1. SPS Accounts:
    Do you find yourself coming back time after time? Do you appreciate the ongoing hard work to keep this community focused and successful in its mission? Please consider supporting us by upgrading to an SPS Account. Besides the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from supporting a good cause, you'll also get a significant number of ever-expanding perks and benefits on the site and the forums. Click here to find out more.
    Dismiss Notice
Dismiss Notice
You are currently viewing Boards o' Magick as a guest, but you can register an account here. Registration is fast, easy and free. Once registered you will have access to search the forums, create and respond to threads, PM other members, upload screenshots and access many other features unavailable to guests.

BoM cultivates a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. We have been aiming for quality over quantity with our forums from their inception, and believe that this distinction is truly tangible and valued by our members. We'd love to have you join us today!

(If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you've forgotten your username or password, click here.)

Eighth Dimension: #84 Senescence

Discussion in 'BoM Blogs' started by 8people, Nov 30, 2010.

  1. 8people

    8people 8 is just another way of looking at infinite ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran

    Joined:
    Apr 20, 2002
    Messages:
    7,141
    Media:
    74
    Likes Received:
    133
    Gender:
    Female
    Senecscence is biological aging.

    It is theorised to be a factor in evolution as there is a clear correlation between birth rate and numbers alongside lifespan.

    Take Elephants, they have a gestation period of 22 months, the longest of any living mammal, though the births are usually single. They can live upwards of seventy years, the oldest on record being eighty two. Then look at the American Opossum which has the longest life recorded being four years and just under three months, has a litter between five and nine and has a gestation period of TWELVE DAYS (It also has thirteen nipples, never understood having an odd number of nipples, is it in the middle or what?)

    Fascinated I read more on the theories of senescence and what this could mean for humans (There is, for example, an immortal jellyfish) as the most important time for a human is when it can breed - from an evolutionary standpoint. Human women are fertile between adolescence and around the mid forties. Beyond that is unecessary lifespan from an evolutionary standpoint - aside from the need to pass on vital information for survival. The male of the species is pretty much fertile from the time he figures out what goes where to the time he's returned to the earth in peace!

    So why do men generally have a shorter lifespan than women? Evolutionary view could suggest that if men lived substantially longer than women then men of an older generation would be coupling with a younger generation, with the tribal nature of primitive humans this left nature to decide that genetics are complicated enough without inviting trouble with tangled family trees! In theory, anyway.

    The mitochondrial DNA in most humans appears to have a relatively common source. Suggesting at some point there was a level where the female population was relatively sparse and/or passed around a fair bit. Scientists have compared the possibility with the origin of Eve.

    As interesting as the theories that real world applications have for the theory of senescence and its application to reproduction I have a further view.

    "Huh, that explains Elves and Goblins then I guess"

    And it does! Goblins have short, horrible lives with huge litters on a regular basis whilst Elves are beyond such things popping a sprog once a century and living for about four. Drow live less time but have a much faster reproductive rate to account for the fact they're all murdering each other in spiteful and uninventive ways (because lets face it when you find a way that works...)

    But what about tricking the system? A long lived species that reproduces prolifically and artificially prolongs its lifetime and also alters its fertility and reproductive rates, what then? Generally a species will develop depending on the available resources they can thrive and exploit, leading to cyclical natures of flora and fauna where a population flourishes to a point of overabundance then food scarcity in the future reduces the population until the food source recovers. It's a natural cycle that with manipulation can be broken quite easily.

    But is it necessarily right?
     
Sorcerer's Place is a project run entirely by fans and for fans. Maintaining Sorcerer's Place and a stable environment for all our hosted sites requires a substantial amount of our time and funds on a regular basis, so please consider supporting us to keep the site up & running smoothly. Thank you!

Sorcerers.net is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to products on amazon.com, amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.