Re:DNA has a 521-year half-life (2012)
by mchusma on Saturday February 05, 2022 @11:01AM
(#30222338)
I like your thinking! A couple of points:
(1) we don't really know the threshold yet to be beyond repair I think. It may be 1% but may be 20%.
(2) as others noted, it's 15 years for 0.1% damage using your math.
(3) your timeline directly contradicts the article doesn't it, which suggests keeping people in ideal conditions would have a DNA half life of millions of years.
(4) it's not a given that you need to wake people up to repair DNA. Maybe you just need to bring them to 1 degree Celsius or something. Or maybe nanobots can work on you while completely frozen. I think we are quite far from knowing right now.
So yes, for long term travel DNA repair will be important but how it actually works I think we know little about.
(1) we don't really know the threshold yet to be beyond repair I think. It may be 1% but may be 20%.
(2) as others noted, it's 15 years for 0.1% damage using your math.
(3) your timeline directly contradicts the article doesn't it, which suggests keeping people in ideal conditions would have a DNA half life of millions of years.
(4) it's not a given that you need to wake people up to repair DNA. Maybe you just need to bring them to 1 degree Celsius or something. Or maybe nanobots can work on you while completely frozen. I think we are quite far from knowing right now.
So yes, for long term travel DNA repair will be important but how it actually works I think we know little about.