the Sci of Sci-fi.

[tigz]

hi. newbie here. basic premise of this topic came about due to me thinking as to whether or not the animorphs could theoretically have immortality or not. but due to a discussion with my girlfriend I need further ideas on the subject of dna aging. its a bit scientific and totally outside my knowledge base but someone smarter than me can correct me. everything from here follows with the theory of dna damage as the cause of ageing. so going on that assumption that over time dna becomes corrupted, i tried to imagine how this would work in the world of animorphs. obviously we know that they can morph to repair physical injury, but the assumption im making is that the dna of their original selves is not repaired. thereby no mater how much morphing they did, they would still age in a normal human way and are not immortal though continual physical repair. however the real question is how this affects the acquired dna of their morphs. if the same assumption was made of dna corruption over time then the dna of their morphs would also still age. thereby meaning that they would have to re-acquire a morph after a certain amount of time, eg. lifespan of a fly being on average 25-30 days, therefore assuming that dna corruption causes aging, you can assume that beyond this point the dna is so corrupted that it becomes unusable.

looking for different thoughts and ideas and opinions on this cause I havent seen it on a brief search of the forum.
thanks in advance.

ooh p.s. how come there's not a sticky on the generally agreed upon KASU's? or is it just that no one generally agrees? lol. =)

[pallosalama]

Interesting thought. It could be that the dna of morphs only age while being in use. I don't think they used the morphs with shortest lifespan for longer than just small portion of their lifespan.
Let alone ones with lifespan of years or decades.

So thinking about it, they don't have immortality(as meaning of being untouchable)and neither biological invincibility, despite being able to fix damage from the very brink of death. Funny thought, isn't it?

[RYTX]

My assumption has always been that the morph's DNA is always the same as when it was acquired. It's in stasis (Ax mentions something about "nanospheres" or something in book 10 I think. Maybe eighteen) once acquired and out of morph, and while the morph ages two hour or however much time you're in morph, once you demorph that whole organism is gone gone. You morph again, it's the original all over again, an entirely new thing, not what you acquired plus two hours.

So I think things like David's plan to be Saddler wouldn't work in the long run. He could be Saddler 16 hours a day for 10 years, but at the end of 10 years, he'd still look 15 or something, not 25 or even 21 (~2/3 of ten years older).

Just a guess on the little that's explained on morph physics, but I don't think they keep any age effects of the morph between occurances

[DinosaurNothlit]

I'd say RYTX is probably right.  The reason DNA ages, is because every time the DNA molecule divides, it has to lose a little bit of DNA off of the ends.  Well, it is true that the DNA in the body of a creature is constantly dividing as new cells are being formed; so some negligible amount of aging would happen while the Animorphs are morphed.  However, each morph is based on a DNA 'master copy' that is absorbed directly from the acquired creature, and, since that copy is preserved in stasis in the bloodstream (that was #18 that Ax mentioned that, btw) it never divides and thus should never age, at least when not in morph.  And I see no reason why that master copy should ever be replaced with the degraded DNA that's left over from the cells during the time spent in morph, which leaves out the idea of in-morph aging carrying over to the next morph.  Unless the Andalites were completely stupid when they designed the technology, which, I guess, can't be completely ruled out. 

By the way, fun fact: for some reason that science doesn't completely understand, lobsters do not appear to 'age.'  They get bigger as they get older, but their bodies don't 'wear out' with age as other species do.  It's thought that if you could keep a lobster free of diseases and predators, it would be immortal.

. . . So, if the Animorphs want to live forever, I think it's pretty obvious what they'd need to do.

[tigz]

Thanks for the replies guys. that helped to clarify that idea.

Much appreciated!

[Tim Bruening]

I'd say RYTX is probably right.  The reason DNA ages, is because every time the DNA molecule divides, it has to lose a little bit of DNA off of the ends.  Well, it is true that the DNA in the body of a creature is constantly dividing as new cells are being formed; so some negligible amount of aging would happen while the Animorphs are morphed.  However, each morph is based on a DNA 'master copy' that is absorbed directly from the acquired creature, and, since that copy is preserved in stasis in the bloodstream (that was #18 that Ax mentioned that, btw) it never divides and thus should never age, at least when not in morph.  And I see no reason why that master copy should ever be replaced with the degraded DNA that's left over from the cells during the time spent in morph, which leaves out the idea of in-morph aging carrying over to the next morph.  Unless the Andalites were completely stupid when they designed the technology, which, I guess, can't be completely ruled out. 

By the way, fun fact: for some reason that science doesn't completely understand, lobsters do not appear to 'age.'  They get bigger as they get older, but their bodies don't 'wear out' with age as other species do.  It's thought that if you could keep a lobster free of diseases and predators, it would be immortal.

. . . So, if the Animorphs want to live forever, I think it's pretty obvious what they'd need to do.

Who would want to be a lobster nothlit for eternity?