borked

ah go on then, while I'm on the Burgundy, and in case there are any biologists around who will step me up - eukaryotic cells, yes will die, because they have linear chromosomes, whereas bacteria have circular ones. The problem with that is that when the DNA replicates (during cell division), a linear chromosome poses a problem - how to replicate the end, because the machinery will just fall off, missing the last few bases.

Over time, this will lead to shortening of the chromosome and losing precious genes. Bacteria don't have this problem because their DNA is circular, hence the machinery to replicate goes around and around.

Eukaryotes (yeast and us) overcome this problem by sticking 'junk' DNA to the ends of chromosomes, called 'telomeres'.

The problem is, eventually, we end up using up the telomeres and start eating up our own DNA. This is called 'ageing'. Honest to gods truth. Then we die.

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For coding work - hit me up on andy // borkedcoder // com
(consider figuring out the email as test #1)