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For the First Time, Organ Regenerated Inside a Living Animal
ananyo (2519492) writes "Scientists at Edinburgh University have successfully persuaded an organ to regenerate inside an animal. As they report in the journal Development, they have treated, in mice, an organ called the thymus, which is a part of the immune system that runs down in old age. Instead of adding stem cells they have stimulated their animals' thymuses to make more of a protein called FOXN1. This is a transcription factor (a molecular switch that activates genes). The scientists knew from earlier experiments that FOXN1 is important for the embryonic development of the thymus, and speculated that it might also rejuvenate the organ in older animals. They bred a special strain of mice whose FOXN1 production could be stimulated specifically in the thymus by tamoxifen, a drug more familiar as a treatment for breast cancer. In one-year-olds, stimulating FOXN1 production in the thymus caused it to become 2.7 times bigger within a month. In two-year-olds the increase was 2.6 times. Moreover, when the researchers studied the enlarged thymuses microscopically, and compared them with those from untreated control animals of the same ages, they found that the organs' internal structures had reverted to their youthful nature."
Those hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional mice sure are good at getting humans to do all the work to cure mice of all disease and aging.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
Don't care. If the organ is restored to youthful function, as at least the linked summary indicates, then this is a big deal.
Specifically, this appears to be very different from (say) cardiac hypertrophy, where the heart grows larger but works less efficiently. In this work, the "rejuvenated" thymus not only gets bigger, it produces more T cells -- in other words, it works more like a youthful organ.
It's a good question. The best solution I can come up with (conspicuously short on details) is nuke powered (in sub-basement) pre-fabricated highrises. Social interaction and fulfillment (since jobs availability for all shouldn't be assumed) will be computer game/mmo based for education and coordination of other 'meat space' social activities.
This obviously assumes a lot of post scarcity tropes. Indoor hydroponic farming, on-site fabrication, carbon based electronics, etc
FOXN1 protien inreases organ size, return youthful vigor! No prescrpton needed! CLIKC HER NOW!!
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
I just threw up in my mouth. Think of Donald Trump too as well as Whoopi Goldberg... OMG Barbara Streisand too?!?
Nooooooooo.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Presumably the telomeres continue to diminish as normal; however, unless I'm much mistaken organisms rarely survive long enough for their cells DNA to run out of telemorase. Instead the problem is a far more complicated and poorly understood - some of aging happens at the cellular level, but far more happens at a system level, and we don't really understand the interaction. It sounds like they may have found a way to rejuvenate an organ at the system level, presumably at a some increase in aging at the cellular level (a 3x increase in size could well be responsible for less than 1.6 generations of cellular aging), but if we could extend lifespans such that it was generally cellular aging that killed us rather than systemic aging, that would be a pretty impressive leap forward. As a side benefit greater systemic health probably promotes greater cellular health, so we might end up with cells more like that spry centenarian happily working his farm rather than the decrepit 70yo who's doing good to wipe his own ass.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Back in 1986 they regrew the thymus in rats. And actually a guy named Greg Fahy already regrew his own thymus a few years ago .. I dont understand how people can't use Google.
1986 article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
Regrowth of thymus in human: http://online.liebertpub.com/d...
They stopped regrowing the thymus in humans because they don't know if it may have a negative effect to have the thymus in an adult since the thymus normally is completely degraded (evolution may have programmed it to degrade for a reason).
And so perhaps we should pay more attention to the old Conservative viewpoint that both unrestrained capitalism and socialism are detrimental to the human soul, and that a society should strive to enable all it's citizens to acquire sufficient real estate and other capital to support their family without having to subject themselves to servitude to others or depend on government largess.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Plus, for greatly extended life we have to solve both problems: system decline and telemorase countdown. Criticizing this breakthrough because it only addresses one of the major problems would be quite silly. Congrats to the researchers!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Honestly, I rather hope we don't master greatly increasing lifespans for the time being - we've got way too many existing social and environmental issues to deal with that would be greatly complicated by drastically increasing the lifespan of the average person, and I don't see anything good coming of granting "immortality" only to the elite.
If only we had a demographic with a lot of money and a vastly increased lifespan who has to live with their decisions of today and the consequences they have 400 to 500 years down the road. Then there would be a personal stake in solving things like existing social and environmental issues, rather than leaving them for the next generation to deal with because you find them personably survivable, at least for your limited lifespan.