Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
Sorry for double post; it's past editing time. I just remembered a really good novel by Dean Koontz; the title is slipping my mind at the mo' but it dealt partially with something called reanimation medicine, which is reviving people who are clinically dead. A big theme of this was the reintroduction of oxygen and free radicals causing major damage to the brain and other body tissues, and the chemical cocktails introduced to prevent that damage (antioxidants and free-radical scavengers, including synthetic compounds and natural vitamins like C and E). Of course there was also a pretty cool 'horror' (I prefer to think of it as fantasy) overtone to the whole thing, but I won't spoil the book for you (if you ever figure out the damn name, that is).
Anyway, all this makes me wonder if breathing oxygen actually helps the aging process along.
Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Daniel Butler: Reverend: I didn't mean to suggest anything like intelligent design. I just meant that evolution produced lifeforms which are "supposed" to die; if living things didn't die, there would be no next generation, thus defeating the entire process and ensuring evolution would never exist
Well that is one of THE questions of biology. The way I tend to look at it, ageing is not so much an evolutionary adaption (or choice, depending how you look at it) but just a by-product of the inherently imperfect nature of passing information along. The cellular equivalent of Chinese Whispers, if you will. Of course I could be utterly wrong, I'm not a biologist.
Of course being biologically immortal is a problem to evolution, though not necessarily a terminal one since there's always starvation and predators to keep the older generations in check. In fact I think some microscopic creatures are technically immortal.
In the case of Claire, I'm not sure if she's immortal or not since she is ageing seemingly normally. Perhaps the effect of her regeneration is cumulative, the more she's injured, the slower she ages. Like a callus but on a more basic cellular level. On the other hand it could be the other way around. What if repeatedly regenerating accelerates the process of cellular DNA damage?
Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
I think we're engaging in a typical mistake: Simplification. Aging is probably a combination of everything we're blabbing about from Chinese Whispers and entropy to 'design' to probably something else as well.
And I hope we'll find out more about Claire and Takezo...and again, if there's any logic to the descendancy patterns of these 'abilities.'
Registered: Jul 2005
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"...if living things didn't die, there would be no next generation, thus defeating the entire process and ensuring evolution would never exist"
I don't think that's true. That would only happen in a species that's self-aware enough to think something like "hey, I'm going to live forever ; what do I need kids for?". And, even then, that would only happen in a fraction of the population. Basically, in most species, whether they age or not, the reproductive instinct would still be there. If they didn't die of old age, you'd just end up with a very rapidly increasing population.
Anyway, back to the show, here's something to ponder : if Claire were beheaded, would her body grow a new head, or would her head grow a new body?
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well I would have to say body grows a new head, considering that when she cut her toe off, she grew a new one while the old toe did not seem to grow a new Claire. Or did it? (Dun Dun Dun)
Maybe beheading could be her only weakness?
Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
I would have to say that beheading her would be just about the only way to kill her. We know that without the brain intact the body won't regenerate. And without the body attached to the brain, there'd be no blood or oxygen flowing to the brain, so...
-------------------- I haul cardboard and cardboard accessories
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Was it that Claire would stay dead if something was lodged in any part of her brain, or just a certain spot? As Peter said to Claire that she "knew the spot" were to shoot him in case he went critical mass. Plus if I remember rightly, from the times Peter and Claire "died" they had things pushed into their brain's somewhere behind the ear, although I'd have to rewatch the episodes to see if that's true.
If beheading is the only way to truly "kill" Claire, where is the line between a blow is a killing one and one from which she would recover? If she were bisected from armpit to armpit would she really die? Or if she were cut in half just below her sternum would she live? What if you cut her exactly in half from head to pelvis? As you can see, if I was mad-scientist type in Hereos-verse I'd have lots of fun experimenting on her!
Registered: Oct 2007
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
Which is exactly what her daddy was warning her about in this episode But ... yeah... I've actually thought about this subject prior to heroes (human regeneration). It may be that there is a *reason* that only radially symmetric animals can truly regenerate; lizards etc can do limbs or a tail, but they can't regrow organs as far as I know. A limb is, after all, just bone and muscle and skin; nothing highly specialized, in other words. But if you COULD regrow everything...I think bisecting someone down the middle would probably kill them. (Or, just possibly, they'd both regrow into a new person - and I'm making my prediction here and now that at some point during Heroes' run, we're going to have a situation just like this with Claire, or maybe Takezo.)
And once again going off topic, in reply to TSN: I don 't think a species would develop the desire to reproduce if it never evolved in the first place. BUT, I guess DNA was the first thing to self-replicate, not a whole organism, so reproduction might be the 'base code' of life and override anything else that might come along. So, in other words, good point, my mind has been changed.
Registered: Jul 2005
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
Well, my question then in the 'original' timeline, when Sylar took Claire's abilities, did he seperate the brain from the body? Otherwise she'd have started regenerating and she was obviously dead in that timeline.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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Yes, it does beg the question as to what part grows back where. If Claire were split in half, would both halves grow the missing pieces and thus clone her?
I do like the point mentioned above that these are the questions the Company would have.
In real life sometimes things get lodged in the brain or shot in the brain and the person lives. There have been cases where someone with a mental illness goes to commit suicide, shoots themselves in the head but survives and destroys the diseased portion of the brain that caused the mental illness in the first place.
So a head would can be non-fatal.
But with the stick in Claire's head, it was fatal only as long as something was in the way of the regeneration (the stick).
Perhaps Kensei is the same way. Hiro pulled out some arrows before Kensei started to regenerate. As long as the arrows (or sticks) are preventing the regeneration, he'll stay dead.
Powers are going to appear to be duplicates until it's explained HOW the power works. Magneto's flight vs. some other form of flight.
On the other hand, Magneto's flight is a power stunt, a by-product of his power of magnetic control.
With all the home-schooling options available, why is Claire enrolled in a public school? Wouldn't it have been safer to have her be home-schooled? Of course, that limits the plot/story line and makes for some pretty boring segments.
Registered: Feb 2004
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
Not to mention we don't know if she point-blank refused that with vigor and spite.
Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by HerbShrump: In real life sometimes things get lodged in the brain or shot in the brain and the person lives. There have been cases where someone with a mental illness goes to commit suicide, shoots themselves in the head but survives and destroys the diseased portion of the brain that caused the mental illness in the first place.
Been watching Fight Club? *heh*
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
I am Herbshrump's raging bile duct.
Registered: Feb 2005
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
quote:Originally posted by Peregrinus: Been watching Fight Club? *heh*
--Jonah
Guy with a dual personality who can really kick ass and can apparently survive a headshot, not to mention convince hundreds of normal people to become faceless terrorists.... Hey! Peter Petrelli must finish up and use Hiro's powers to go back in time and star in Fight Club!
Registered: Jul 2005
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