Slashdot Mirror
Aging Reversed In Mice
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that scientists claim to be a step closer to reversing the aging process after experimental treatment developed by researchers at Harvard Medical School turned weak and feeble old mice into healthy animals by regenerating their aged bodies. 'What we saw in these animals was not a slowing down or stabilization of the aging process. We saw a dramatic reversal – and that was unexpected,' says Ronald DePinho, who led the study. The Harvard group focused on a process called telomere shortening where each time a cell divides, the telomeres are snipped shorter, until eventually they stop working and the cell dies or goes into a suspended state called 'senescence.' Researchers bred genetically manipulated mice that lacked an enzyme called telomerase that stops telomeres getting shorter causing the mice to age prematurely and suffer ailments, including a poor sense of smell, smaller brain size, infertility and damaged intestines and spleens. When the mice were given injections to reactivate the enzyme, it repaired the damaged tissues and reversed the signs of aging raising hope among scientists that it may be possible to achieve a similar feat in humans – or at least to slow down the aging process."
For the most part, most of us live long enough. What is necessary is a substantial increase in the quality of our lives, not an increase in the length of it. If this treatment can return youthful vigor to our cells, that is something amazing. So far we've been relegated to using HGH or steroids or exercise and diet to control our aging process. However, the actual cellular aging progresses unhindered.
A treatment that does not require diet and exercise modifications is sorely needed.
...Also, cancerous.
Might be not much of a problem, in the range of a lifespan typical for a mouse. For us OTOH...
But it's good to see that biological neural networks being part of computer known as Earth work on upgrades of their true rulers.
One that hath name thou can not otter
I'd like to thank you on behalf of those of us who want to live forever...making room for the immortals if awfully kind of you.
It was probably the unexpected attention that the elderly mice got, that made them feel happy and youthful. That, and a placebo effect.
Cells do not normally produce telomerase on their own because not producing it protects against cancer. Turning on the gene that makes telomerase is one of the hurdles pre-cancerous cells have to cross on their way to becoming cancerous.
Also, as someone else pointed out, telomeres are just one aspect of aging. You can induce mice to age prematurely by restricting embryonic expression of telomerase, but that doesn't necessarily mean that mice that age normally will be similarly completely restored by adding it.
There are a number of degenerative diseases (macular degeneration and probably alzheimers) that happen because of inadequate waste removal. No amount of telomerase is going to cause all the little protein fragments lying around to be magically cleaned up and excreted.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
the Dick Cheneys of the world living to 140...
Only give this to people who do not have sex and therefor no offspring. Slashdot will LIVE FOREVER!!!
And the living will envy the death (because they got some).
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
MMmmmmm. Mice bread.
Goes well with cheese.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1.
:P
If there's an immortality tax of "100% of your fertility" you can sign me up. (Though, if impotence and fertility are not fully separated by the IRS, I'll have some thinking to do.)
While I see some folks saying "no one should live forever" let me ask you this... What about space travelers? Don't you think on 100+ year trips, living forever might be a good thing?
They've already done this with dolphins. It involves feeding them seagulls. Unfortunately, the lead scientist was arrested when he stepped across a lion sleeping in the doorway to the lab, after catching a few seagulls.
The charge: transporting gulls across a staid lion for immortal porpoises.
Mark Edwards
I read a book titled "Mortal Questions", by a philosophy professor named Thomas Nagel. In one of the chapters, he argued part of living is also dying. So to die is to "complete the totality of your existence."
In my own experience, my father was old and sick, and he realized that it was time for him to go. Of course, my sister and I didn't want to accept it, but now when we talk about it, we realize how courageous and humble he was.
When the father of my mother-in-law died, my father-in-law said that it was probably a good thing, because he was old and suffering. He lost a foot in World War II, which caused medical complications throughout his life. My mother-in-law threw a tantrum, and screamed "No one wants to die!"
It's a difficult question, to ask folks if they accept death. Some would answer, When you gotta go, you gotta go!" Others do want to live forever.
I was always impressed when I visited the homes of people from Vietnam. They had a little corner in the room with pictures of ancestors that had died, with incense sticks around.
After our father died, my sister put a lot of work into scanning old slides taken by my father, with his beloved Leica, and burning them on a CD for his grandchildren. If the memory of you is passed on through generations, you do live forever.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I don't consider this to make people to last forever, but 'unnecessarily long'.
What do you consider a necessary duration? And necessary for what? There is no objective purpose to life - people have to ascribe their own subjective meaning - whatever you think is necessary during your own life is you own subjective value judgement and doesn't apply to anyone else.
we are 'out-breeding' our ability to be able produce enough food ... putting more people on this rock with drastically increased lifespans don't seem to be sch a bright idea to me.
This is a potential problem, but it presumes that technology won't be able to keep up with demand. There is mounting economic pressure (which makes all the difference) to create a renewable infrastructure now. It's only a matter of time. The more people there are, the greater the pressure. People would be able to work for longer, and would be under less pressure to have kids early. There is a large degree of self-correction to the situation, but it's one of those difficult to predict scenarios, becuase it's such a collosal global game-changing event.
Besides, think a bit what it would be like to live forever, it's a nightmare.
I honestly have never understood this attitude. People say it, but never give a reason. Why? You say you love life, so when would that change for you? At what point do you become effectively suicidal? Are you anticipating an afterlife?
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
"we are 'out-breeding' our ability to be able produce enough food"
Says you. I actually work in the field, and we have well more than enough technology, raw seed stock, and modified seed stock, to feed this planet fifty times over for the next twenty generations.
"our main energy source is finite (oil), and our climate seems to be going through changes (i don't care if they're man-made or not),"
These actually pose real problems that we must work upon.
"putting more people on this rock with drastically increased lifespans don't seem to be sch a bright idea to me."
Well, odds are this would only be available to those that could afford it, while the general masses die off. While this leaves a lower population to sustain the planetary population overall, there's also a lower planetary population to handle. Thinking of a worst-case scenario, this would be like giving those hard working and intelligent enough a pass at a super-long life, while eliminating the unwashed masses. That poses another problem, but everything is a problem, and in truth nothing is a total solution.
"Besides, think a bit what it would be like to live forever, it's a nightmare."
I've been dead twice. I think I prefer life, TYVM.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Uh, sorry, but no, you don't. The memory lives on, not the person. If that is important to those who live on is another matter. But please do not confuse the two.
Toutankhamon is not alive. insert dead parrot sketch
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
in reality it would be closer to have your body begin to whither at 40 and die at 70, or have a decent body until your 70 and you can drop dead of cancer at any time after 40.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
You are missing a point by the way, an important point.
People, who are short-lived, do not care about the long term consequences. It's like politicians, who are elected only for a few years and all they try to do is to get reelected, they don't care about actually working that much. Same with non-owners of corporations, who are nevertheless on top of them, like seagull CEOs for example, they come in, make a lot of noise, crap all over the place, collect the severance and leave.
People who live longer than our very limited life-spans, and people who have more active life-styles by being healthier, would probably end up thinking a bit more long-term, which may end up being good for the population in the long run.
I do not buy the argument that the natural order of things is GOOD. I think the natural order is actually pretty bad, considering that evolution basically cares about procreation first of all, doesn't care about your quality of life past certain age-point, so it elects the traits in populations that are better suited for the young people, not for those who are maybe 20 years older than 'the young'. But in today's society being 20 years older than 'the young' also has a positive effect (well, with some). They are experienced, they are very knowledgeable and specialized, they are trained, a lot of resources went to their training, they are still useful, but their health is deteriorating and they do become an increasing burden.
If this particular treatment prolongs the life of people by say 40 years, yet makes them younger in the process, it would end up as a net positive for society, because those resources would be available longer and without the downside of being sicker.
Basically sign me up (I am almost sure I will never see this treatment, but I would like to.)
You can't handle the truth.
I don't want to age. I don't care if my life ends at 80 or 90 or 150, I want those years, every last one of them, to be spent without sitting in a hospice as a drooling vegetable. I'd rather get tired of living than spend most of my life on the sliding slope away from the heights of my youth.
When they come to take me away when I'm 150, I'll say good bye to the cruel world, the cruel bedsheets and even the cruel curtains with some sort of tassels.
And as for the population problem, if I was sure I'd live till eternity, I might not even care too much about the propagation of the species (see, I don't really see why Wowbagger had to date Trillian).
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Not really - mice, unlike humans, normally have telomerase functioning throughout their entire lifespans. Telomere shortening is not an issue for them.
Actually, if I remember my undergrad genetics correctly, unless you know people living to around 800 years old, it's not an issue for people either.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Telomerase activation shouldn't give you cancer. First of all, your telomeres won't be a problem untill you are in the 700-800 year range (if I remember my undergrad genetics courses correctly). At least, outside of the white blood cell lineages, those will probably go for most people in the first 100 years - they could probably use some telomerase. OK, so lets say you would normally get cancer by the time you were 150, thankfully, your white blood cells stop functioning so well around age 90 and you die of pneumonia instead. Now, lets assume the other causes of aging are fixed, so, that's pretty much the standard.
Insert telomerase. You now live to 150, and die of cancer. Did the telomerase give you cancer? No, it just allowed you to live long enough for the factors that did give you cancer to take hold.
You do have cells in your body producing telomerase - the gamete producing lineage. You can trace telomerase back to the development of successful linear DNA from that lineage - without break. No cancer. Telomerase is a DNA stabilizing agent, not a mutagen.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Although, if people can live forever, I'm changing my opinion on term limits to "pro" I shudder to imagine what it would be like to have Ted Kennedy as eternal senator.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
There are a lot off people with the wealth, means and connections to make it happen when it's possible. So wether it should or not is not really the question it's more how the world is going to be when people will be able to live maybe 500 years or more. Sure the future is very hard to predict but just imagine people could live longer. Maybe they would actually start to learn to think not only of the short term pleasures and goals but as they have more years to live will actually take more care of the environment. Living much longer means a way better view on environmental impacts of short term actions and you have to. You have to live in your own mess a lot longer. Also the wish to have childeren now decreases with live expectancy just imagine people living 500+ years having kids only after 100 years? Perfect! Enough time to plan living space, housing, environmental issue's etc. Sure there are negative impacts aswell but when this anti aging pill comes on the market I'll take it.
I think 100+ years spent in a tin can with other people is something that has such an incredibly high chance of causing extreme psychological issues that I would not agree to send them, volunteers or not. And it raises a whole host of ethical issues as well, such as whether the travelers would have some right to kill one another if they perceived a threat or what to do with some immortal space traveling hero should he try to return to society and be utterly unable to reintegrate, similar to how a lot of ex-felons are when they are released.
Unless we're talking Starship Enterprise-style accommodations here, I would do everything in my power to stop trips like that from ever happening.
Totally agree it is the lack of long term view that is the problem. It's only when you have enough life experiance that you can see that the world is not black and white. The problem is that people die/retire too young and the new folk merrily repeat the errors of the past.
Going back to comments in other part of the thread about population; I would argue that population is being held up as some sort of boogie man, the "Do this and the Boogie man will get you" line is just stupid.
We are already at six million, if we just have business as usual we will all most certainly overpopulate. So regardless of what we do about lifespan "at some point in time" we will have to enact something that holds the population in check or actually decreases it. How big a number we elect for is up for grabs. But at some point it has to stop.
In the future: We can carry on with our fixed population size, imposed via whatever methods are "acceptable" and we will have options:
1.Everyone can live short lives and breed.
2.Everyone can have very long lives with limited breeding (remember natural attrition)
3.Some mixture of 1 and 2 i.e. half living long lives and half breeding.
I would suggest options 2 and 3 would give us the best options for maintaining peace and advancing in all areas of our lives.
If people don't know how to fill their time and don't want to live long that is not a problem for society, provided it has not invested too much in them.
Well, there is a noticeable negative correlation between an increase in education and professional achievement in women and the number of children a woman has.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Possibly not overlords in the "ruling over you" sense, but what would happen if a few mice got out, which never aged or died from cancer? Sure, mice get preyed upon, but if even a few of these mice made it to the wild, you'd see billions and billions of them in a few years. Mouse Armageddon, I think so!
Telomerase activation doesn't "give" you cancer, but the lack of telomerase in most of our tissues is an important block to cancer. All cancers must find a way around the problem that telomerase solves - the incremental loss of genetic material with each successive cell division. Telomerase is not necessary or sufficient to cause cancer (they may also end up with cyclized chromosomes), but its control is likely tied to control of cancer.
In the future: We can carry on with our fixed population size, imposed via whatever methods are "acceptable" and we will have options:
hate that I have to keep pointing this out, but clinical immortality will not lead to overpopulation, as counter-intuitive as that statement sounds, regardless of whether we limit our reproduction as a matter of public policy.
I'll break it down into three scenarios, in order of most to least likely. All three are based around methods for extending the human lifespan. In the first scenario, let's imagine a world where telomerase treatments reverse or mitigate cellular ageing.
Now, to begin with, this isn't "immortality", even in the ageless sense, as there would still be terminal illnesses and cumulative damage. Lifespans would increase, but would not be infinite. Cancer would probably beat out all other natural causes put together. So, let's say the average lifespan is a century or two.
The window of opportunity for having kids would remain mostly where it is now. This is because gametes age and run out regardless of the ageing going on in your other bodily tissues. A woman is born with a finite number of eggs, and they have an best-before date that has nothing to do with telomeres. Men would stay fertile longer, though not indefinitely, but the population growth rate is capped by the number of fertile females, not males.
Thus, the most likely scenario for anti-ageing drugs would not affect the rate of population growth rate, and would only increase the average lifespan by a limited margin. Given that the developed world is already at or below replacement level fertility, this would not pose a problem for the global population. And the developing world would need to modernize before they could implement this kind of medical care regardless, so they would probably also see a decline in growth to match our own, if history is any precedent.
Now, a second scenario would be perfect clinical immortality. No disease is terminal, no age related damage irreversible, no injury permanent. People only die traumatic deaths, whether by accident, violence or suicide.
The population still wouldn't skyrocket. People in the western world put off having kids already, generally waiting as long as natural fertility allows. How long would we put off having kids if we had no biological clock counting down? Decades? Centuries? A long time, regardless.
People still wouldn't live forever either. I've seen estimate that state that if death by old age vanished tomorrow, the average life expectancy would work out to about 300-500 years. Might be less if suicide became a common cause of death. And while the population might level out, the growth rate would slow to a crawl.
Now, the final option would be complete immortality. To accomplish this, we'd need to be able to make backups, against the risk of traumatic death. The mechanism for backing up a human being would almost certainly entail whole brain uploading.
With the capacity to upload brains comes the capacity to live without bodies. Overpopulation becomes supremely irrelevant if many or most of us live inside virtual worlds. And as far as that goes, given how technologically unlikely this scenario is, who's to say we'd even need Earth at this stage?
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
On the contrary, the vast majority of human cancers have telomerase (are "immortal"), perhaps what you're thinking of is the ability to grow in culture, which is a relatively rarer phenomenon (HeLa cell line!) but nowadays can be artificially induced. This makes sense because a cancer's rapid growth rate would be unsustainable in the long term without some way of getting around telomere loss. The rapid division combined with most cancer's predisposition to mutation results in natural selection for these specific kinds of mutations - the first cell to express telomerase, for example, will out-compete his shorter-lived brothers in the long run, so inevitably all cancers wind up circumventing the telomere issue in one way or another. If you've got access, you can read this nice review article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9282118
I say, let nature take it's course, there are more important issue's at hand then to postpone the death (whether or not this is permanent or not) of humans isn't one of them.
Postponement of death is just as natural as anything else that happens in the universe.
This fear of death is not healthy, it prevents you to fully enjoy life itself, and that's a shame, because you only get one shot at it.
And that's what it really boils down to. Any attempt to improve your life and "fully enjoy life itself" by avoiding the massive suck that is dying of old age, is a "fear" of death.
You know what I'd like to do? I'd like to set foot on worlds other than Earth. I'd like to meet some of the other inhabitants of this universe. I'd like to change myself into truly alien forms, experience life and the universe in ways that I never dreamed of, create things that I can't understand now. You know, live life to the fullest.
But you know what? You can't do that on a human budget. So we comfort ourselves by claiming that we didn't want that anyway. I want things that are unattainable to me. Too bad. But I can make a world where some future generation gets that chance.