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Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

spiegel.de

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Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#71

Post by nostromo »

narrator wrote: post #70
nostromo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's only one part of your comment, but Steven Pinker argues very convincingly that human violence is at an all time low, even when including events like WWII. Ted talk: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth... Chart of warfare deaths: http://www.martincwiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/maled... (Note: that last one includes 2 world wars!) Edge article: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture…

World War II was really boring if you lived in South America at the time.

Note that it says "US and Europe"

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#72

Post by possibilistic »

TamDenholm wrote: post #21

I wish we could leave people like this alone, why does this kid have to endure a life of being a lab rat? Also, giving "mankind the gift of eternal life" is a flawed idea. Simply by improving our medical science which has given people a longer lifespan has caused a ridiculous amount of problems. There are too many people on this planet and by creating more and more that live longer and longer we are sacrificing the l…

How does taking a genetic sample turn someone into a lab rat? Once you have samples they get frozen at -80 indefinitely.

There are not too many people on this earth yet either. My guess is that your analysis is coming from the wrong places. If there were too much human biomass, everything would be working to offset that equilibria. Granted our environmental impact is presently suboptimal, but that is changing as we see diminishing returns in existing methodologies.

Who says immortality will even look like you picture it? Try thinking about what the world will look like in ten years--how accurate do you think you'll be? Science wouldn't be science if we could figure it out ahead of time.

I am pursuing this line of research precisely to rebel againt this kind of attitude (no offense, of course).

Every one of us--our perspectives, acquired knowledge and experience--is invaluable. On the same order of importance as genetic diversity. Our planet likely only gets one shot at reaching the stars (evolution got rather lucky to find the intelligence gradient). One day we will (hopefully) all agree on this, perhaps that being when Hollywood stops being so misanthropic and people start to appreciate the human capacity.

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#73

Post by possibilistic »

carbocation wrote: post #29
anigbrowl wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably familiar with the case of Henrietta Lacks. Do you happen to know how these things are handled abroad? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks

Yes, very much so; her story took place at my hospital. The way that her story is presented to us varies with who does the presenting, but no matter the spin, it's hard not to feel terribly for her and her family. I'm not familiar with how this works abroad, which is why I tried to qualify my statement.

What spin do you refer to? Shouldn't society be able to benefit from a novel cell line, regardless of the origin? If it were you or me, wouldn't we gladly donate the knowledge and utility of our cells if they can serve mankind? So what if we are not reimbursed or attributed? That's a minor misfortune that pales in contrast to the ultimate societal impact.

Haven't several things been done for her family retroactively? If not, then we should honor them/her because we can.

Lastly in respect to her cell line, I do object to all the patents that have been made in relation. All of this should be public knowledge.

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#74

Post by carbocation »

possibilistic wrote: post #73
carbocation wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, very much so; her story took place at my hospital. The way that her story is presented to us varies with who does the presenting, but no matter the spin, it's hard not to feel terribly for her and her family. I'm not familiar with how this works abroad, which is why I tried to qualify my statement.

What spin do you refer to? Shouldn't society be able to benefit from a novel cell line, regardless of the origin? If it were you or me, wouldn't we gladly donate the knowledge and utility of our cells if they can serve mankind? So what if we are not reimbursed or attributed? That's a minor misfortune that pales in contrast to the ultimate societal impact. Haven't several things been done for her family retroactively?…

Your last line was going to be my reply to the questions in your first paragraph, so I think we're mostly in agreement.

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#75

Post by btilly »

Judson wrote: post #60
ugh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standard stuff. Child mortality for example or GDP, literacy, poverty and so on. There are some countries which are lagging behind and some which have gone backwards but the planet as a whole has progressed.

I agree with all of that, except GDP. In an age of Fiat currency, GDP is nothing more than a proverbial phallus measuring contest. Paper is paper, is paper. Show me a real currency backed by something (Sorry, "faith" in the government doesn't count), and we can talk about progression on the GDP front. Beyond that, surely child mortality, literacy, and poverty are enough to prove your point, GDP doesn't really even fi…

Show me a real currency backed by something (Sorry, "faith" in the government doesn't count), and we can talk about progression on the GDP front.

How about the fraction of disposable personal income spent on food?

http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/cpifoodandexpenditures/data...

From 1929 to the present that has dropped from 23.4% to 9.5%. This despite what other evidence suggests is a considerable increase in the quantity and overall quality of said food. For instance today we eat far more meat per capita than people did 80 years ago, and meat is rather expensive.

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#76

Post by SkyMarshal »

chadp wrote: post #59

Amazing story. As stated in the article, assuming we do figure out how to make people live forever (or a very long time), Who is allowed to use it? The rich? The fastest? Strongest? Smartest? Everyone can't live forever, there would be too many people. Unless we move to colonize space of course.

Global 2-child policy + colonize space. When people like Einstein can continue building on their knowledge and understanding for ~1000 years instead of ~60, I imagine we'd develop the science and technology required to colonize space at faster rate.

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#77

Post by SkyMarshal »

chadp wrote: post #59

Amazing story. As stated in the article, assuming we do figure out how to make people live forever (or a very long time), Who is allowed to use it? The rich? The fastest? Strongest? Smartest? Everyone can't live forever, there would be too many people. Unless we move to colonize space of course.

Global 2-child policy for the 'immortals' + colonize space. When people like Einstein can continue building on their knowledge and understanding for ~1000 years instead of ~60, I imagine we'd develop the science and technology required to colonize space at faster rate.

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#78

Post by mortenjorck »

rbanffy wrote: post #64
extension wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telomeres prevent cancer by limiting cell division and Brooke's are normal. Other aspects of aging cause cancer but she is supposedly immune to those. But if her telomeres are shortening, doesn't that mean her aging will eventually catch up to normal because her cells stop regenerating?

> But if her telomeres are shortening It means she is aging. She is not developing.

In a nutshell, yes. While the ordering of her cells is not changing with age, their internal chromosomal structure is.

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#79

Post by possibilistic »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #66
possibilistic wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computational biochem student here. Unfortunately we do not have the technological prowess to replace parts of our body as they age. Researchers are working on growing whole organs from the extracellular scaffolds of cadavers, but this technique is in its infancy and I would take all news concerning it with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, we are limited by which organs and tissues we can replace. Case in point: we ca…

Can I ask you three questions? 1) What are the names of the courses you're taking this year? 2) What books are you reading for your studies? 3) Who would you most want to work with, in your field?

I'm done with my undergrad CS and Bio education (with a few exceptions), and now I'm working on the finishing up on chem--then it's time for grad school. My biggest worry is that I do not know enough physics... I'm hoping P.chem rectifies that.

For the next academic year I'm taking the following: Biotechnology, Physical chemistry, Analytical chemistry, Instrumental analysis, Biochemistry, Drug design, Cancer bio, and doing some limited original research.

My favorite books in the past were "Cell and Molecular Biology" by Karp, "Molecular Biology" by Weaver, and "Janeway's Immunobiology", all of which enabled me to read the primary literature and contributed greatly to how I now see the world. There are also a bunch of poor or suboptimal ones that are not really worth worth pursuing. Once you read a few good texts, jumping right into a journal of interest is highly integrative!

Perhaps this is unwise of me, but I haven't yet made note of any of the people that are doing the reseach I'm most interested in. Even if I did, I probably won't be able to do work with them at this early stage.

In any case, my hope is that I can spend most of my time coding and searching through the chemical state space and biochemical pathways with computers. I strongly feel high-throughput techniques are indespensible and need to be utilized to make the best use of limited, prescious time. I would still enjoy spending some days in the lab running assays as they can also be quite fun.

Re: Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging

#80

Post by ugh »

britta wrote: post #39
Jun8 wrote: post #2

Amazing story! Two minor details piqued my attention: * How the journalistic storytelling style is different from the US one. I guess I have grown accustomed to reading NYT and other newspapers here. For example, I don't think the sentence "Other girls her age are driving, going out dancing and sleeping with their first boyfriends" would have been used for a story like this. * And more importantly this: "Pakula [her…

To my eyes, this journalistic storytelling style is "feature" writing -- different from "news" style, but US newspapers have both. You'll see a form of it in NYT Magazine profile articles ( http://www.nytimes.com/pages/magazine/ ).

Der Spiegel was modeled after British and American news magazines when it was founded in 1947 in post-war Germany (with allied approval as was necessary for all press at that time). The magazine is really very similar to Time, Newsweek or The Atlantic.
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