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Today in my eco-devo class we asked the question, "Why do we get old?". Student answers, a list:
• Time
• Methylation/acetylation
• Accumulation of damage
• Environmental damage
• IGF pathway
• Down regulation
• Mutations
• Stem cell depletion
• Competition
• Chance imperfections
• Invisible to selection
Always good to remind the young'uns of their inevitable fate.
@pzmyers are these undergrads? That's a post-doc level response there :p
@pzmyers that's great to hear!
@Areya Undergrads, yes. They'd read the chapter in Gilberts' *Ecological Development* text ahead of time, so they were prepared. Good to see they'd actually absorbed some of their reading.