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Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

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Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#61

Post by 4818 »

pixelbash wrote: post #28
lisper wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful what you wish for. Aging and death are woven deeply into the fabric of society, indeed, into the fabric of life itself. Old growth needs to be periodically swept away to make room for new growth. The only logically possible outcome of immortality is that sooner or later the entire biomass of the planet is consumed by immortals, at which point all growth must stop. Imagine being the last person born into such…

Given technological progress and human nature I think that might be a temporary or worst case scenario but unlikely to be a long term status quo. What about exploration or just plain old boredom? There might be more radical escapes (VR, brain upload), more extreme sports or more people leaving this planet in search of something else. 1000 years is a long time. Forever is a lot longer than that..

Nobody lives forever even with "anti-aging technology".

This universe does not allow for that (black holes, galaxy collisions, stars burn out, meteorite collisions, accidents, war, crime)

If you stay on earth you have 4 or 5 billion years.

Nevermind the human aspects: 1) having to eat soup forever (teeth won't last that long) 2) marriage is forever (no, not even until death anymore)

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#62

Post by lvs »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #48
daemonk wrote: post #18

tldr for biologists out there. They made a transgenic mouse line of doxycycline inducible Yamanaka factors in progeria (LAKI) background. Too high induction lead to mortality and teratomas, which is known. They cyclicly induced the Yamanaka factors and found it reversed signs of aging (prolong lifespan by ~30%)

Why did they use the mice with the progeria gene? Wouldn't the results be more impressive in wild-type mice? Were they just trying to get around the 2-3 year lifespan of a lab mouse faster?

Oh they did, in fact, but the results in WT mice were not as easy to overhype. The effects were extremely minor to nonexistent in aged wild-type animals (Fig S7 from the paper). Unfortunately, press releases and the subsequent news articles -- as usual -- have totally oversold what this paper means.

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#63

Post by HaveCourage »

anigbrowl wrote: post #60
HaveCourage wrote: post #51

Summary of pro death arguments re: longevity progress Fairness Only rich people will get it. (no tech has ever done this.) Better to give money to the poor than science. (family,city,state,nation, has proven local investment beats foreign.) Bad for society Dead people make more room for new, other people. (consider going first.) Run out of resources (live people discover/extract/renew better than dead or nonexistant)…

What fear is motivating me to ask other people to die, as you put it? Eternal life would be sort of cool but I dispute your proposition that more people automatically make more progress faster. More people increases competition which incentivizes some kinds of progress but arguably retards others - consider our lamentable record of environmental destruction. I don't think your aspirations are morally wrong in any way…

You never step in the same river twice. If life gets too boring for you, remember the saying, cut down the tracks, not across the street. Might it be easier to cure boredom than decay? You need only become forgetful right? You wouldn't ask the restaurant to take items off the menu because you might not like them, would you?

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#64

Post by Zigurd »

lisper wrote: post #15
photoJ wrote: post #5

Lets hope so!

Careful what you wish for. Aging and death are woven deeply into the fabric of society, indeed, into the fabric of life itself. Old growth needs to be periodically swept away to make room for new growth. The only logically possible outcome of immortality is that sooner or later the entire biomass of the planet is consumed by immortals, at which point all growth must stop. Imagine being the last person born into such…

Accidental death catches up with you in 1000-3000 years. Birth rates would have to slow. But not stop.

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#65

Post by HaveCourage »

andrewfelix wrote: post #57
HaveCourage wrote: post #51

Summary of pro death arguments re: longevity progress Fairness Only rich people will get it. (no tech has ever done this.) Better to give money to the poor than science. (family,city,state,nation, has proven local investment beats foreign.) Bad for society Dead people make more room for new, other people. (consider going first.) Run out of resources (live people discover/extract/renew better than dead or nonexistant)…

This is a bit of a straw man technique. You've framed the argument to suit your counterpoint.

A straw man would be more something like "since no one has ever seen how badly immortal societies have gone, no one can say they're bad."

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#66

Post by nkozyra »

imron wrote: post #23
sqeaky wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Any other thing we have invented has generally reduced war by increasing resources available to all, at least since industrialization. There are a few exception, but they were generally intended to be weapons, it seems hard to imagine an aging based weapon.

Over population will be a problem. To prevent that problem supply will be limited. People will not be happy

I suspect that virtual immortality will cause less a problem with overpopulation and more a problem of deep resource inequity by those with significantly more time to acquire it.

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#67

Post by [deleted] »

lvs wrote: post #62
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did they use the mice with the progeria gene? Wouldn't the results be more impressive in wild-type mice? Were they just trying to get around the 2-3 year lifespan of a lab mouse faster?

Oh they did, in fact, but the results in WT mice were not as easy to overhype. The effects were extremely minor to nonexistent in aged wild-type animals (Fig S7 from the paper). Unfortunately, press releases and the subsequent news articles -- as usual -- have totally oversold what this paper means.

[deleted]

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#68

Post by sparky_ »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #48
daemonk wrote: post #18

tldr for biologists out there. They made a transgenic mouse line of doxycycline inducible Yamanaka factors in progeria (LAKI) background. Too high induction lead to mortality and teratomas, which is known. They cyclicly induced the Yamanaka factors and found it reversed signs of aging (prolong lifespan by ~30%)

Why did they use the mice with the progeria gene? Wouldn't the results be more impressive in wild-type mice? Were they just trying to get around the 2-3 year lifespan of a lab mouse faster?

I had the same thought. This puts an asterisk on the integrity of the report IMHO.

Doxycycline has also been shown to greatly increase life expectancy! Of patients currently suffering from bacterial infection.

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#69

Post by tominous »

sparky_ wrote: post #68
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did they use the mice with the progeria gene? Wouldn't the results be more impressive in wild-type mice? Were they just trying to get around the 2-3 year lifespan of a lab mouse faster?

I had the same thought. This puts an asterisk on the integrity of the report IMHO. Doxycycline has also been shown to greatly increase life expectancy! Of patients currently suffering from bacterial infection.

Yes and tetracyclines like doxycycline affect mitochondrial function and may confound the research in that way too.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2015.02.034

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