[ExI] reverse aging

The Avantguardian avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com
Wed Dec 1 09:53:13 UTC 2010


----- Original Message ----
> From: Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Sent: Tue, November 30, 2010 5:43:01 PM
> Subject: Re: [ExI] reverse aging
> 
> On 11/30/2010 7:22 PM, John Grigg wrote:
> 
> > Stuart, and so was this simply a first step toward rejuvenating
> > normally aged mice?
> 
> I don't see any obvious reason why this should follow. As I commented on a 
>biogerontology list when a few people were getting prematurely excited (IMO) by 
>this report:
> 
> On the face of it, this sounds like an incredibly silly "discovery". Build a 
>car without wheels. You can't drive it anywhere. Put the wheels on. Look! A 
>miracle! Now you can drive it! Ship a crew of old sea dogs from England to 
>Australia without any vitamin C in their diet. They get scurvy and start to die. 
>Feed them some citrus and they all recover. A miracle! Lemons will make you 
>young again!
> 
> In addition, mice normally have unusually long telomeres, longer than ours, and 
>die after 3 years or so. I'm not sure why added telomerase would help little 
>mousies, unless they'd started life as mutant cripples.

It wouldn't. Mice evolved to be disposable, living fast and breeding 
prodigously. But keep their telomeres long enough to cap *and* repair the rest 
of their DNA *and* keep their mitochondria functioning *and* guard them against 
predators and infections and you might just get an immortal mouse.

Stuart LaForge 

"There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, 
and energy of her citizens cannot cure."- Dwight D. Eisenhower 



      



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