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Geneticists Claim Aging Breakthrough
Quirk writes "The Science section of The Guardian is reporting on recent experiments by geneticists 'to unlock the secrets of the aging process has created organisms that live six times their usual lifespan, raising hopes that it might be possible to slow ageing in humans.' 'In the experiment, Dr Longo's team took yeast cells and knocked out two key genes, named Sir2 and SCH9. The latter governs the cells' ability to convert nutrients into energy. They found that instead of dying after a week, the cells lived for up to six weeks.''Research has now begun to test whether the effect works in mice.' So it looks like we might soon have near immortal, fearless mice."
The only thing that will last longer than I will is the copyright on my face.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Yes I know, it was a purposeful oversimplification. My point was also showing that jumping from yeast cells to mice is overly optimistic at best, and that transferring such a mutation from a single cell organism to a mammal may lead to unforseen consequences.
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i know exactly when these amazing age-related breakthroughs will come to fruition for humanity
exactly at the age at which i am too old to partake of any of it
That's not really a joke.
People in government see anti-aging research and treatments in terms of the financial load on the retirement and medical infrastructure relative to the tax base of still-working young, and view improved treatments as extending the life of the infirm aged rather than extending productive, vigorous youth. As a result they tend to be opposed to such research, or in favor of rationing its fruits if it ever has any.
(I recall back in the early days of CNN, when the head of one of the government agencies was being live-interviewed on future solvency issues as the boomers retired, and he slipped and said "We have to get the death rate up to meet the birthrate." Guess what part got clipped from the replay a few hours later...)
Life-extension advocates, of course, point out that real breakthroughs will extend healthy, vigorous life rather than simply stretching senility - and might eventually eliminate the latter entirely. Thus an effective attack on aging would reduce, rather than increase, the load on the systems (once they were adjusted for the increased lifespan).
You'll notice that a significant fraction of The Fine Article is dedicated to heading off such short-sightedness on the part of the portion of the ruling class that will be dispensing grant money and regulating availability of any treatments.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
There's one argument against longevity I've not been able to properly argue against, it's effects on social evolution.
A lot of social change can take place because old people (and more specifically, old people ideas) die. I'm sure many of us feel that our ideas are enlightened and superior to those of our ancestors, but when we're all pushing 70, we really shouldn't be the ones deciding the direction which society goes. In the year 2050, we're all going to be bitter crotchety old people, set in our ideas talking about these young kids and their crazy ideas. I'm concerned what living in that kind of world will be like. It might have a stagnation effect on a culture, with other "non-longevity" cultures overtaking our own.
I'm still 100% for longevity, but it's not going to be great grandmas and grandpas riding roller blades down the sidewalk as healthy as they were when they were 40. There's going to be definate social change the kind the human race has never seen.
Be sure of one more thing. Someone's going to make a FORTUNE if effective anti-aging drugs can be mass produced. Like, hundreds of billions of dollars, hand over fist.
Well the foreseen consequences of not doing anything about aging are well known... getting frail, sick and dying.
The Sirtuin genes are well established as a regulator of genes expressed near the ends of telomeres and there are many researchers studying its effects in mammals in fact there are pharmaceutical companies (Sirtris for instance) betting the pharm that, resveratrol, a component of red wine and activator of mammalian sir2 pathway, can be tweaked into a more powerful drug and help everyone live healthier longer.
Whichever way you look at it... aging is going to be "oh so yesterday..." within the next few years. Baby boomers will soon get the message that we know enough to start really looking at the dysfunction that increases as we get older as "treatable" by attacking it at the root cellular processes which give rise to it. Now if only those people in the "pro-aging trance" could wake-up we'd there would really be an all out War on Aging and many of our parents and loved ones would be around longer not to mention the 250 billion dollars that would be saved not having to buy diapers for them. Seems the best solution to the rising costs of Medicare from an increasingly frail population that everyone is whining about is to maker sure they don't get frail in the first place.
In fact..
There's a research prize of THREE MILLION DOLLARS being offered to the scientist that beat the world record for the lifespan of a mouse using any technologies available.
Mprize