on Tuesdays... arse
Edit Edit: The next talk on June 10th is "Epigenetics - The Enigma of Non-Genetic Inheritance"... double arse
Other Comments by Johnny O
21. Comment #182445 by mrjonno on May 20, 2008 at 6:28 am
It's worth noting that the format of the Dana Café is not typical of Science Cafés in the UK. Most do not have bouncers and guestlists and £15 tickets.
Not sure what that was aimed at, Dana Centre is free entry been there many a time , 'free' of course means it has tax payers money/corporate sponsorship behind it which isnt neccesarily a bad thing.
They do dinners there at times to which are course you have pay for
Other Comments by mrjonno
22. Comment #182458 by Stew282 on May 20, 2008 at 7:24 am
Fantastic! - I love the idea of science and beer! Even more wonderful, there's one fairly near me - and it's on tonight!
Chuffed!
By the way, Plans for the Ice Palace have been approved!!! - http://stewton.myminicity.com
Other Comments by Stew282
23. Comment #182460 by LaTomate on May 20, 2008 at 7:26 am
This is brilliant, but: Booooo :( In my town it's in Starbucks. How can I have a decent pint there?True it is hard to find a decent quiet pub big enough, but still. Oh well. I'll show up anyway, this should be interesting.
Other Comments by LaTomate
24. Comment #182518 by Rtambree on May 20, 2008 at 10:16 am
I've been to many DANA events throughout 2007, but I must report they are organised and run by arts/humantiies students and they want to avoid the lecture format at all costs. So you get an expert reducing his spiel to soundbites and very brief Q&A with a crowd of people making so much noise that you can't hear anything.Then sometimes DANA organises gimmicky presentations that don't work - e.g. setting up a roulette table when trying to explain about genes, but it wasn't well thought out. Science events are best organised by science literate people.
I found it underwhelming and unsatisfactory if you want to learn something. If you're there for socialising, fine.
The same problem exists with Horizon and NOVA and other science documentaries: full of explosions, repetitions, innae footage, flashbulb edits, soundbites, etc. You spend an hour watching a 'science program' and you're none the wiser.
Other Comments by Rtambree
25. Comment #182523 by Nova on May 20, 2008 at 10:39 am
Lucy McDonald:physics A-level has dropped by more than a third from 43,416 in 1991 to 28,119I'm annoyed by this piece of reporting because it is nearly useless without accompanying information on the state of biology and chemistry - it could be that many who would have taken physics have instead taken chemistry and that science as a whole hasn't suffered as much, or maybe only physics is suffering and the rest of science isn't - maybe not but we can't know without the full facts.
Other Comments by Nova
26. Comment #182532 by Geodesic17 on May 20, 2008 at 11:02 am
Socrates Cafe is a similar movement. Seattle has a Socrates Cafe.Other Comments by Geodesic17
27. Comment #182624 by frosty on May 20, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Just on the point about living forever, I've always thought that, even if it became possible, it would probably be outrageously expensive, so there may well end up being a small number of "immortals" able to live off the earning of the Google stocks they purchased for $10000 per share in 2080, and the rest of humanity slogging away as usual.Of course, the problem with living older is that you get the same amount of youth as everyone else, but with an extra helping of old age (thanks Pratchett).
I am also reminded of Billy Connellys comment (to his 'willy'), when confronting his naked image in the miror - "yer poooor old barstard, I've outlived ye"
Other Comments by frosty
28. Comment #182629 by sent2null on May 20, 2008 at 5:13 pm
steve kap wrote:
2) Your idea, that aging is due to some lose of efficiency over time, thats not well accepted in the scientific community. Most believe that aging has to do with development, that is, genes that have positive effects in the early stages of development may have negative effects in later stages. Kind of an evolutionary cul-de-sac.
I should have clarified what I meant by lose efficiency, the over all result is that on a macroscopic level (failed bone replacement, failed skin regeneration, increased heart muscle rigidity...etc.) but on the microscopic level the idea is that junk builds up in the cell and eventually clogs the works. This could account for changes in cell chemistry that modify enzyme and protein production in deleterious ways that then give rise to the macroscopic failures we associate with aging. Though free radical damage over time could contribute to direct DNA damage that leads to slow systemic failure I doubt there is any in born mechanism that leads to the break down on a macroscopic scale. It sounds like what you are describing is cellular apoptosis which is a microscopic process of senesence and is indeed recognized as a primary method of gene triggered death of cells but that is very different from the slow process of systemic death that we call aging. The recent reports on increased life times for mice and other organisms by simply changing their diet points to a large factor having to do with the "machinery" of the cell rather than any triggered changes by the genes.
Other Comments by sent2null
29. Comment #182646 by sophia_mr on May 20, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I checked the site and it says there's one in SD but it doesn't give me an exact location and the SD site doesn't seem to work. Does anybody know where it is? Please help! Thanks! Other Comments by sophia_mr
30. Comment #182662 by theantitheist on May 20, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Not got one in Brisbane, might have to contact the Cafe lot and see if we can get one up and running as only Melbourne has one in Oz.Anyone in Brisbane who'd also be interested?
Other Comments by theantitheist
31. Comment #182794 by Enlightenme.. on May 21, 2008 at 1:23 am
^ "Anyone in Brisbane who'd also be interested?"
I would have thought so!
Once you've got the thing up & running tho, antitheist, you'd have to keep schtum about any 'agenda' you might have ;)
Other Comments by Enlightenme..
32. Comment #183066 by steve_kap on May 21, 2008 at 10:24 am
Responding to sent2null,The development of a human fetus to a human child to a human adult is a very complicated bootstrapping process. One action leads to another, genes create proteins that either promote or inhibit other proteins. A protein can have a direct effect on the cell, or can just be part of this long, complicated chain of events. That much I'm sure we agree on.
The genes that create these proteins, they have the potential of being turned on at any time, given the right combination of other proteins in the cell. Any deleterious activation of a gene in early life, before the normal reproductive age, is selected against. That we can agree on I'm sure, that's natural selection.
But, of course, these genes are still in the cell after they do their good job, and once the human reaches adulthood, this complicated cascade is still going on. And, after the normal reproductive age, deleterious effects are not selected against as severely. And, these effects could be caused by SAME GENES that are causing good things to happen in early stages. Note that with the exception of modern humans and domesticated animals, death by old age is not an evolutionary driver. It just doesn't happen. Almost no individual is lucky enough to escape the dangers of life in the wild year after year.
The above, I believe, is the widely accepted view on the cause of aging. The "build up of junk" theory is not.
Other Comments by steve_kap
33. Comment #183870 by Christopher Davis on May 23, 2008 at 4:25 am
I don't give a shit about De Grey or his ideas, even if they came out with a way to live forever I could never afford it (hell 'Rogaine' stressed my budget before I just decided to let it go). What brings a tear of joy to my eye is Guiness and science!
I've spent many an evening at a bar/pub drinking Guiness and reading science. Most of the people I know think that's weird. Of course, I explain to them that I'm single and don't cook. A man sitting at the bar, eating his dinner, knocking back a few cold ones and reading a book looks a hell of lot less pathetic than a man sitting at the bar, eating his dinner and NOT reading a book...plus it's not a bad way to meet interesting women. Really.
Other Comments by Christopher Davis
34. Comment #183950 by sent2null on May 23, 2008 at 9:23 am
steve kap wrote:these genes are still in the cell after they do their good job, and once the human reaches adulthood, this complicated cascade is still going on.
That is a big assumption that I've not read any confirmation for, do you have any references to any? I have read a few papers on the effects of telomere length reduction over time as an organism ages, and also of promoter region methylation , which also increases with age. Additional free radical action is said to exacerbate or cause both conditions. These are known events that silence the expression of genes. Some have theorized that methylation that is not triggered by the system to normal developmental cycles could lead to deleterious effects in the organism. Many papers actually show a correlation between cpg island methylation and the onset of cancers. Think what would happen if a few genes instrumental for producing an enzyme that regulates the production of a brain neurotransmitter could give rise to some of the brain pathologies we see in the aged. Or imagine how such silencing could destabilize cellular chemistry to also inhibit or accelerate various protein and enzyme production. I can't say that I've even seen a paper that espouses what you assert, that essentially developmental cycles go from "pushing" life up to "pulling" it down once those cycles are complete. If this were a dominant reason for aging , why then is there an increase in junk in the cells as we age? Why does the efficiency of all the tissues reduce, it seems to me that only changes that take previous gene expression cycles and break them prematurely or cause them to run amok (cancers) could lead to the systemic reduction in cellular efficiency that attends aging.
As a software engineer I see amazing parallels between the life cycle of a running application and that of a living organism. In many ways they are identical in construction, particularly object oriented designs. Applications die in one of two ways, either the code encounters and internal condition that halts execution or (and this is the most common one) a perfectly running application builds up "junk" in memory as objects are allocated and not deallocated, I think the same thing happens in our cells. In application code, the architect is tasked with ensuring that object allocations are cleaned up after the desired action is performed, in the cell similar development cycles do cleaning. If these encounter damage (methylation, free radicals) then the system degrades. In applications, the open references to the old objects take up precious memory and therefore reduce the available memory for executing new code or creating new objects and this reduces the performance of the application. As more object references accumulate eventually memory runs out and the application halts. (dies) We call this slow process of memory loss a memory leak and I am pretty sure biological aging has an analogous driver (and as I said what I've read so far does not contradicts the idea)
A test for the hypothesis would be the discovery of a variation in life time by varying the rate of cellular processes (akin to slowing down the number of object creations in a program) biologically this can be accomplished by reducing caloric intake, and sure enough studies have shown this increases the life cycle of the organism. Interestingly a correlation exists in computer applications, a memory leak is only as fast as the application is tasked to invoke the object invocations that are not being de allocated. The faster these actions are requested (akin to the cell using the incoming ingredients from the blood to derive energy (through mitochondria) build enzymes and proteins) the faster the application will halt. I can't see any other mechanism to explain this variability, especially not the reversal of early stage developmental cycles. Though I don't discount the possibility, the evidence seems to support a greater importance on destabilization with time in the machinery of the cell. Even then the destabilization would not be caused by existing gene cycles continuing on, under normal circumstances these undergo methylation (they are stopped) after they are finished. However, free radicals could affect existing genes in currently unknown ways to reverse early stage action...but I haven't read a single paper that shows this.
I must admit I haven't read a paper on aging in a while (need to hit the PLOS) but from my previous research this seemed to be the general direction of the ideas. I'd be interested to read the papers confirming your contention.
Links:
Did a quick set of google searches and came up with several papers but nothing ties aging to continuing developmental cycles as you suggested.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0002143
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0020115 (telomere reduction with aging)
http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0020026 (methylation effects)
http://www.nature.com/onc/journal/v22/n6/abs/1206123a.html (full pdf, cpg methylation and cancer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-radical_theory
http://biosingularity.wordpress.com/2007/04/10/its-never-late-to-reduce-calorie-intake-and-slow-aging/
Other Comments by sent2null
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"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.."
Thomas Jefferson
"I doubt that religion can survive deep understanding. The shallows are its natural habitat. Cranks and fundamentalists are too often victimised as scapegoats for religion in general. It is only quite recently that Christianity reinvented itself in non-fundamentalist guise, and Islam has yet to do so (see Ibn Warraq's excellent book, Why I am not a Muslim). Moonies and scientologists get a bad press, but they just haven't been around as long as the accepted religions. Theology is a respectable discipline when it studies such subjects as moral philosophy, the psychology of religious belief and, above all, biblical history and literature. Like Bertie Wooster, my knowledge of the Bible is above average. I seem to know Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon almost by heart. I think that the Bible as literature should be a compulsory part of the national curriculum - you can't understand English literature and culture without it. But insofar as theology studies the nature of the divine, it will earn the right to be taken seriously when it provides the slightest, smallest smidgen of a reason for believing in the existence of the divine. Meanwhile, we should devote as much time to studying serious theology as we devote to studying serious fairies and serious unicorns. "
Richard Dawkins
"Religious people split into three main groups when faced with science. I shall label them the "know-nothings", the "know-alls", and the "no-contests""
Richard Dawkins
Other Recommended Reading
Before the Dawn
Nicholas Wade
Evolution
Jean-Baptiste de Panafieu
Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters
Donald R. Prothero
Pale Blue Dot
Carl Sagan
The Moral Animal
Robert Wright
More Books
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"If this book doesn't change the world -- we're all screwed."
-Penn (Penn & Teller)
The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins
Over 1.5 million copies sold
DVDs
'Break the Science Barrier' DVD
'The Four Horsemen' DVD
'AAI 2007 Conference' DVD
'Root of All Evil? The Original Program' DVD
'Root of All Evil? The Uncut Interviews' DVD
'Growing Up in the Universe' DVD
Books by Richard Dawkins
The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing
by Richard Dawkins
The Ancestor's Tale
by Richard Dawkins
The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins
The Blind Watchmaker
by Richard Dawkins
Unweaving the Rainbow
by Richard Dawkins
1. Comment #182364 by nextstopearth on May 19, 2008 at 9:05 pm
I wonder if we have one in sacramentoゴジラ
Other Comments by nextstopearth