True or false: An increase in slope of the age-specific mortality graph would suggest a decrease in the rate of aging. Explain.
This table in conjunction with Figure 2.11, which illustrates mortality rate (qx), shows what about the mortality rate around age 60-69 (take a look at the shape of the curve)?
Short-answer question: Briefly describe the applications of a current life table.
Summarize Medawar’s test tube experiment. Is the “death” of the tubes due to aging?
What does this graph tell us about reproductive success and the age of individuals?
Hamilton’s Theory:
Keep in mind that Hamilton recognized that since highest fecundity occurs at the time of lowest mortality (ex. the young have the children), so Medewar’s method of looking at reproductive success over the entire life span was very imprecise, so…….he hypothesized that FITNESS would vary over a lifespan.
Hamilton considered that natural selection would be most significant before reproductive age and select for traits to reach reproductive age.
What this indicated is that if a subset of the population carries genes for reproduction later in life, so the natural selection on mortality would be shifted along with mortality (see Figure 3.10)? This was a breakthrough in showing how LONGEVITY could have evolved.
Short-answer question: Briefly describe (two or three sentences) the role of tRNA in building a protein from mRNA .
DNA is the heritable material in a cell and “programs” the proteins that will be made by the cell. Are all the possible proteins made in all cells all the time?
Mitochondria are the “powerhouses of the cell”. Why?
What major shift in cause of death occurred between 1920 and 1940 and why?
True or false (and explain your answer): Gender differences in life expectancy at birth cannot be supported by the evolutionary theory of longevity.
What is Total Energy Expenditure?
What is geriatric failure to thrive?
Briefly describe the process of hearing. What structures are affected by sound waves?
Briefly describe the ionic and electrical events involved in a neural impulse (action potential). You can also draw the process with labels.
True or false: In general, infections of the brain are rare due to the increased permeability of the capillaries that form the blood-brain barrier.
True or false: The ability of the human brain to develop new neural connections, or its neuroplasticity, remains robust during aging.
Briefly describe the difference between systemic and pulmonary circulation.
List the four major risk factors for coronary artery disease.
True or false: Type 2 diabetes mellitus is entirely due to insufficient insulin secretion by the pancreas.
True or false: The loss of appropriate blood flow to tissues in type 2 diabetes reflects, in large part, a decrease in the microvasculature’s compliance properties resulting from increased glycosylation of the connective tissues.
Name several drug types used to treat osteoporosis. Describe how one of them works.
Why can’t aging be modulated?
Why is the possible benefit of calorie restriction in humans uncertain and controversial?
Define reserve capacity and explain how exercise helps to maintain the reserve capacity in our organ systems as we age.
Briefly explain what is meant by “compression of morbidity” and describe how it changes the discussion of the issues facing a society with an expanding older population.
What challenges will society, especially the young workforce, face as a higher proportion of the population is considered elderly?
The author of your textbook gives his prediction about how a longer lifespan may affect the birthrate. Has the predicted trend started in any particular countries/societies? Give your opinion of his theory and use an example to make your point
