PhilGoetz comments on Even if you have a nail, not all hammers are the same - Less Wrong

95 Post author: PhilGoetz 29 March 2010 06:09PM

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Comment author: Peter_de_Blanc 30 March 2010 04:47:19AM 6 points [-]

Or it might be that, if we measured all the responses simultaneously, we'd find that mounting a protective response to radiation made us more vulnerable to infection, alcohol, and all the rest.

Or maybe it would just require the expenditure of energy.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 30 March 2010 04:30:45PM *  3 points [-]

And yet anabolism and expenditures of energy pretty reliably shorten lifespan. Many of these responses rely on the use of regulatory RNA; and the dicer-mediated siRNA mechanism has been shown to have a limited capacity that degrades when multiple regulatory responses occur simultaneously.