Immortal Cells

[Captain_Shinzo]

A read a section a while back about how some doctor removed the tumor cells of a patient and they never stopped reproducing, making them immortal.
This reminded me of how the concept of immortality would disprove all gods and afterlifes.
Would immortal cells be evidence to disprove deities? =o  

[Levis Pennae]

[advocate=devil]One could argue that cancer is the work of the devil and was made to make "us" stray from 'the path'.[/advocate]  

[D i v i n i t y]

Have any links? I mean I don't think they were immortal o.o
Kill the patient and I bet the cells won't live very well Lol  

[Captain_Shinzo]

Actually, no. It was removed from the body and continued to multiply.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa  

[The Singular Enigma]

I'm fairly certain they wouldn't be immortal, just self-sustaining and self-replicating. If someone were to throw them into the surface of the sun, they certainly wouldn't be immortal.  

[dl1371]

Wikipedia

HeLa cells are termed "immortal" in that they can divide an unlimited number of times in a laboratory cell culture plate as long as fundamental cell survival conditions are met (i.e. being maintained and sustained in a suitable environment).

That doesn't mean they're immortal, the singular cells die out, but the group will stay that way forever. An Amoeba divides itself to reproduce, is it immortal? No is the answer.  

[Captain_Shinzo]

dl1371

Wikipedia

HeLa cells are termed "immortal" in that they can divide an unlimited number of times in a laboratory cell culture plate as long as fundamental cell survival conditions are met (i.e. being maintained and sustained in a suitable environment).

That doesn't mean they're immortal, the singular cells die out, but the group will stay that way forever. An Amoeba divides itself to reproduce, is it immortal? No is the answer.

I do not mean immortal as in the way of living forever, but being able to sustain itself through age.  

[dl1371]

Captain_Shinzo

dl1371

Wikipedia

HeLa cells are termed "immortal" in that they can divide an unlimited number of times in a laboratory cell culture plate as long as fundamental cell survival conditions are met (i.e. being maintained and sustained in a suitable environment).

That doesn't mean they're immortal, the singular cells die out, but the group will stay that way forever. An Amoeba divides itself to reproduce, is it immortal? No is the answer.

I do not mean immortal as in the way of living forever, but being able to sustain itself through age.

Well it depends.
If you consider it a multi-cellular organism then it is immortal
If its a colony of single-celled organisms then its not  

[Lethkhar]

The Singular Enigma

I'm fairly certain they wouldn't be immortal, just self-sustaining and self-replicating. If someone were to throw them into the surface of the sun, they certainly wouldn't be immortal.

That's not what biological immortality means.

Immortal cell lines are pretty common in biological fields. HeLa cells are a strain of cells taken from a woman named Henrietta Lacks, and they've been used in the testing of numerous vaccines. They were among the first to be genetically mapped.

Nobody really knows how they came to be immortal, though. They just randomly don't age as a side effect of the cancer she had. (She died from it shortly after having the sample taken)  

[PetreyDish]

I've never heard immortality to be an argument for atheism. Could someone shed some light on it for me?  

[Levis Pennae]

Only a god can be truly immortal, so it is reasoned that if a mortal can be immortal it throws the whole thing through the loop.  

[Captain_Shinzo]

Levis Pennae

Only a god can be truly immortal, so it is reasoned that if a mortal can be immortal it throws the whole thing through the loop.

That and if you can't die, that means you can't go to an afterlife. That kind of RUINS heaven's purpose and destroys hell's threat. Pretty much, being immortal would make earth a heaven.  

[Radical Hypocrisy]

Just putting this out there, but we actually have Immortal Creatures roaming the earth. Well, roaming the seas of the earth.

While it isn't true immortality (This meaning one cannot be killed. Ever. In anyway) the Turritopsis nutricula (or Immortal Jellyfish) is Biologically immortal.

This means that when a normal jellyfish would just keel over and go the the great Barrier Reef in the sky, this little sucker just reverts back to it's youthful "polyp phase." Over and over and over and over again. There could be jellyfish out there well over a million years old.

Here's the real clincher, though. If the food runs out, the Immortal Jellyfish can revert at will.

Now, since there aren't many things that have the cajones to mess with a jellyfish, the only time they are in danger is when they are polyps, since jellyfish polyps are a pretty tasty snack, or so I've heard told. If they dodge that bullet, though, there is theoretically no age at which they will die. We have found the Energizer of the sea. Because it keeps going and going and going and going and going.  

[=X-Sparker + AquaKiller=]

I Aint Laughing

Just putting this out there, but we actually have Immortal Creatures roaming the earth. Well, roaming the seas of the earth.

While it isn't true immortality (This meaning one cannot be killed. Ever. In anyway) the Turritopsis nutricula (or Immortal Jellyfish) is Biologically immortal.

This means that when a normal jellyfish would just keel over and go the the great Barrier Reef in the sky, this little sucker just reverts back to it's youthful "polyp phase." Over and over and over and over again. There could be jellyfish out there well over a million years old.

Here's the real clincher, though. If the food runs out, the Immortal Jellyfish can revert at will.

Now, since there aren't many things that have the cajones to mess with a jellyfish, the only time they are in danger is when they are polyps, since jellyfish polyps are a pretty tasty snack, or so I've heard told. If they dodge that bullet, though, there is theoretically no age at which they will die. We have found the Energizer of the sea. Because it keeps going and going and going and going and going.

That's pretty cool!!

Well, in response to original post, ever-reproducing cells are called "cancer". We've got thousands of cases of them. However, just because it doesn't stop reproducing, it doesn't mean it's immortal (Humans never stopped reproducing; are we immortal? No. Exactly). If it can be said that a single cell of that tumor cell never dies out, then yeah it's immortal. But if it's the group that keeps on living, then it's not entirely immortal. Besides, God-like "immortality" means that he can touch the sun and not die. I'm pretty sure both the cells and the jellyfish will die when getting too close to the sun. Sorry to disprove your theory. But the jellyfish is pretty cool!!