Tumor-suppressing Gene Contributes to Aging

Van Cutter Romney writes "Scientists have discovered a tumor suppressing gene which also leads to aging in stem cells. The gene also known as p16INK4a when removed from 'knockout' mice resulted in older mice having organs as healthy as younger ones. However they didn't live any longer than normal mice. The new study was confirmed by three independent researchers from Harvard, UNC Chapel Hill and University of Michigan."

Comments

Principle of Hardy-Heisenberg-Jagger

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

The article basically states that when they turned off the flow of ink-4, embyyonic stem cells were free to divide without check. The mice without the ability to produce ink-4 developed cancer within a year and died.

There's a famous principle in Mathematics & Quantum Mechanics, first discovered by the British mathematician GH Hardy, and then refined by Heisenberg, which states that both a function & its Fourier transform cannot decay too rapidly [otherwise the function is identically zero].

Or, as Mic Jagger put it: You can't always get what you want.

So it sounds like The Designer of the Universe [a pretty intelligent Fellow, from what I hear] may have placed the very same restrictions on the stuff He created on Day 5 as He did on the stuff He created way back on Day 1.

Re:Principle of Hardy-Heisenberg-Jagger

[Rakshasa Taisab]

So it sounds like The Designer of the Universe [a pretty intelligent Fellow, from what I hear] may have placed the very same restrictions on the stuff He created on Day 5 as He did on the stuff He created way back on Day 1.

I forget, was it spaghetti or ramen he created on Day 5?

Re:Hmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

The mice didn't live longer because they had to kill the mice to check if the organs were as healthy. :-)

You say flawed methodology, I say.... progress!

Cancer, then, is an anti-aging program

[NotQuiteReal]

Cancer, then, is an anti-aging program

Yes, when cancer works, you stop getting older.

Q.E.D.

Re:Cancer, aging.

[Explodicle]

I support the ban on cloning...

Hey, the average Slashotter isn't reproducing the normal way... why you gotta be stomping on our only hope?

Re:Article quoted the caloric-restriction bogosity

[zCyl]

Unfortunately, caloric restriction only raises the life expectancy of rodents in the laboratory, not when exposed to natural conditions.

Well I know plenty of people who spend all day in the lab and barely take any time off to eat. But I'm guessing this will not increase their lifespan much. :)

Re:Cancer, aging.

[kalirion]

Why is it that back in Biblical times, people like Abraham & Moses used to live several hundred years? Did they all have cancer? (Assuming that cancer is an anti-aging program)

It's really quite simple. The early people had nearly perfect genes (you know, made in God's image and all that), but since God only really created two (and the second one was basically a clone of the first one but with the Y chromosome taken out and the X duplicated again) there was a LOT of inbreeding going on. Which isn't all that bad, with nearly perfect genes, but it adds up. And then, just as there were plenty of people around again, God drowns nearly everyone and it's back to inbreeding....

Re:Cancer, aging.

[tartlhuQ]

Both are totally fuckable.