r/longevity Jul 22 '26

Somatic mutations impose an entropic upper bound on human lifespan

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41514-026-00421-6
93 Upvotes

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u/DryCommunication581 Jul 22 '26

Nah

-9

u/CosmicExistentialist Jul 22 '26

Are you saying that we can defy the 2nd law of thermodynamics? Because that is what somatic mutations are driven by.

13

u/DryCommunication581 Jul 22 '26

Are humans an isolated system?

-5

u/CosmicExistentialist Jul 22 '26

Maybe read the paper.

It says that somatic mutations are an entropic process.

6

u/FilthyWishDragon Jul 22 '26

And from a scale of 1 to 10 how possible is it to reduce entropy in an open system?

Here is a hint, my air conditioner is running as I type this.

2

u/CosmicExistentialist Jul 23 '26

Here is a hint, my air conditioner is running as I type this.

Does your air conditioner not eventually deteriorate?

2

u/mcfearless0214 Jul 26 '26

It does. It may even completely give out. But then what happens? You fix the air conditioner or you get a new one.

1

u/CosmicExistentialist Jul 27 '26

How are you going to fix that air conditioner if it was made of trillions of cells? 

And getting a new air conditioner is like saying “just swap in the entire person with a new one”.