Red Sea Urchins Nearly Immortal

varjag writes "A study by scientists from Oregon State University and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have revealed that Red Sea urchins are practically immortal. While they can die from diseases or predator attacks, it seems that their life span has no biological limit. Specimen as old as 100 and 200 years have been discovered, while previously they were expected to last no longer than 7-15 years."

Comments

Re:Nearly immortal?

[Tyreth]

The problem with ageing is that there's an arbitrary 'string'. iirc, every time a cell replicates, this 'string' is cut a bit shorter. Once it's gone, the cells stop replicating. ie, it's an arbitrary limit to lifespan, and there's no reason that if this string was extended, perhaps indefinitely, that we couldn't live forever. I believe it's called telomere.

Since this is possibly/probably a genetic trait, it is plausible that humans once lived longer, but unfortunate events left us with a shorter lifespan. Ah, here I found more details.

I, for one, ...

[fygment]

... welcome our Red Sea urchin overlords.