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Can age be determined by DNA?

Let say that all the places that DNA can be found for testing are available: Hair root, urine, semen and saliva. With one or all of theses samples in one or multiple tests can the age of an individual be determined within a couple of years?

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Given the fact that DNA is simply the plans for life or the basic instructions for an organism. I don't think this is possible, the only way i could imagine this being possible is by determining the number of times a piece of DNA has copied itself and then by analyzing the errors in the copy. One could in theory, determine based off of an estimation of 6 months per copy an approximate age....this is some what of pseudo science given that pure non mutated DNA is impossible to come by.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    ...Sort of. There's a theory that aging is caused by the loss of the end strands that are there to prevent the shortening of the function coding of DNA due to the way DNA is replicated, and can't duplicate completely through the end piece.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    No, not within a couple of years.

    The ends of our chromosomes are called "telomeres"; each time the chromosome divides, the new telomere is shorter. This can give a vague idea of whether the person was a child or an adult, but it's not accurate to within a couple of years.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    No. But it is possible to remove certain sections of code to stop you from growing older.

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