ArticleBiogerontology2009
Natural selection and immortality.
Article in Biogerontology, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- The ageing virus hypothesis: Epigenetic ageing beyond the Tree of Life.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2025Review
- Towards a General Definition of Life.Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere : the journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life · 2019Article
- Omnipresent Maxwell's demons orchestrate information management in living cells.Microbial biotechnology · 2019Article
- On the cause of aging and control of lifespan: heterogeneity leads to inevitable damage accumulation, causing aging; control of damage composition and rate of accumulation define lifespan.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2012Review
- A genetic replacement system for selection-based engineering of essential proteins.Microbial cell factories · 2012Article
- Random and cyclical deletion of large DNA segments in the genome of Pseudomonas putida.Environmental microbiology · 2012Article
- Downward causation by information control in micro-organisms.Interface focus · 2012Article
- The ten grand challenges of synthetic life.Systems and synthetic biology · 2011Article
- Network reconstruction reveals new links between aging and calorie restriction in yeast.HFSP journal · 2010Article
- Article
- Information of the chassis and information of the program in synthetic cells.Systems and synthetic biology · 2009Article
- On the origin of life in the zinc world: 1. Photosynthesizing, porous edifices built of hydrothermally precipitated zinc sulfide as cradles of life on Earth.Biology direct · 2009Article
- From a consortium sequence to a unified sequence: the Bacillus subtilis 168 reference genome a decade later.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2009Article
- Progress & prospects: gene therapy in aging.Gene therapy · 2009Review
- Bacteria as computers making computers.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2009Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Genomes replicate while the host cells reproduce. I explore the reproduction/replication dialogue, based on a deep analysis of bacterial genomes, in relation to ageing. Making young structures from aged ones implies creating information. I revisit Information Theory, showing that the laws of physics permit de novo creation of information, provided an energy-dependent process preserving functional entities makes room for entities accumulating information. I identify explicit functions involved in the process and characterise some of their genes. I suggest that the energy source necessary to establish reproduction while replication is temporarily stopped could be the ubiquitous polyphosphates. Finally, I show that rather than maintain and repair the original individual, organisms tend to metamorphose into young ones, sometimes totally, sometimes progressively. This permits living systems to accumulate information over generations, but has the drawback, in multicellular organisms, to open the door for immortalisation, leading to cancer.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.