Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

This is more of a science question than anything else.
Eldar as a species that have existed unmolested and been kept anatomically identical for millions of years have far longer DNA sequence strands than humans do.
This has ups and downs. Gestation is far longer. And the species takes forever to show signs of age. Aging is caused by damage to the DNA strands over constant copying and thus, if there's far larger sequences, and the rate of copying is the same, it takes far longer for damage to occur. Whales are an earthbound example of these principles.
My question really is how did those sequences get so long? I've always assumed it happens over vast periods of time as more and more genotypes and phenotypes get mixed in and added on to the DNA sequence but I don't know for sure.
Can anyone help?

in the case of eldar... "a old one did it"

I don't think anyone at GW ever bothered with any type of genetic biology.

BrianDavion wrote:
in the case of eldar... "a old one did it"

Pretty much this. The old ones pretty much crated everything in some way or another. It bacially boils down to GOD did it.

Whales do have longer DNA sequences than people do. This is known. They're just far larger, and have more to their biology. A lot of people attribute their slowed aging to better telomerase (the enzyme that repairs damaged DNA strands) control and/or adult stem cells. Problem is much much simpler animals like rock fish, and lobsters use these methods, and with such a complex animal (literally with organs within organs) these methods would begin to fail quite rapidly.
To elaborate on this: Mice without telomerase (and obviously without adult stem cells) were engineered and when exposed to Telomerase, their aging not only stopped, but reversed. They became fertile again. The same thing on humans? No notable effect.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jayden63 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
in the case of eldar... "a old one did it"

Pretty much this. The old ones pretty much crated everything in some way or another. It bacially boils down to GOD did it.

That's not my question though.
Something as long living as the Eldar could possibly be produced under similar circumstances. My question is how does the most minute mechanic (DNA being lengthened as animal stays visually the same over eons) of this process (aging slowed at literally the most base level) occur?

I would like to cite that Orks are a fungus, this is a universe with Daemons and magic, the sentient fungus can make anything work by believing in it, and make it faster by painting it red, and the writers can't keep the difference between autoguns and stubguns. There are a lot more important things to rack your brains over man.

Eldar are a fictional race in a game with models. Let me ask, why are Elves immortal? Why do trolls turn to stone? Why do Dragons breathe fire in seven different kinds of ways? Why is Valerian steel better than other steel? What causes a Splicer to use a power he wasn't born with? How does a TIE fighter screech in the vacuum of space?

These are all made up things and taking them apart at such a ridiculously fine detail is ridiculous. So I'm going to say there's little hamsters that pooped on their DNA and now it doesn't deteriorate. Prove me wrong.

Let me re-elaborate:
The 40k clothing of this is only to introduce the concept to onlookers. It has no role in the question. Which is: How does it come to be that when animals remain visually similar for eons they end up having ABSURDLY long DNA sequences?
^I don't even....Well Hamster droppings haven't been shown to produce any effect on cellular division or DNA copy-pasting.......so go figure. I mean there are people who raise hamsters and come in contact with a lot of poo and they're not immortal.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
and the rate of copying is the same

Assumption. How do you know?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 ThePrimordial wrote:
and the rate of copying is the same

Assumption. How do you know?

I don't.
What I do know is that DNA sequence replication rate doesn't really have an effect on things animals encounter in daily life like breaking down food or healing wounds. It happens kind of a constant fact of life. Attempting to adapt at the most base level. Cells do this whether we like it or not. That's somewhat accurate but in really layman's terms.
IT MAY have an effect on developing muscles but as bulldogs have shown that can be a non issue if you naturally grow to be "Super Swole brah"

I believe that the eldar are believed to be descended from nonmammals, possibly reptiles. Reptiles have a extremely long life span compared to mammal counterparts. This could be a big factor in the longevity of eldar. Plus you know the extensive genetic modifications done by the old ones helps

Bafaltin wrote:
I believe that the eldar are believed to be descended from nonmammals, possibly reptiles. Reptiles have a extremely long life span compared to mammal counterparts. This could be a big factor in the longevity of eldar. Plus you know the extensive genetic modifications done by the old ones helps

I knew it. The Eldar are the lizard people that run the Illuminati! Quick! Alert the local tin foil hat association!

Eldar aren't descended from anything. They were created by the old ones.

 Bookwrack wrote:
Eldar aren't descended from anything. They were created by the old ones.

As a quick aside, this is actually not all that consistant.
I too have heard of eldar descending from reptiles. However they quite clearly have rapid metabolisms with their anime movement.

Eldar, whether they descended from an earlier species or not, were shaped and designed by the Old Ones. The Old Ones made the Eldar just as they wanted them to be. Everything about the Eldar physiology can be explained by "the Old Ones did it."

 Bookwrack wrote:
Eldar aren't descended from anything. They were created by the old ones.

They could very easily be descended from something and still have that be true. Think Eldar prototypes, or the Old Ones simply picking up a lizard they thought had potential and... transforming it into a space elf.

 Jayden63 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
in the case of eldar... "a old one did it"

Pretty much this. The old ones pretty much crated everything in some way or another. It bacially boils down to GOD did it.

Isn't this how humans all over the world have explained things that science can't? Then when science does, either it was "god's will" or the religion magically changes its beliefs overnight.

SharkoutofWata wrote:Eldar are a fictional race in a game with models. Let me ask, why are Elves immortal? Why do trolls turn to stone? Why do Dragons breathe fire in seven different kinds of ways? Why is Valerian steel better than other steel? What causes a Splicer to use a power he wasn't born with? How does a TIE fighter screech in the vacuum of space?

These are all made up things and taking them apart at such a ridiculously fine detail is ridiculous. So I'm going to say there's little hamsters that pooped on their DNA and now it doesn't deteriorate. Prove me wrong.

ThePrimordial wrote:Let me re-elaborate:
The 40k clothing of this is only to introduce the concept to onlookers. It has no role in the question. Which is: How does it come to be that when animals remain visually similar for eons they end up having ABSURDLY long DNA sequences?
^I don't even....Well Hamster droppings haven't been shown to produce any effect on cellular division or DNA copy-pasting.......so go figure. I mean there are people who raise hamsters and come in contact with a lot of poo and they're not immortal.

Have either of you have much experience with miniature giant space hamsters? A lot of this would be explainable if you did.

Seriously does anyone have an idea how DNA sequences end up lengthening?

 ThePrimordial wrote:
This is more of a science question than anything else.
Eldar as a species that have existed unmolested and been kept anatomically identical for millions of years have far longer DNA sequence strands than humans do.

More DNA doesn't mean superior. For example, an onion has around x12 times more DNA than a human.

 ThePrimordial wrote:

This has ups and downs. Gestation is far longer. And the species takes forever to show signs of age. Aging is caused by damage to the DNA strands over constant copying and thus, if there's far larger sequences, and the rate of copying is the same, it takes far longer for damage to occur. Whales are an earthbound example of these principles.

The amount of DNA doesn't dictate the length of gestation of an organism.
Aging of an organism isn't purely down to damage of cell structure or DNA. It's only one facet that influences the rate of age.
Some organisms are able to regenerate cells and tissues. Some go further to 're-start' their programming to return to an earlier stage of cellular development.
DNA copying is rather quick in the grand scale of things.

 ThePrimordial wrote:

My question really is how did those sequences get so long? I've always assumed it happens over vast periods of time as more and more genotypes and phenotypes get mixed in and added on to the DNA sequence but I don't know for sure.
Can anyone help?

Redundant DNA / Trash DNA sequences. I expect should an organism such as that exist, a lot of the traits will have been picked up through viral interaction. It's not too dissimilar to us - a lot of out genetic code is 'alien' to our species and was incorporated thanks to viruses.


Source: Me, I'm a geneticist.

Yeah that's what I meant. There would be more potential and trashed DNA sequences.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
There's that one jellyfish that undergoes reverse puberty.
To my knowledge DNA degradation and Cellular deterioration are the primary causes of age abut according to you there are others. I know the actions of bacterial organisms can be a cause, as can constant stress and damage to the body. What are others.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Seriously does anyone have an idea how DNA sequences end up lengthening?

Do you mean in actual real life? Because people have answered about the Eldar; the Old Ones created them (from scratch or an existing species) and so would've lengthened the DNA.

 Toofast wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
in the case of eldar... "a old one did it"

Pretty much this. The old ones pretty much crated everything in some way or another. It bacially boils down to GOD did it.

Isn't this how humans all over the world have explained things that science can't? Then when science does, either it was "god's will" or the religion magically changes its beliefs overnight.

No. Sorry but this really annoys me, because people constantly repeat it despite it being clearly false. The part of the Bible, for instance, devoted to explanations of natural phenomena is trivially small. The fact of the matter is that religions, instead of being some kind of science-substitute, have not actually cared much about such things at all.

Alcibiades wrote:

 Toofast wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
in the case of eldar... "a old one did it"

Pretty much this. The old ones pretty much crated everything in some way or another. It bacially boils down to GOD did it.

Isn't this how humans all over the world have explained things that science can't? Then when science does, either it was "god's will" or the religion magically changes its beliefs overnight.

No. Sorry but this really annoys me, because people constantly repeat it despite it being clearly false. The part of the Bible, for instance, devoted to explanations of natural phenomena is trivially small. The fact of the matter is that religions, instead of being some kind of science-substitute, have not actually cared much about such things at all.

Thing is a large part of religion is explaining the unexplainable, as well as giving context to mundane life. I can't remember the fella's name, but I know an anthropologist put forward this idea for religion etc, and it's still largely seen as part of the answer

 ThePrimordial wrote:
This is more of a science question than anything else.
Eldar as a species that have existed unmolested and been kept anatomically identical for millions of years have far longer DNA sequence strands than humans do.
This has ups and downs. Gestation is far longer. And the species takes forever to show signs of age. Aging is caused by damage to the DNA strands over constant copying and thus, if there's far larger sequences, and the rate of copying is the same, it takes far longer for damage to occur. Whales are an earthbound example of these principles.
My question really is how did those sequences get so long? I've always assumed it happens over vast periods of time as more and more genotypes and phenotypes get mixed in and added on to the DNA sequence but I don't know for sure.
Can anyone help?

I will try to explain to you why this question is not a good question to ask. I'm sure the actual geneticist on the thread can do a better job of providing answers, as a physicist I'm not an expert on telomeres and the like. But the basic premise of your question is incorrect.

First, as a number of people have pointed out, assuming that a wholly alien biology that is strongly implied to be at least partly artificially designed should conform to the principles of evolution as we understand them from terrestrial history is not a good starting point. Unfortunately, all the organisms on earth that have been discovered so far share a common ancestor, so we only have one example of evolution to study.

Aging is not solely caused by "damage to the DNA strands over constant copying", this is an enormous oversimplification. To my knowledge, there is no widely accepted single cause of aging. Here is a discussion.

Subsequent posts suggest your real question is basically "how does DNA get longer over many generations?" As far as I am aware (and I am not an expert) it's the same basic process of random mutation and selection pressure that drives evolution in general. Most changes are irrelevant "garbage" DNA that don't affect viability and the amount of this is used as a clock to measure how long two different organisms have been evolving along divergent lines for. In principle, these meaningless extra bits of DNA can accumulate very quickly with no effect on speciation.

The length of DNA has nothing to do with what we would call an organism's complexity or longevity, however, and this is the fundamental problem with your question as posed. You assume that longer life = longer DNA strand, or even just longer telomeres, and that is not correct even on Earth, where metabolism for example plays a far more important role from one species to another.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
This is more of a science question than anything else.
Eldar as a species that have existed unmolested and been kept anatomically identical for millions of years have far longer DNA sequence strands than humans do.
This has ups and downs. Gestation is far longer. And the species takes forever to show signs of age. Aging is caused by damage to the DNA strands over constant copying and thus, if there's far larger sequences, and the rate of copying is the same, it takes far longer for damage to occur. Whales are an earthbound example of these principles.
My question really is how did those sequences get so long? I've always assumed it happens over vast periods of time as more and more genotypes and phenotypes get mixed in and added on to the DNA sequence but I don't know for sure.
Can anyone help?

There are two things, the amount of information in the code and the number of chromosones that that code is broken down into.

Often the breakdown in the code happens at the end of the code, so longer strands of info is good.

Most animal life on earth has the same length of code, but for humans it's broken into 26 chromosones, for fruit flies its stored in 4. For some insects it's stored in over 300.

That's just the main DNA codes, midocondria also have their own DNA.

Eldar and Humans are the same species, as seen with the number of Eldar-Human half-breeds that pop up in the fiction. Effectively, Eldar are a branch of hominid that reach the stars in pre-history. Or, Humans are Exodite Eldar that predate the Eldar galactic disporia.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Eldar and Humans are the same species, as seen with the number of Eldar-Human half-breeds that pop up in the fiction. Effectively, Eldar are a branch of hominid that reach the stars in pre-history. Or, Humans are Exodite Eldar that predate the Eldar galactic disporia.

SJ

When was the last time there was an Eldar Human hybrid..? Eldar were created by the Old Ones. Maybe from Humanity but I'm pretty sure they've been around far far longer than humanity has.

Ultramarine Chief Astropath Illiyan Nastase, born to a human mother and Eldar father after the Badab War, would be one example.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Ultramarine Chief Astropath Illiyan Nastase, born to a human mother and Eldar father after the Badab War, would be one example.

SJ

I mean, when was that fluff written...