Stretch those telomeres

I've blipped Crusty before, this a close up of his eye showing lipid deposits overlaying a cataract. Cataracts are the result of trauma, drug toxicity, disease or, most commonly....ageing. How do we stop age-related changes - simple - keep our telomeres nice and long (we also need to avoid oxidants and glycation, but hey I have a word count here). Telomeres are little sticky bits on the end of our chromosomes - they stop them from fraying, they do a good job, I can only think of a couple of occasions when I've woken up with frayed chromosomes. The problem is our cells divide on a regular basis (especially fat cells I've noticed). Every time they divide the chromosomes have to be copied which involves separating and being read by an enzyme. The enzyme copies the strands using a tiny piece of RNA to start the process (a bit like live yogurt), because of this RNA the new strand is shorter and therefore older.

This is what nobbled Dolly the sheep.....it is also an incredibly simplistic explanation of age-related change.

Tomorrow, folks I will explore string theory..........

This is an entry for Mono Monday hosted by Skeena