This shortens the telomere and, after 50-70 such divisions (a number known as the Hayflick limit, after its discoverer), a chromosome can grow no shorter and the cell it is in can divide no more.That provides a backstop against cancer.
The availability of this potential liquidity reassures the market and provides a backstop that, because of its mere presence, makes it less likely to be utilized".
Even as the government provides a backstop to some of Citigroup's losses, it is unclear whether regulators have considered all the types of assets that may cause future losses.
Yet critics of the decline of American commercial shipping argue that the strength of the merchant marine has real consequences for national security, meaning a strong commercial shipping industry provides a backstop to the Navy in the time of war.
It would also provide a backstop for struggling homeowners, since the trust would have the legal right to step in and assist residents in the event of foreclosure.
Regulation, or the threat of it, would goad Congress to act or provide a backstop if it did not.
Natural gas reserves and new factories may provide a backstop, but it's a far cry from the heady days of coal mania.
The company had withdrawn an earlier bid over the weekend because the federal government refused to provide a backstop for the deal the way it had for Bear Stearns.
For the nation's largest banks, there is a widely shared assumption that the government would be forced to provide a backstop to protect depositors in a crisis, as it did in 2008.
Once all this is dealt with, the question then becomes who will provide a backstop in the event that a bank has a capital shortfall that it cannot fill itself, and its government has too much debt to help out.
