Once rendered mortal, the telomeres of the cancer cells began shrinking until cell division ceased. Most recently, a group of researchers at the University of California in San Francisco revealed in the May 4 issue of Science that it had discovered a way to disrupt the precise way in which telomerase spins out telomere sequences. The disruption caused the telomerase enzymes to run amok, manufacturing telomeres uncontrollably, until they stalled out like a car run into a ditch. Cell death soon ensued. So scientists now believe that we do have clocks that regulate our life span.
Death remains the bad news.
The good news is that biological clocks are less like Father Time's hourglass and more like the faithful Timex. The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.