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Aging Discovery Yields Nobel Prize
An anonymous reader writes This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to three scientists who have solved a major problem in biology: how the chromosomes can be copied in a complete way during cell divisions and how they are protected against degradation. The Nobel Laureates have shown that the solution is to be found in the ends of the chromosomes, called the telomeres, and in an enzyme that forms them."
So can I be immortal yet? Or is it like Highlander, there can only be one?
It's great news however how are we going to solve the population crisis when the Earth gets too small?
I always knew I was going to be 512 years old before I die. :]
So they've changed the chromosome code to encode data using a lossless codec instead of a lossy one. Terrific, now we have to put up with people moaning about the lack of FLAC encoding in their music AND genes.
Thanks a bunch, stupid scientists.
Summation 2
In Korea, only old people have chromosomal degradation in cell replication.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
I would settle for being put to death at 85 to keep population under control, if it meant my bones, mussels and organs didn't age. One of the worst thing about watching someone get old is to see their self reliance taken away and needing someone to help them into and out of the bath, change their diaper, feed them and put them to bed. THE worst thing is realizing someday it could and probably will happen to you.
It's sad but you start off with needing someone to look after you and that's how it ends, if you live that long.
Most normal cells do not divide frequently, therefore their chromosomes are not at risk of shortening and they do not require high telomerase activity. In contrast, cancer cells have the ability to divide infinitely and yet preserve their telomeres. How do they escape cellular senescence? One explanation became apparent with the finding that cancer cells often have increased telomerase activity. It was therefore proposed that cancer might be treated by eradicating telomerase. Several studies are underway in this area, including clinical trials evaluating vaccines directed against cells with elevated telomerase activity.
So Speak for yourself if you want to jump off a bridge at 85. I work with several incredibly bright people who are in their mid 70's who still travel the world. With the advent of information technology we can even do our work without being physically active, just a computer and internet access.
By the time I turn 85 in the 2050's, it will be the new 55! I'll race you to the top of the mountain.
Hmm, I wonder what algorithm is that Telumere and whether it is look-up tables based...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I thought I remembered learning about this four years ago in my introductory college biology class, if not sooner. Does the article not address the actual new discoveries (I did RTFA), or did their work just make it into textbooks and common knowledge before they had a chance to perfect, formalize, be recognized, and win a Nobel prize for it?
Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined that Sigs are Dangerous to Your Health
I know I saw something about the degenerative effects of aging being brought about by telomeres breaking off during cellular division in a Popular Science or Discover Magazine around ten years ago.
Who is that? There is only one. And he is not Duncan.
c:subdue
That's evolutionary checksum for you. :D
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The solution is left as a exercise for the reader.
This was on Slashdot more than 10 years ago:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/98/12/30/1210235/Cells-with-Infinite-Reproduction?art_pos=9
People used to have a much lower life expectancy long time ago.
Maybe cancer is the innevitable result of us trying to live too long, overpopulating/lack of diversity of genes?
If we push the telomerase activity higher, I'm afraid the result will not be immortality, but cancer.
I find it ironic how death is a part of life - litterally.
Youthful until the very end, then decline quickly.
...just not the way Henrietta Lacks did.
I was actually wondering how viral technology was evolving. I'm far from a biologist, so correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we able to reverse engineer and create our own viruses in laboratories now? Doesn't a virus take over your cell and reprogram it with the code wrapped up in the virus itself? It starts making the cell pump out tons of new viruses which ultimately bursts the cell and kills it. How much more difficult would it be to create a virus with your DNA from saved blood at age 20 (say your 60 now), program it to hijack the cell and reprogram it with the new DNA? There would have to be a few modifications made, for example, making it invisible to your immune system, coding the virus to die after reprogramming the cell, etc. Then just fill up an IV and let them flow into your body. I'm sure there's a huge difference from the kind we can engineer versus the type I'm suggesting, but is it possible? Or would the temporary pause of cell function during the reprogramming phase kill you?
As it is now if someone with, what I consider, average financial skills with an average career works for 45 years, retires at 65 and doesn't die until 100, even if they were in good physical shape, they'd most likely be running low on funds to support themselves. I'm sure someone with better financial skills and the same average career could support themselves longer, but funds will run out and investments will sour eventually.
so I'd like to know, How would you support yourself indefinitely?
There already is less reproduction. Most developed countries have a negative population growth rate. Their population grows due to immigration.
Life doesn't revolve around making the lives of individual organisms comfortable or convenient. It revolves around the ability of the species genes to propagate. Having immortal organisms would actually hinder genetic variation and hurt the species. If an organism did stumble upon an unlimited source of energy, the specie's survival is best served if that organism still eventually dies and it's then the energy source is utilized by offspring, who in turn later die too.
It serves a purpose that's somewhat analogous to Presidential term limits.
Evolution and immortality wouldn't mix well.
I'm sure there are going to be the usual 'if we lived longer civilization would collapse' arguments, forgetting that if I can live into my 100's.. I'm going to be aging a lot slower, hence working a lot longer as well. If I have the body of a 50 y/o and I'm 100, why would I stop working? The whole point would be to keep busy and active throughout my longer, healthier life.
"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." George Bernard Shaw
>>Why even bother with things like HRT when you can just tell people's cells to stop aging. Personally I have always found it odd that an organism with nearly unlimited access to energy still grows old and dies.
The purpose of life isn't to live forever, it is for your genes to live forever, and the best way for that to happen is through multiple generations. The time it takes between generations is variable, but as inevitable as it is important.
We studied this back in my High School Genetics course... we knew all about Telomeres/Telomerase back then and scientists were already working on creating synthetic Telomerase... Glad to see the International community is finally catching up 5 years later.
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That's evolutionary checksum for you. :D
It's the evolutionary Write-protect. It's not a checksum. It prevents the dna from getting erased backwards (from the ends to the start).
A bad analogy would be the knots tied in the end of a knitted scarf. If you don't tie it off properly the whole thing will unravel. These people discovered what prevents the dna 'scarf' from unraveling.
I want to know where the line up is for getting our dna altered to remove these telomeres from my body, so I can no longer age.
I have a lot of work to do, my boss keeps on piling more, so I need to know I can stick around for another 100 years or so.
A screenplay about a young woman who suffers a telomerase problem:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13561852/Breakfast-in-the-Next-Century-an-original-screenplay
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If an organism can live forever and continue to reproduce then it will be competing with itself and eventually die out (unless it has a lot of predators that keep killing it before it dies of old age, but then living forever isn't any kind of advantage so a mutation that removes this won't be selected against). If an organism can live forever and not reproduce then it is an evolutionary dead-end; it will cease to change while the descendants of its siblings continue to adapt to changing circumstances and eventually starve it of resources.
Your mistake is assuming that an organism that is optimally suited to the environment will remain optimally suited to the environment. This does not happen. The environment changes, not least because competing organisms evolve. Evolution does not work on individuals, it works on populations, so an immortal creature is removed from evolution and must adapt itself to remain competitive. Intelligence is a prerequisite for this.
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Evolution and immortality wouldn't mix well.
Only because our present mode of evolution is via DNA mixing in offspring. When people start tinkering with their own genomes, and give rise to a new world of Darwin Awards, then immortality will be just fine.
NASA really needed this, didn't they ;)
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Evolution and immortality wouldn't mix well.
True, and that's fine. Evolution is slow and stupid; it took billions of years to produce marginally intelligent apes. We can do better.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Do better for yourself, the individual, perhaps, but it could also have the very negative impact of intellectual stagnation for the species, causing progress to plateau.
How would any future Einsteins ever be born with a population that refuses to die and make room for new life?
Immortality, even for a sentient species, could be a bad thing in the big picture.
If you don't want to be a serf, and if you don't want to be culled, then become wealthy. If you don't like these options then stop supporting American capitalism.
The wealthy should be the ones having 16 kids.
If you only have one kid you wont be driving the population out of control. Now if you have 20 kids and they all live forever and you are all on welfare like the Octomom, then we have a problem.
The lifespans will be similar to what it's always been. 50% of the population wont be living to 100, trust me.
procedure to work without killing the patient is far, far beyond current technology
/. crowd is not much into biotech, it looks like you have some insight here, can you tell us whether we can theoretically do anything with aging in say 10 years from now?
You're looking at this from the wrong perspective. Evolution simply didn't select for immortality as we know it. There are many longer lived organisms on Earth than H. sapien. Perhaps if our very early ancestors somehow selected for longer lived mates we ourselves would be longer lived... maybe. I'm sure you know that organisms only pass on the genes of those who reproduce. Genes themselves have been created to pass on to the next generation, not to live forever. We are simply an expression of our genes, genes don't care about death or life they care only for reproduction. Slight anthropomorphism but I'm sure you get the idea.
Seems like a win/win for insurance companies. Keep you young and healthy, keep the premiums rolling in.
I heard this stuff years ago
This is what caused "Dolly" the clone to become six years old within months.
So?
Any newsbreaking item here?
Each one of my sperms is sacred; alas at our age, (spermazoids and me -68 years) their
telesphores are extremely short "at this point in time".
Consequently, none of my future offspring from my donated sperm will have a chance of winning a Nobel Prize, unless it is in the emerging field of Geriatrics..
It's weird that that this should be announced on the same day as "40 years of Monty Python",
in particular : every LONNNG-TELESPHORE sperm is sacred!
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Just to set the record straight: Alfred Nobel did not endow an economics prize; that was done by a Swedish bank and the prize is properly called the "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel". Whether or not Alfred Nobel is spinning in his grave to have his name associated with achievements in pseudoscience is unknown.
Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis
Good question. Another good question: what is the replacement cost for the Einstein that just died? (I'm glad we're researching this stuff.)
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Or the reader could track down the book Dangerous Visions in a used book store and then read it -- and all the other excellent stories therein -- for him/herself.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
When it comes to what doctors can do for me today, i feel like doctors dont know shit, yet they often act as though they hold the holy grail and the that their patients are illiterate pesants.
http://www.anticharisma.com/