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Blood of World's Oldest Woman Hints At Limits of Life
porkchop_d_clown (39923) writes "When Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper died in 2005, she was the oldest woman in the world. [New Scientist reported Wednesday] that, at the end of her life, most of her white blood cells had been produced by just two stem cells — implying the rest of her blood stem cells had already died, and hinting at a possible limit to the human life span."
Isn't this old news?
If this is a critical factor for maintaining longevity it would seem to be a simple task to save up and grow a supply of stem cells when one is younger. The cord blood industry is essentially doing this now.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
And then they live forever.
Since the summary didn't mention it, and I'm sure others were wondering.
a hundred thousand dollar stem cell shot.
Remember, consumer-capitalist dullards, quality of life is NOT important. What matters is that you CONSUME. Satisfy an insatiable, manufactured desire. Your economy needs YOU!
Through science, humans excel at overcoming limits. I'm sure the limit to life for a standard human involves a lot more factors, but this gives us one significant wall to smash down.
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If you live long enough most of your cells end up dieing or critically damaged by the formation of inclusion bodies caused from misfolded proteins. As far as we can tell the cells are otherwise fine they are just slowly accumulating that damage over time. This is also what alzheimer's is. The problem is that misfolded proteins are kind of contagious to other proteins in the cell and that is what leads to the inclusion bodies.
We are making progress though on being able to clean out the inclusion bodies. Your cells do have the ability to take them apart but somehow they end up not doing it. Give us some time though and we will fix this problem also and clean out these inclusion bodies in all of your cells and then your cells will work much better.
The other issue we need to fix is activating telomerase to extend our telomeres. The basic issue is that natural selection does not really select for anything after reproductive age so humans are filled with a bunch of small defects and we are getting better at repairing the damage. I really look forward to what can be done with CRISPR-CAS9 to repair DNA damage and replaced damaged genes.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
Soonish and no. Millionaires will live forever, due to economic constraints at first but quickly by design. The world will become too crowded otherwise.
I find the conclusion that there is an absolute limit to the human life span because at some point the stem cells producing white blood cell all die out quite strange.
A few centuries ago, we could have concluded that there is an absolute limit to human life span because at some point someone can't eat anymore while he lost all his teeth. Any similar logical train of though could lead to the same conclusion.
And now, what if you find out why the cells die and manage to prevent it? Then the next thing that kills us will limit our life span, until we find out how to fix that as well. Absolute limits are difficult to set.
Look, if you know what you're talking about, I'm not sure you fit in here....
real geeks don't have to buy tech. tech is drawn to us like a magnet.
Who dares to love forever,
When love must die.
---Queen
Momento Mori
>> Millionaires will live forever
Not sure you've been keeping up with the cost of living, but you pretty much have to have a million dollars in the bank to even think about retiring these days. ($1M divided by 20 - a common rule of thumb for maintaining a nest egg in retirement - is just $50K/yr.)
I don't know about how anyone else feels but I do not necessarily want long life unless I can maintain my youthfulness. I'm 34 now and still stay active but obviously my body is already on the decline (comparing myself to myself at age 24). I do not expect to stay in peak condition when I'm age 80.. but I also don't want to live 40 more years if I have to rely on someone else to do standard tasks
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
They're getting their blood from the wrong source. Hirohiko Araki, as all of the fans of his autobiography (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure) would know, is an immortal vampire who ages backwards. He'd be a much better source of study.
Please do that. I assume your incessant offtopic whining about Citizens United will finally end once you've become a corporation, so I'm all for it.
I love you.
Yeah, and the summary could have been read to me. While I was on the couch.
Genesis 6:3 says in the New Living Translation:
Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future, their normal lifespan will be no more than 120 years."
How is the failure of the immune system in old age news. Hasn't it been obvious for millenia.
Even a few century ago you could live without teeth so your analogy isn't even good. I have no idea where you got that. I never heard also anybody pretending that. But ever tried to live without any blood white cell whatsoever ? You can't. The environment fungi, bacteria, virus, and even your own bacteria will kill you. Quickly. in short order. Why do you think "bubble baby" need to be utterly separated from their environment baring grafts ? Why do you think people with AIDS dies ? That's not the HIV which kill them but the opportunistic infection which do them in without immune system.
Now the argument is, can we completely remove that problem ? If we cannot then the lifespan of a human is limited, even if we can extend it by slowing that problem down. At this point in time, with the technology we have and the biology as we know it, the conclusion is valid.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I for one, welcome our rich Alpha testers and wish the ones substantially older than me lots of luck trailblazing in this area so I can get treated in the Beta or Gamma trials
Down to two tem cells replenishing blood..wow.
The article theorized injecting oneself with younger blood from yourself to live a long time. The laser beam of focus by science forgets there is a clock with all the other parts running on it.
You can slap a 750 holley on an old subaru engine, but it aint gonna like it for long.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140424125239.htm
The title was cut off:
Blood cells have been recently reprogrammed into blood stem cells in mice:
"Researchers have reprogrammed mature blood cells from mice into blood-forming hematopoietic stem cells, using a cocktail of eight genetic switches called transcription factors. The reprogrammed cells are able to self-renew like HSCs and can give rise to all of the cellular components of the blood like HSCs. The findings mark a significant step toward a major goal of regenerative medicine: the ability to produce HSCs suitable for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation from other cell types."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140424125239.htm
It seems that if they can figure out how to reduce or stop the "stem cell exhaustion" then you probably could significantly extend a persons lifespan, problem is you need to do it early in life. the old rich guy will be too late, he will stay old rich guy. But start with a newborn and suddenly things change. if you can even reduce the exhaustion rate by a tiny 20% at birth, you are looking at a 20 year lifespan extension from a 100 year life, not a lot but the benefits would be throughout the life. the no longer healing as well when you hit 35, the feeling not as fast when you hit 40... etc.. Imagine the regenerative abilities you had as a kid, deep nasty cut healed within days, at 45 a deep nasty cut heals in a few weeks. extending the super healing of the body from stopping in the teens to stopping in the late 20's would be remarkable.
And that is if you only find a way to slow the burnout, if you found a way to have stem cells regenerate themselves, I dont think you found immortality, but you would have 70 year olds with the body of 40 year olds but with 30 years more wisdom.
My question is what new diseases will we discover? I am sure there are things lurking that we call harmless, but maybe have a 70 year gestation period....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
not such a bad idea after all?
... a bit of a Tardy-is joke.
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Wow, the fact the stem cells that regenerate blood cells wear out is something as a blood donor I'd not considered. According to this article wearing out has nothing to do with age and everything to do with the total amount of use per each stem cell.
I've always donated blood and most recently been donating red cells which takes twice the number of cells as a regular blood donation, but now I wonder if I am shortening my own life span by helping complete strangers who mean nothing to me? I am all for helping humanity, but not really at a profound cost to myself. I'd sure like to see a study of lifespan as it relates to long term blood donors, and until I do I am not sure I will be donating any more blood.
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
Very Punny of you.
Your blood doesn't contain stem cells. The stem cells are in your bone marrow. They stay there, creating blood cells for you. Blood cells do not divide or reproduce. (I don't know why...)
Clear, Dark Skies
Good guess then by that nomad 2500 years ago who randomly wrote down "120 years" in "Genesis 6:3"...
technically you can end your life at any time you want (more-or-less)... brain meet Smith and Wesson... done
I've put it pretty crassly here, the the point stands: your life doesn't need to be forever if you don't want it to -- even if science says it can.
Then you can become superman!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krazy_Kripples
Only two active stem cells. But perhaps there were more inactive (that is, less sensitive to growth factors) stem cells ready to start working?
In terms of power dynamics in politics, we are likely to see geritocracy in the US as our population ages. We *need* to increase the retirement age and reduce the amount of spending on pensions. How is this going to happen when the majority of the population is old and is willing to express their displeasure in the voting booth?
We *need* to do things smarter, differently, better and not be insane!
Totally agree with your first paragraph, as we have seen since 1980, those with money, will always act in their own self interest to the detriment of the rest of society. Yes they control the money, thanks to Citizens United vs FEC they control politics via their aggressive political contributions and yes they most certainly can control who does and who does not get money. What you would expect when 10% have 90% of the wealth in this country.
And lets not get started with the pollution created by those 10%, google Coal Ash in Detriot, Duke Industires in NC and the Nuclear Power industry...hint if you have to re-cask every 50 - 100 years, no way in heck is it ever going to be cheaper.
As weather control scientist have always warned us, 'there will be winners and their will be losers', this thought actually applies to all industries. And those industries have no incentive to police themselves, therefore lack of funding for government agencies that do police them, can only hurt the majority of any population. Oh could I go one, but enough, as many refuse to admit how all these factors are inter-related. Quantitative Methods baby, its all inter-related, you are cheated when they convince you that somehow these many things are not related.
I have to take issue with your last paragraph, quoted above, not with the first statement, we see that today in politics...so the first sentence I agree with you.
Rather I take issue with the next sentence. Current retirement age is already too high, specifically to reduce the likelihood that one collects on their retirement. Think outside the box, if the 10% can prevent you from collecting on your promised/guarranteed retirement long enough, they will find a way to rob you of it...or better yet, let you die off so that they can get at it later once you are gone. Of course if you control your retirement yourself, that is smart and prevents this.
Now don't get me wrong, the idea of retiring on a 'fixed' income is insane. All one has to do is look around and see that it is not working, never has, never will work. To assume that your outcome will be different is insane. Thus you need an income stream, no matter what.
Instead of increasing retirement age, how about teaching kids how to invest correctly, 'sanely' and 'carefully'...just google Jim Cramer and you can learn.
Teach your kids how to be self sufficient, which means capable of generating their own power (electricity and fuel) and maintaining food (aqua-ponics) self sufficiency, so that what meager wealth they are able to save via investments will not be eroded by the 10% via their control over everything, especially food.
A swamp weed, like a cotton-tail type of plant can be grown and processed by an individual at lower than $1.27 per gallon, just need a diseal engine! I know a guy doing it, so yes it can be done!
Solor and wind generated electricity to power an electric vehicle, does not need power from the grid. Just don't attempt to patent anything or sell anything as others have been prevented, just do it. How many of the over 3000 'secretized' energy patents might make one self sufficient? If 10% of them work...
The idea of pushing the retirement age, yet higher, is insane. This is what politicians have been doing since before the 1980s, and its not working. In fact 'austerity' will not work either, except for the 10%, you can not save yourself to profitability. You have to 'grow' to succeed. Grow from a fundamentally sound value base and you have th