A microbiologist shared a strange fact about lobsters and people panicked



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Lobsters are genetically programmed not to age biologically. For us humans, it looks like they have the secret ingredient of life at hand, but there is a trap.

As a student in microbiology @ junius_64, points in an enlightening Twitter wirethey continue to grow and moult (shed their hard inelastic shell) until they die, but it is this very process that leads to their demise.

Junius compares their life cycle to making "an agreement with the devil for conditional immortality and he has turned against them".

So, what is the secret of their longevity? The answer is the telomeres, that is, the structures at the ends of chromosomes that prevent them from deteriorating.

Humans lose some of their telomeres whenever a cell divides. And because we have a limited number of telomeres, the cells stop dividing when they reach the critical length, causing the deterioration of our body.

This phenomenon of biological aging – where reproductive capacity decreases, metabolism slows down and strength decreases – is known as senescence.

As Junius says, "our biology encodes death as a fatality".

But unlike us – and most biological organisms – lobsters are constantly producing telomeres, so crustaceans are getting bigger and bigger.

In fact, the largest lobster ever caught weighed about 44 pounds and was estimated at 140 years old.

But despite their infinite amount of telomeres, lobsters are doomed as much as we do.

As Junius explains: "Entropy always comes for its due, and that's what even lobsters have to accept."

Death finally catches up during the moulting process. As crustaceans get bigger, they need more energy to get out of their exoskeletons.

When it becomes too much stress, their shells accumulate parasites and bacteria and the lobsters are trapped in their own skeletons.

Junius's Twitter feed has seen people on the Internet collectively terrified and fascinated.

But most were excited to learn something rather cool about the sea creature.

But whatever your feelings about them, you will probably never look at lobster in the same way.

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