Live data from Hacker News

Some fish live beyond 100 and get healthier as they age

nationalgeographic.com

11–20 of 154 posts

Re: Some fish live beyond 100 and get healthier as they age

#12
post #8

"The otolith analysis revealed that about 90 percent of Apache Lake’s buffalofishes were more than 85 years old". That sounds very fishy. Perhaps they just have some sort of genetic code that make them create those new layers of calcium carbonate structures more often than once a year.

This is not "genetic code"!

Re: Some fish live beyond 100 and get healthier as they age

#15

It's not clear from the article but animals can generally live quite a bit longer than you'd expect if they continue to grow for their entire life, which is true for some types of fish. Gunk that builds up inside or between cells gets redistributed over larger areas, as do cells that become senescent. And larger size means more space for memory T cells. Those are only some aspects of aging of course.

Don't cancer rates tend to correlate positively with number of cells?

Re: Some fish live beyond 100 and get healthier as they age

#16
post #7

> In one study, bigmouth buffalo had stronger immune systems than younger fish. Or maybe only fishes with a stronger immune system get older ?

Selection bias ~= natural selection.

If bigmouth buffalo procreate for more years because they live longer with stronger immune systems, then they will eventually make up the majority of the population.

Re: Some fish live beyond 100 and get healthier as they age

#17
post #14

It's all the cardio. Fish do cardio 24-7 their whole life. Therefore older=better.

Most fish (non domesticated) I've seen, tend to find places to hide while sleeping. Rocks, crevasses, in plants.

Are cattle doing cardio because they're standing while sleeping?

I see what you're saying, but fish don't have to do a lot to station keep.

Re: Some fish live beyond 100 and get healthier as they age

#18
post #13

That's because they drink a lot of water, and everybody knows water is good for you. :)))

Or maybe that physican of the Chinese emperor was right that mercury is the key to immortality?

Wait, is it? The FDA lied about masks, and bleach, and now mercury?

Do you know where I can get some?

Re: Some fish live beyond 100 and get healthier as they age

#19
post #7

> In one study, bigmouth buffalo had stronger immune systems than younger fish. Or maybe only fishes with a stronger immune system get older ?

Selection bias ~= natural selection. If bigmouth buffalo procreate for more years because they live longer with stronger immune systems, then they will eventually make up the majority of the population.

So long as they remain capable of reproduction in those later years

Re: Some fish live beyond 100 and get healthier as they age

#20
post #5

> These calcium carbonate structures, which allow fish to hear and sense vibrations in the water, form a new layer each year that can be read somewhat like tree rings. Each time I read dating method like these, I wonder how stable these method are. Sure they are sensitive to water temperature, right? We have not-so-long-term climate changes, periodic solar storms and irregular volcano eruption.. All these are affect…

Wait, so you are saying that over the course of 85 years, we've had enough volcanic eruptions to disrupt the counting of the equivalent of tree rings in fish bones, in a lake in Arizona? When we KNOW when the fish were first put there?

Has Arizona had that many volcanic eruptions in the 20th century which we somehow forgot to notice, but were still strong enough to disrupt the fish?

https://tucson.com/news/local/environment/old-fish-in-arizon...

Just over a century ago, several hundred game fish raised in ponds in Iowa were hauled across the country by rail to be released into Arizona’s newly dammed Salt River.

A recent study suggests some of those transplanted buffalofish are still alive today in the waters of Apache Lake.

Not their descendants. Not members of the same species. The same individual fish that were sent west in 1918, as World War I was winding down in Europe during Woodrow Wilson’s second term as president.

Post reply on HN