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Paypal Co-Founder Backs Anti-Aging Research Prize
Baldrson writes, "Anti-aging researchers, via The Methuselah Mouse Prize or M-Prize, are receiving an additional $3 million incentive to stop and reverse aging. Researchers win M-Prize money in increments by breaking longevity records for mice or reversing their aging. The philanthropic donation comes from Peter Thiel, co-founder and former CEO of PayPal. Mr. Thiel has pledged to match each dollar donated to the M-Prize with his own 50 cent contributions up to $3 million." The M-Prize was created by Aubrey de Grey, a controversial biomedical gerontologist in Cambridge, England.
Funding research motivates a single lab. Offering a prize motivates all of them.
For good or ill stupid little trophies presented at awards ceremonies is a motivator for most people. The prize looks like a lot of money, but really, compared to what you'll likely have to spend to collect it it's just a stupid little trophy.
KFG
How is this a better idea? It doesn't help me.
Deleted
It's not even the case that one need consider an aging gene as a parasitic gene. Evolution does not work on individuals but rather on populations, and for the population, it is better to have individuals eventually die off to make room for the next generation of random mutations, to try and get a better fit this time around. The population is constantly optimising. The individual is simply static throughout its lifespan.
May the Maths Be with you!
"f there were some mutant strain of mouse that had a dispropotionately long lifespan compared to his peers, free from the negative consequenecs of age, would (s)he not reproduce far more offspring bearing his/her genes than the others, over time?"
Short answer: No.
Look to humans: it doesn't matter how long after menopause a woman lives, she's already had all the kids she's ever going to have. She could live to be 1,000, but unless she's fertile and breeding for a longer time, she's not going to be making that big a wave in the gene pool.
The guy's money is his to do as he likes, of course, but how about funding research into diseases that affect people at a young age - heart disease, obesity, depression - instead of keeping people alive longer than nature intends?
God, how I should love to have your genes.
If you had my genes you would likely be dead already. I am a mass of genetic dysfunction. Cystic Fibrosis, Celiac Disease, dyslexic, disgraphic and dyspraxic, with resultant atrophy of childhood skeletal and muscular development.
Life is hard and tenuous. Had I been born at the time of my grandparents I would have died at about two years of age. The lifespan of my ancestors does not take into account familial infant mortality.
Strangely enough I'm "strong and healthy" (excepting the odd "spell" when I just fall over for a few months at a time) and function in the top percentiles at anything I turn my hand/brain to (but mind you I've never turned my hand to American football linebacker or basketball center). Go figure. Life is also funny.
And full of coping mechanisms.
KFG