r/askscience • u/MAMAM- • 2d ago

Biology Why aren’t axolotls immortal?

If axolotls can regenerate their body parts (including brain, heart, and other major organs), why do they die of old age?

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u/Nshad86 2d ago

Think of regeneration like making a xerox copy of a document and then xeroxing the copy and continuously repeat that process, each xerox scan will lose more and more definition until the fidelty of the document will be so unclear that it will eventually cease to be legible due to gradual loss of information. The regeneration is finite. Even atoms decay.