This assignment is intended to encourage you to try to find difficult information, and also to practice making sense out of material that may sometimes be complex. The assignment is to spend some time searching the web to try to figure out what the Hayflick Limit is, and how it relates to aging, and then to write a brief report of what happened and what you found out.

A. Credit for a regular homework assignment will be given if: 1. you spend 15 minutes searching the web, and 2. you write a brief one-page report on how you searched and what you found.

B. extra homework credit will be given if:

1. you spend more than 15 minutes, and

2. you visit some of the sites below and also hunt for something on your own, and

3. you write 1-2 pages that summarizes (briefly) how you found websites and which ones you visited, and (more importantly) explains correctly and in your own words what the Hayflick limit is and why it has implications for theories of aging.  Your total report for Option B should be no more than 2 pages.

C. even more homework credit will be given if you do all of the above and also explain (correctly) how all this relates to cancer. Total report: no more than 3 pages.

D. even more homework credit will be given if you solve the problem described in #5 below. Total report: no more than 4 pages.

When you submit your homework, state whether you are applying for credit under A, B, C, or D above.

 To do all this, you should hunt for some appropriate websites on your own. In addition, you may or may not want to look at some of the sites I found.

1. http://www.totse.com/en/fringe/life_extension/age5.html

 This is oversimplified and not completely correct.

2. http://futuresedge.org/hayflick_limit.shtml

 Too complicated. Try to skim the first part - skip over the list of patents, and read the first four paragraphs in the section on What do the patents say about telomerase, and see if you can make any sense out of it.

3. http://www.rickhershberger.com/bioactivesite/cells/cancer/sld001.htm

 This is one on cancer. It’s a slide show, and you may get lost after the first few slides. Try to figure out what cancer has to do with the Hayflick limit.

4. http://www.swmed.edu/home_pages/cellbio/shay-wright/publications/Hayflick.Nature.pdf

This one is a pretty good, thorough article.

5. Try this: go to the list of websites on aging that appears in the list of Handouts for Psyc 345. Scroll down until you see information on the National Institute on Aging Information Center, and use the link given there to try to connect to it. You may find that the link doesn’t work. If so, try to figure out how to solve that problem and connect to the main National Institute on Aging site. I do NOT want you to just use a search engine to find the main National Institute on Aging site.. Instead, experiment with modifying the web address until you get connected. When you do solve the problem and correctly connect to the National Institute for Aging, do a search for “Hayflick limit.” You should find an article that is quite thorough and also quite readable. I’ll explain this in class on Thursday for those who don’t figure it out.

A FINAL NOTE: If you do the optional parts of this assignment, you may want to also fill out website review forms and complete one or both of the website reviews that are required for this course. If you do them now, you will not have to do them later.

Total assignment length: Minimum one page. Maximum 2 to 4 pages depending on which options you chose above.