Resetting the Clock of Life

Re:Resetting the Clock of Life by candiodari on Monday August 14, 2017 @10:15AM (#15008684)

Cells have an entire range of clocks for tons of purposes. Including a number of "death clocks" tracking a number of things, from passage of time since last cell division (including the famous telomeres), to amount of energy passing through the cell and a lot of more specialized clocks as well. (death clock meaning the cell will self-terminate if the clock runs down)

Just listen to your heartbeat and think again whether your cells don't track the passage of time.

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Re:Resetting the Clock of Life by lngnmn on Monday August 14, 2017 @10:37AM (#15008844)

And which exactly protein acts as a counter? What unit it uses? What is representation of the current value if the counter? How it deals with overflows?

Again. There is no counting inside a cell in principle. Only pattern matching of phisical molecular structures and "mechanical" triggers. No counters, no clocks, no notion of a number.

Do not confuse oscillations or rotation with time. Processes do exist. Time does not.

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Re:Resetting the Clock of Life by candiodari on Tuesday August 15, 2017 @12:36AM (#15015528)

> And which exactly protein acts as a counter?

DNA

> What unit it uses?

That's defined, if rather complex. Essentially it's a basepair sequence.

> What is representation of the current value if the counter?

It's unary.

> How it deals with overflows?

It doesn't.

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