The Oldest Mouse Contest

Shipud writes "Nature reports a contest that was launched in Britain today, to produce the oldest laboratory mouse. Current record in 5 years -- 150 in human years. From the page : ``Researchers can use any technique to boost longevity, including genetic manipulation and stem-cell therapy''. Winners will receive cash for every day beyond the current record. The Methuselah Mouse contest was created in an effort to boost research into human longevity."

Comments

Why?

[Max Romantschuk]

I see the obvious scientific benefits in research like this. What I don't see is if we really would like to live much longer. I for one feel that imortality would be more of a curse than a blessing. Thoughts?

Then again, if we get hints on dementia and other comparable illnesses I'm all for it!

Re:Why?

[LeoDV]

I think we tell ourselves that immortality would be a curse to make ourselves feel better about not having it. Think about it, it takes years, maybe even a lifetime, to know just a big city, or a country. If you were to go backpacking round the world, without paying heed to the time passing (and for good reason), by the time you'd make it back to where you started, everything will have changed so much you could as well go round again.

And if you get tired of that, it'd take at least a few centuries to read all the great literature, watch all the great movies, listen to all the great music... There is so much humanity produced and is producing, that not only is a lifetime not enough, but probably not even eternity. Entropy would take its toll on you before you'd be done with everything you had wanted to do.

Re:Why?

[pubjames]

I for one feel that imortality would be more of a curse than a blessing. Thoughts?

My take on this is that people who fear death are often those that don't make full use of the life they have. People that live full and rich lives don't fear death.

There is a memorable scene in a classic old movie, The Man Who Would Be King with Michael Caine and Sean Connery. Facing death due to an avalanche in the Himalayas, one turns to the other and says something like "we may have lived half the time of most men, but we've lived twice the life". Thus, they face death with humour and with their heads held high, without regret or worry.

Re:Why?

[Gyan]

Except that the novelty would wear out.

After I've completely known 100 cities, the 101st would be a drag, despite it being a new experience. You'll have learnt enough to see the 101st city as just another instance with different specifics. After reading 10001 books, you will start predicting plots and other elements of literature much better. There won't be much excitement of anticipation left. The root behind all this would be that since you've lived for centuries/millenia, your understanding of human behaviour would be sufficiently mature to dull the curiousity related to the fruits of human creativity.

Re:This is the kind of research I like to see.

[evrybodygonsurfin]

It's like the absurdity of cancer therapies that can't be tried on terminally patients because they might have side effects.

Insightful point indeed. Presumably you make this from the perspective of someone who has watched a loved one suffering from terminal cancer be pumped full of toxic chemicals to the very limit of their mortal capabilities and then subjected to near-fatal doses of radiation in an attempt to lengthen their existance?

Given these circumstances, it is baffling that patients aren't queuing up to be guniea-pigs for the less `conservative' experimental therapies.

Because

[varjag]

What I don't see is if we really would like to live much longer. I for one feel that imortality would be more of a curse than a blessing.

One nice thing of immortality is that you always can opt-out.

Seriously, I don't mind living a spare century or two. YMMV, of course.

Re:This is the kind of research I like to see.

[bundaegi]

Keywords are palliative treatment, quality of life.
Need to be balanced with patient's choice (or their relatives?) but if the prognosis is bleak then maybe it's more important to spend quality time with your loved ones rather than enduring agressive treatment that's not going to be effective anyway.

Oh yeah... trials on terminal patients. Maybe people like grandparent (and those who modded him up) don't see the ethical issues involved. Sad it came from somebody involved in bioinformatics. Don't you guys have any philosophy lectures anymore? even basic stuff?
Simply put, what next? you are given permission to start trials on patients who are going to die after all, then what? trials on prisoners? soldiers? random population sample? Thinking about it, it's not like this hasn't been tried before...

Re:Don't need genetically altered food

[Walkiry]

>>The problem is political instability

And one way GM foods can help solve that is by allowing crops to grow in less favourable conditions. All that instability is, at the end of the day, just a hinderance to distribution. If we can make it easier to better grow crops locally, so much the better.

Also GM food can help in some other ways. You might have heard about the Golden Rice, a variety of rice that contains a high amount of A-vitamin and could be a great help to prevent its deficiency (which is quite a bit of a problem in many areas of Africa and South-East Asia).

We might not need it per se, but it sure is a nifty and useful tool to more easily solve certain problems.

Re:Out of the IBM support database

[rjch]

...I firmly believe that this (extremely) old joke probably contributed more than anything to the invention of the optical mouse...

Oh, please.

[Dr. Manhattan]

Except that the novelty would wear out.

Tell you what. After I've stood on an airless planetoid in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, and watched the Milky Way rise over its horizon, then you can ask me if I've seen everything worth seeing.

The root behind all this would be that since you've lived for centuries/millenia, your understanding of human behaviour would be sufficiently mature to dull the curiousity related to the fruits of human creativity.

So, a citizen of the Roman Empire circa 0 A.D. wouldn't be a bit surprised at the world of 2003? In any sphere; not just science, but art, politics, culture, etc.?

Just because you can't imagine that genuinely new things will come up...

Re:Works by maintaining/increasing telomere length

[Dr. Manhattan]

Telomeres are not the 'secret' of immortality. There are a lot of things that gradually wear down or accumulate in the human body (e.g. heavy metals) that cannot be dealth with by normal metabolic function, even in youthful bodies.

Real immortatlity is going to require active, artificial repair and maintenance systems.

It's analogous to a TTL field in a packet.

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

If a packet gets routed too many times, it's probably a loop. The TTL field gets decremented on each hop and the packet dies when it reaches 0.

If a cell divides too many times, it's probably cancerous (if it's not a reproductive cell), the telemores get shortened on each division, and the cell goes senescent when they're gone.

This is the mechanism behind the "Hayflick Limit" (q.v.). Last I read, nobody including Dr. Hayflick was sure how much this phenomenon had to do with real-life aging.