Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: Biochmborg@aol.com <Biochmborg@aol.com>
To: alexanian@uncwil.edu <alexanian@uncwil.edu>; evolution@calvin.edu
<evolution@calvin.edu>; asa@calvin.edu <asa@calvin.edu>
Date: Tuesday, May 04, 1999 10:50 PM
Subject: Re: Life in the Lab -- Fox and the Nobel Prize
>In a message dated 5/4/99 7:11:39 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
>alexanian@uncwil.edu writes:
>
>> Do Fox's protocells age? Do they die?
>
>Are you suggesting that if they did not, they would not be alive? You are
>confusing macrobiology with microbilogy. Unicellular organisms do not age
in
>the sense that animals and plants do. They grow, mature, reproduce, but
they
>do not grow old. Even if they are prevented from reproducing they die only
>if directly killed (poisoned, starved, dehydrated, cooked, irradiated,
etc.)
>or if one of their genetic self-destruct mechanisms are activated. The
same
>is true for an animal or plant tissue cell, the only difference being that
>their self-destruct mechanisms tend to self-activate on a regular schedule.
>If, however, you can eliminate the self-activation mechanism(s), then the
>tissue cell would be virtually immortal, like a cancer cell.
>
>Like cells and unicellular organisms, Fox's protocells can be directly
killed
>and they are capable of self-destruction, but like cells and unicellular
>organisms they do not age, nor do they die if they get too old.
>
>Kevin L. O'Brien