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Dog Aging Project

dogagingproject.org

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Re: Dog Aging Project

#101

Post by pavel_lishin »

scotty79 wrote: post #63
jasdi wrote: post #11

Animal domestication is really wild. So we first select for neoteny (playfulness, dependency on caregiver, physical features people like) basically prolonging the juvenile state. Then we put them in controlled environments of abundance, were all their needs are met. Which further diminishes need to reach adult state (with traits like aggressiveness to compete for resources). This abundance causes them to mature/breed…

Recently I had an interesting thought that basically people did almost the same to themselves spontaneously through culture. Which might influence various aspects of human behavior, like social interactions in general, cooperation and means of competition, mate selection. We might have genetic changes that are not maladaptive only in the culture that introduced them. As technology forces culture to evolve it might tu…

> evolutionary fitness

But there's no such thing as an objective "evolutionary fitness". It only makes sense to speak of evolutionary fitness in a given niche.

Re: Dog Aging Project

#102

Post by pavel_lishin »

xapata wrote: post #69
b112 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visually humans have neotenistic characteristics compared to other primates, so this is quite plausible.

And mentally. We never stop playing. Note the popularity of memes about "adulting".

> And mentally. We never stop playing.

Do animals stop? There are plenty of examples of play in adult animals:

- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03766...

- https://medium.com/illumination/wild-animals-at-play-982e26e...

- https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-07899-003

Re: Dog Aging Project

#103

Post by antisthenes »

bsenftner wrote: post #35
goda90 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well study participants aren't charged. Maybe it's fraud against those who are funding it, but the pet owners themselves are not the current target.

I'd examine this much deeper before engaging. It's far too consumer targeted, far too feel good. I would not be surprised if "becoming a partner" or "community scientist" required fees or more.

Out of curiosity, do you feel just as strongly about very prominent social justice programs for humans?

Especially those that target extremely small slices of population (some would say at the expense of other larger, mostly neglected groups)

Re: Dog Aging Project

#104

Post by ben_w »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #82
Beijinger wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dogs domesticated us. Wolves are hunted but dogs a fed, given shelter, love and access to medical care.

You'll let me know the next time you'll have to require the permission of your dog to pee, or when it can trigger surgery to cut your balls or put you down.

That humans are dominant doesn't preclude us having co-evolved.

Re: Dog Aging Project

#105

Post by nradov »

modeless wrote: post #96

Unlike futurists I have little hope of our medical system producing radical improvements to human lifespan in my lifetime. Even ASI can't cure aging if it is not allowed to do experiments or if powerful lobbies prevent it from accessing medical data or "displacing" human medical staff. If we want to get breakthroughs in lifespan extension quickly, they will have to come initially from something like this where vested…

Aging is not a single thing that can be cured. No one even agrees on what aging is.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03936-8

But there's nothing stopping aging related research. Ethics committees allow scientists to conduct experiments as long as those meet proper privacy and safety standards. Nothing is being blocked over concerns about displacing human medical staff so I can't imagine where you're coming up with that type of conspiracy theory.

Even if all rules and regulations were removed there will be no radical improvements to human lifespan in your lifetime. This is fine. You are expendable.

Re: Dog Aging Project

#106

Post by carls »

bsenftner wrote: post #83
carls wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This project is a research project out of the University of Washington, led by several of the professors there. I believe the lab is the Healthy Aging and Longevity Institute. They share a list of academic publications that have resulted from the project, and their Team page lists the full names a sizable large number of people. Their FAQ indicates that the cost of the DNA Kit and other things are covered by the proj…

Honestly, it does not appear like a research institute at all. It looks like the styling that the owners of People's Magazine or the National Enquirer would use to market their 'research nonprofit' where the actual research contribution is 3% of their revenues, while supporting fat salaries for an executive staff. It just looks too consumer and not academic, not serious. It is simply too feel good. It has the trappin…

I think it's reasonable to be turned off by a slick-looking website, but I imagine it's because the intended audience of the website is the general (dog-owning) public, likely for the purposes of soliciting participants.

Interestingly, through engaging with you I discovered that this is a cognitive bias called the "horn effect" and is the reverse of the more common "Halo effect": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_effect#:~:text=The%20horn....

Re: Dog Aging Project

#107

Post by oooyay »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #102
xapata wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And mentally. We never stop playing. Note the popularity of memes about "adulting".

> And mentally. We never stop playing. Do animals stop? There are plenty of examples of play in adult animals: - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03766... - https://medium.com/illumination/wild-animals-at-play-982e26e... - https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-07899-003

My elder female dog loves to play and the way in which she plays has only gotten more nuanced over time. She's even adapted to play with me, play with other dogs, play with smaller dogs, and play with puppies.

The basic semantics of her language of play are all the same: she bows, she'll yawn, she barks and does that side-eye glance. Sometimes she'll dance. If she gets really hyped up she'll get the zoomies.

Dogs, from what I've observed, are incredibly intelligent and social animals as they exist today.

Re: Dog Aging Project

#108

Post by Jensson »

bumby wrote: post #79
scotty79 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I had an interesting thought that basically people did almost the same to themselves spontaneously through culture. Which might influence various aspects of human behavior, like social interactions in general, cooperation and means of competition, mate selection. We might have genetic changes that are not maladaptive only in the culture that introduced them. As technology forces culture to evolve it might tu…

Although humans may be reaching reproductive age faster, aren't we generally reproducing later in life? That seems counter to the OPs point.

Those two are naturally related. If getting pregnant at 10 usually lead to death, then your genes will avoid that if getting pregnant at 10 is common.

However if socially we prevent girls from getting pregnant at 10 then biology can make them go through puberty at 10 without risk, since they will not get pregnant anyway.

Edit: As for the playfulness point, for us humans we punish kids for being playful when they reach 7, so it makes sense that we will evolve to stop playing around at 7 and hence becoming adults already by then. We don't punish pets for being playful though, at least not today.

Re: Dog Aging Project

#109

Post by bumby »

Jensson wrote: post #108
bumby wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although humans may be reaching reproductive age faster, aren't we generally reproducing later in life? That seems counter to the OPs point.

Those two are naturally related. If getting pregnant at 10 usually lead to death, then your genes will avoid that if getting pregnant at 10 is common. However if socially we prevent girls from getting pregnant at 10 then biology can make them go through puberty at 10 without risk, since they will not get pregnant anyway. Edit: As for the playfulness point, for us humans we punish kids for being playful when they reac…

I'm finding it hard to understand your point or not finding that argument particularly convincing. We can socially change much faster than we can biologically evolve. Meaning, the change in birth age can be heavily influenced by social factors (birth control, resource abundance, requirements for self-sustainment in adulthood) much faster than biology would adapt. We can be extremely socially different than those who lived when it was the norm to be pregnant at 14 while being essentially biologically identical.

Further, we can have multi-modal distributions that undermine the biological assumption. Some groups show much lower birth ages because it's not culturally disadvantageous than other groups. In that context, even if the average age increases, it doesn't mean lower birth age is biologically disadvantageous.

>humans we punish kids for being playful when they reach 7

This needs a citation or at least a definition of what is meant by "playfulness", because I find it hard to believe. I don't know any parents who would want their child to stop playing at 7 years old.

Re: Dog Aging Project

#110

Post by jessekv »

b112 wrote: post #68
RadiozRadioz wrote: post #64

That AI dog image on the homepage is dreadful. Look at the inconsistency in the depth of field. And the inconsistency of the depth of the physical field the dog is sitting in, left vs right.

I feel a good startup would be collecting old photos, vetted as pre 2010, and storing them for use by people.

Finally, an actual use for my decades of photos...
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