Expert: Walter Hintz - 3/18/2010

Question
Mr. Hintz,

I told you the last time that I had been doing research. The topic I have been doing it on is "why do we age?"  I am planning on writing my research down but I am not completely sure how.  So, do I basically just write my findings down in a standard research paper, like the one I just did for American History?  If not can you give me an example of how I should write down my research? Also, partly since I don't have much time because of school and partly because I don't have enough money, my research has primarily been hypothetical. In other words, instead of actually doing an experiment I have been researching past experiments and theorizing what the results mean. I am worried I may not be considered credible since I haven’t done my own experiment. Though, I have heard of other scientists only proposing a hypothesis rather than a solution so maybe I’m fine. But, what do you think? Thanks!

Mark

Answer
Hi Mark
First of all I would change the title of the project from "Why do we age?" to something like "what factors bring about the aging process?"  This is because "why" questions are in the realm of evolutionary biology. In other words the answer to why we age is because aging is the result of the evolutionary process.  
There is another thing for you to consider.  Single cells in culture or single celled organisms do not age.  They are immortal and only die by accident.  As long as the conditions are right they just divide. (Look up Alex Carrel and chick heart cells) We can take individual cells from a body and culture them and in the right medium they just undergo asexual reproduction. The price for sexual reproduction is death and aging brings about death.
 I cannot tell how to prepare your paper because I do not know the requirements of the teacher. It seems that any experiments regarding aging are unlikely
walter