7 votes

Why does ionizing radiation cause only DNA double strand breaks?

Ionizing radiation does cause single-strand breaks and other kinds of DNA lesions that are not double-strand breaks. However, double-strand breaks are the most difficult to repair and are thus the ...
acvill's user avatar
  • 8,266
6 votes

Does the second law of thermodynamics cause aging?

Second law of thermodynamic and ageing The second law of thermodynamic applies to closed system. Organisms are not closed system. The second law of thermodynamic is a fundamental principle of our ...
Remi.b's user avatar
  • 68k
6 votes

Is there a point in our life when ALL the atoms from our childhood's body get replaced?

Is there a point in our life when ALL the atoms from our childhood's body gets replaced? No. There is no point where ALL atoms have been replaced. This has been shown by tracing distinct carbon ...
tsttst's user avatar
  • 1,597
5 votes

What do white blood cells do with FOREIGN white blood cells?

Okay, you have a lot of questions there. I'll try to give some answers, but if you want more details or background knowledge I'd recommend you to read /study more about immunology (none of your ...
Nicolai's user avatar
  • 4,391
5 votes
Accepted

How to safely conserve my current DNA methylation marks?

To record the current methylation state of your DNA, you can use bisulfite sequencing. Basically, you take half of your DNA sample and treat with bisulfite, which deaminates cytosines (C->U) , so they ...
Luigi's user avatar
  • 3,338
4 votes
Accepted

Are missing limbs hereditary?

Does this mean that if one (or both) parents have something major missing (like a limb), the kid will come out without a limb? Unless there is a genetic basis to the missing limb, no. Even for people ...
YviDe's user avatar
  • 2,258
4 votes
Accepted

meaning of "usually greater than 200 base pairs"

No, similarity is not measured in base pairs. They are talking of regions of cross-over being marked by at least 200bp of highly similar sequence between the two strands involved in exchange.
Ankur Chakravarthy's user avatar
4 votes
Accepted

Replacing, instead of repairing, DNA

It seems very feasible to synthesize human DNA (please inform my ignorance, if I'm wrong. lol.) and it looks very promising after reading this: https://www.wired.com/story/live-forever-synthetic-...
Charles E. Grant's user avatar
3 votes
Accepted

Why does inbreeding cause genetic defects, but cell division in one's own body does not?

I suspect your problem is grasping what is a deleterious recessive allele. Wikipedia and textbooks explain it much better but I will try to illustrate with respect to your question. I have to merge ...
BagiM's user avatar
  • 583
3 votes

Does it make sense to make my own DNA copy (kind of backup) while I am young?

While your DNA gets damaged, not every single cell will have the same damage. Your consensus DNA sequence will not change.
swbarnes2's user avatar
  • 5,175
3 votes
Accepted

Are nucleotides at the ends of DNA stripped on aging?

The Stanford article that you read is correct, in the sense that telomeres do not need to be completely removed by cell division before deleterious effects occur and cells start undergoing senescence. ...
March Ho's user avatar
  • 9,432
3 votes

Which frequency of UV light damages DNA?

Not only pure DNA, UV radiations are one of the main causes of skin cancer because they damage cellular DNA in skin cells. Talking about frequency range, two different types of UV radiations damage ...
another 'Homo sapien''s user avatar
3 votes

Is it possible for a human to live forever if he/she didn't catch any diseases?

No that is not possible ever. There is something called telomere which is present in the chromosomes of cell .These Telomere triggers the action of ageging and leads body towards death. When we are in ...
Abhishek's user avatar
3 votes

Why does inbreeding cause genetic defects, but cell division in one's own body does not?

You say cells basically create copies of DNA all the time in our body. There may be a few mutations/errors, but it works out fine. and Why does merging two similar things cause more problems ...
rumtscho's user avatar
  • 3,324
3 votes
Accepted

How can DNA replication result in hair pin structures?

DNA Hairpins are formed when two regions in same single stranded DNA are complementary in nucleotide sequence but in the opposite directions (as represented in image below). These two sets of ...
Twinkle Sheen's user avatar
2 votes

Does vitamin C decrease after reacting with oxygen free radicals?

Correct, vitamin C (ascorbate) acts by donating 1 electron to a free radical (reducing them to a stable compound with paired electrons), and is thereby itself oxidized to semidehydroascorbate. This is ...
Roland's user avatar
  • 5,675
2 votes

How do mutations actually occur?

Mutation of DNA can be caused by an exogenous or endogenous source. Many external factors like irradiation or chemicals induce mutations. Some endogenous mutations arise from oxidative stress, ...
MicMo's user avatar
  • 21
2 votes

RF Cautery DNA damage?

The EMF/RF doesn’t directly damage the cell. It just deranges cellular metabolism. The free radicals that are produced by this change in metabolism are what causes the damage. OXIDATIVE STRESS AND ...
Anony's user avatar
  • 21
2 votes

Is it possible for a human to live forever if he/she didn't catch any diseases?

The diseases are only a part of it. Aging is also accidents and such. Cancer would still be prevalent as would accidental deaths. Even a perfect body would eventually fail because individual cell ...
Jacob Johns's user avatar
2 votes

Why does asbestos cause cancer?

More basic answer; the asbestos crystals have hooks. So the cilia in the lungs have difficulty moving them out with the other dust. This irritates the tissue causing the effects of the first answer. ...
blacksmith37's user avatar
2 votes
Accepted

Why doesn’t p53 cause the repair of cellular DNA that has been altered experimentally?

I am no expert in this area, and this answer is only based on a reading of the Wikipedia article on p53, which you should perhaps have read carefully. I welcome edits or correction by persons more ...
David's user avatar
  • 24.3k
2 votes

Does the SMUG1 enzyme break single-stranded DNA?

I think you needed to click just one more link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_excision_repair It just cuts out the base so there's an empty spot on the ribose. I was looking for a picture and ...
VonBeche's user avatar
  • 1,473
2 votes

Is reverse senescence/"anti-aging" actually scientifically possible among humans yet?

Short Answer You might be interested in learning about telomeres, telomerase, and telomerase gene therapy. For example, Boccardi & Herbig (2012): describe a mouse study in which they used ...
theforestecologist's user avatar
2 votes

Why does inbreeding cause genetic defects, but cell division in one's own body does not?

Why does inbreeding cause genetic defects, but cell division in one's own body does not? Inbreeding does not cause genetic defects, it just makes already existing ones more likely to be problematic. ...
user1850479's user avatar
2 votes
Accepted

Changes in dna from dioxin poisoning

Studies on model organisms suggest effects begin quickly, within 6-8 hours of exposure. Rat studies suggest liver absorption of dioxin reaches a maximum from 8-24 hours, with Cytochrome P450 protein ...
Alex Reynolds's user avatar
2 votes

How can prokaryotes repair double strand breaks by homologous recombination if they're haploids?

Several answers to this question: Much of the time what bacteria are doing to repair DSBs is actually non-homologous end-joining, which does not require strict homology. This is the more likely ...
Maximilian Press's user avatar
2 votes
Accepted

What does genetically tractable strain mean?

You've already basically got the idea of "genetically tractable": if we can readily modify an organism's genome using known techniques, then it's genetically tractable. That's a moving ...
jakebeal's user avatar
  • 6,977
1 vote
Accepted

How far can free radicals from UV radiation diffuse through the skin?

The life of the radicals decides how far they move. This paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4310837/#!po=6.92308 has a table of half lives of radicals, the longest lasting ones (the ...
Polypipe Wrangler's user avatar
1 vote

Can something cause both breaks and cross-links in DNA?

Cisplatin forms DNA-protein crosslinks (so DNA-protein-DNA by extension) in vitro [1] and a review [2] says that cisplatin leads to DSBs (although I can't access the primary source at the moment). But ...
user40950's user avatar
  • 790

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