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Bowhead Whales May Live 200 Years
kilroy2000 writes "This is off-topic from the usual Slashdot fare, but some readers may
find it interesting. A
Science News article
describes how it was discovered that bowhead whales can live to be 200 years old."
It looks solid because there were several independent means of measuring the age, including one test done blind. Researchers first got interested by noticing 100-year-old harpoon points still stuck in the 50-ton creatures. I wonder if they hold grudges.
Certain giant tortoises have been known to have a lifespan of up to 240 years! Namely the Aldabra Giant Tortoises, Geochelone gigantea. I guess we will all be able to sleep easy tonight knowing that these animals outlive us. Or maybe we can study the genetics of these animals and increase our own lifespan? Great, then we can overcrowd ourselves even more. This along with viagra and we better start colonizing in space pretty damn soon.
I was going to ask how one measured the age of harpoon wounds, then I realized that when they say harpoon "points", they actually means the age of the broken off tip of the harpoon.
Beware, Moby Dick will be coming for you Ronald P. Ahab, C.P.A
--------- Beware the dragon, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
I wonder what it would be like if we ever translated the whale songs into something we could understand. Hmm...
- Hmpf. Kids today. Always swimming around, playing with those humans in their pesky boats, always getting catched and eaten. In my days we weren't harpooned by modern equipment. No, sir! We were hunted by lone men, armed with wooden spears with flint points. Here, check them on my back, I've still have a few lodged somewhere. And we wouldn't even swim away! No, we crawled up into the ice and fought hand-to-fin with them! Why I remember that summer of '88... 1888, that is... uh... what was the subject again?
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
The only thing stopping humans from living this long, or even being immortal, is a part of the cell called the telemeter. It is a cell structure of a given length which divides in two with the cell, and eventually, becomes too small to divide further. When you run out of cells to divide, your body begins to erode, so to say, and you slowly begin to die. In cancerous cells, however, the telemeters do not shorten, causing the cell to divide unchecked. If only we could control this division, we could make people that could not only live forever, but would have eternal youth. Cancer wouldn't be so bad if only it didn't kill you. If only there were some sort of shot or pill to trigger and stop cell division, we could all be more or less demigods. The applications of such a thing are just mindblowing.
I've read things that indicate that the specific connection you mention is not causation. It's that the slower animals had less to deal with, and had more chance to develop life-prolonging mutations that payed off.
Take, for example, the rabbit and the tortoise. It may very well not be that the tortoise was slower and thus lived longer due to a slower metabolism. It could very well be that the tortoise is just slower because it has superior protection. And since it has superior protection, it does not have to get fast to get away. (This is unlike the rabbit who has to either not be seen or run really really fast in order to survive in the short-term). And then since the tortoise does not have to worry about as much, the mutations that contribute to longer-life pay off more in evolution
Otherwise, how would you explain that a pigeon has an maximum lifespan of 69 years, while a bear only has a maximum of 31?? The pigeon has a much higher metabolism. However, I'd point out that a pigeon might have a much higher chance of 'not having to worry about things' so much since it can fly away from problems easier than a bear.
So, you could say the better defense leads to longer life. The tortoise has a shell, the pigeon can fly, but the poor bear can only fight it out.