How appropriate that this week's cover story for Newsweek magazine is about exactly what we are talking about in class: cell aging, stem cells and cancer. Is it just a coincidence? Often my love for biology is compounded when I realize how often I encounter biology in my every day life. Read the article below:
I know this article is long, but stick with it. Write a scholarly response. What do you think? If you were a billionaire, how long would you want to live? 100? 200? 400? Why? Would you have the same quality of life? How long would you want to work? How does our society and media currently treat old people? What do you think of this Ponce de Leon style fountain of youth? Who is Clive McCay? What did he do in 1956? Does this relate to stem cells? What type of stem cells are they working with totipotent, pluripotent, multipotent? Who is Amy Wagers? What is her work with GDF11? Who is Ronald De Pinho? What is his work with telomeres? How is telomerase related to cancer? If scientists are able to increase our life expectancy, what will humans do when their organs begin to fail? If scientists are able to insure immortality, what will happen to the amount of cancer in the future? What will the affect on the economy? Can our planet support the population growth og this extended Type 3 survivorship curve? Is immortality worth the price?
Science is intriguing, especially when it could affect me and others personally. The idea that they are developing ways to live longer is mindboggling. If I was a billionaire, it would be fun to live for at least 100 years. If I used those stem cells to reverse aging, I probably would be in good condition, therefore, wanting to extend my life. I would still work until my 60’s or until I could no longer do my job well. Based on society today, I say we categorize older people as weak, not able to do much, and slow, but also as respected. Ponce de Leon believed a legend of his time, and here we are today, still trying to find it. He was pretty brave to discover something there was no concrete evidence of. It fascinates me how many people want to discover how to prolong life/youth. Perhaps it is fueled by the fear of dying. Clive Mccay, a gerontologist, attached the bloodstreams of an old mouse and a young mouse. In turn, this helped the old mouse gain youth, while the young mouse aged quickly. Amy Wagers conducted the same experiment and concluded these results : the young mouse’s bloodstream contained much GDF11 (protein), which keeps stem cells active; eventually, GDF11 levels drop, which causes the mouse to become old. Plenty of GDF11 makes mice young and active. I think they are using pluripotent cells because they are dealing with young, embryonic body cells. Dr. Ronald DePinho studied telomeres, which cap the tip of chromosomes. He experimented with mice and changed the telomeres to mirror aging of a human. When they were aged to be extremely old, he adjusted/added telomeres and they were young again and it seemed their body started regenerating. Interestingly enough, “telomerase is linked to both the prevention and progression of cancer. Aging cells that lack telomerase are more likely to become cancerous… and once cells become cancerous, their telomerase levels rise” showing that the fountain of youth comes with fatal negatives (Isaacson Par 16).
ReplyDeleteWhen human organs start to fail, I predict people will want to have procedures done to expand their life. My guess is that cancer will increase in the future, but scientists will find ways to decrease it. I think our economy will fall due to money and time spent trying to live longer and people may be weaker, because we don’t know the lasting effects of this. Our world will become over populated and won’t be able to provide sufficient resources. Even now, world hunger and homelessness is an issue, so I can’t imagine creating even more. I think that as long as technology advances the “human machine” and better equips it, scientists will also discover new advances that will make it possible for humans to exist that long. Personally, I wouldn’t use science to live longer, nor do I think it’s a good idea. In summary, I don't think immortality is worth it. It just shows we need to appreciate the lives we have and life it to the fullest.
I agree with Bethany that yes it would be nice to live till I am 100. But there needs to be a limit to how long someone can decide they want to live. Waking up every morning and doing the same thing every day would get boring, doing it forever
DeleteI agree with Bethany. I think we should focus our resources on the big problems that we already face like poverty, homelessness, and starvation, before we make ourselves immortal and create even more of it. It's too ambitious and very risky.
DeleteI agree with Bethany. I don't think immortally is worth it. Also, I agree with that everyone needs to appreciate the lives they have.
DeleteI must say your paragraph is very well written, and it closely resembles an essay (it's quite long). I would agree that I would spend more time working if I were still able to do so. The entire idea reminds me of how much we have improved in just these past 500 years. There was a time where people died at age 30 but now 30-year-olds are just starting a career after several years of college, spending their extended life spans working, getting married, and having children at more respectable times in their life. We've done it in the past and I think we will continue in the future (work more as well as space things out with a longer life).
DeleteBethany,
DeleteWonderful way to start off the posts this week. I am so impressed. Your post is thorough and very well written. This is an excellent example of what I am looking for.
I agree thst working until 60 would be good even if you were to live past 100. In my opinion, working past this seems a little too long to me. Besides, how would you support yourself for over 100 years if you were only to work until you were 60? And it would be hard to find a good job for the age of anyone past 80, much less someone who needs to find work after 100.
DeleteThis is a great response, a lot of what you said I agree with! It is interesting to think about all the possible things that could happen if we could live longer. You have some good thoughts, and yes 60 is a good age to work till!
DeleteIf I was a billionaire I would only want to live as long as I would if I wasn't a billionaire. I wouldn't want to live 300 years because there wouldn't be much you could do at that age. However if I was a billionaire I wouldn't want to work many very many years because I would rather travel and enjoy the world. I don't think most of society treats old people very well. Clive McCay expanded the life span of rats by sewing them together. Amy wagers reproduced his results, and her she worked with GDF11 which is a protein that affects stem cells as the body ages. De Pinho worked with telomeres and wanted to find out what happens to them when the body ages. If scientists do create immortality, however cancer would be more common. I think that with the increasing population, especially with immortality, would be to much for the world to handle.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Trevor. Personally I wouldn't want to live for so long, but if I decided otherwise, I wouldn't want to invest all this money so that I could stay alive and work all the time. I would hope that if you're going to live for a long time, that you would at least try to enjoy you time living.
DeleteI agree that it’s not worth living until the very brim of something like 300 years. There’s no reason that someone would need to live that long, even more so enjoy it.
DeleteI agree with Trevor. We both believe that we should only live as long as we were intended to. There is not enough to do and it would be a boring life.
DeleteJust thinking about being able to live for ever gives me both excitement and terrifying thoughts. The first thing that comes to mind is wolverine from the X-men who is immortal. He did not enjoy it, his issue with it was he had to see everyone he loved die. He also had to live with the mistakes he made, if I made a huge mistake I would not want to live with that forever. Eventually weather we think it will or not, everyone is going to want to be immortal which will cause a ginormous over population. This world is already over populated and no one is immortal yet. If we had access to other planets or galaxies it would be a completely different story but we don't. This is the only home we got. Another problem that wolverine brings to mind is what if you were born with a disease. Would you really want to live with that disease forever. I think immortality is one of the worst ideas humans have had for a while and I do not support it
ReplyDeleteCaige, it’s interesting how you brought up surviving loved ones. Life would be terribly lonely without family and friends.
Deletei agree, it seems like being able to live longer would seem to be more of a pain then enjoyable, especially if it is something only wealthy people could afford they would have to continue their lives watching countless friends and family die.
DeleteIf I was given the opportunity to live for hundreds of years, I would use my money elsewhere. I think it’s great for those who truly have a desire to live for a long time, but I’ve always been against the whole idea of humans “playing God”. We were all put on this earth with a set of days that we would live, and tampering with that just doesn’t feel quite right to me. Though I wouldn’t want this treatment personally, I thought it was really interesting that by linking the aged and young mice’s blood streams, McCay and Wagers were able to reverse the effects of aging in the old mouse. McCay was the first to discover this possibility, and years later, Wagers used his information to replicate this experiment and take a deeper look at how this anti-aging process works. She found that the protein GDF11 is responsible for keeping stem cells active; therefore, by adding the young mouse’s GDF11 to the old mouse’s blood stream old stem cells that were previously not producing healthy tissues were now going into overdrive. A similar method has been presented for the use of humans hoping to become “immortal.” Overall I think that this new possibility of living forever in intriguing, but doesn’t seem quite morally correct and isn’t totally safe, based off its possibly cancerous effects.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that living for longer then we were meant to seems wrong to me. The of "playing god" doesn't always seem like a good idea to me. although this research is so cool and different, I still think we shouldn't "play with god".
DeleteI agree with you for living the amount of days you have been given, it doesn't seem right to be able to extend yourself further than what your life should be. I feel like if I did live to a longer extent I would be doing something unmoral.
DeleteI would like to live for a long time; however, the optimum length for my life would be dependent on a few things. First, I would not want to be immortal. I would have no drive to do things in life, knowing that my time would never run out. Also as soon as my quality of life began to diminish, i wouldn't want to continue living in such a state. Similarly I would like to live into my hundreds, but only if I can still do the things i enjoy. Immortality is something that i don't believe should be allowed, however. If someone with power became immortal, it could be catastrophic, Imagine if Hitler was immortal. No matter what happens to someone, they can do whatever they want again and again because they will never die.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with what you're saying on immortality, it'll get to a point where everything is pointless and boring, so why do it.
DeleteAlex brings up a couple good points, including that immortality in the wrong hands could be dangerous. However, if that did happen, although it would probably be harder, it would still be possible to kill that person: The immortality is only absolute if the person is always within a short distance of help. If the person is suffocated, the person will definitely die-- it is conditional.
DeleteI agree. People could abuse the power of immortality. They could gain advantages and force people into situations where they cant refuse because they dont have the option to live forever, where as other people do.
DeleteThis article makes me worried. I think these billionaires are so caught up in the excitement and prospect of immortality that they're putting off solving the hundreds of issues that will come along with it if it ever becomes a reality. If I was a billionaire, I would want to live to a normal human age, like 80-100. Living forever seems like an extremely unsatisfying thing. There would come a point where you look back on your life and all you see is work, and you look forward and all you see is more work, and I think if I was in that position I would just feel hopeless. Besides, I think our current society is losing respect for the elderly. As the article states, 8-10% of people in nursing homes have reported abuse, and over 60% of all elderly think they are a burden to society. Perhaps we should look into caring for those needs before we make it so we'll never have to be in their position.
ReplyDeleteClive McCay sewed an old and a young mouse together at the flank to link their blood cycles. The young rat aged prematurely and the old rat showed signs of becoming young again; however, not enough was known at the time for him to continue with his curious findings. Amy Wagers successfully reproduced McCay's results in 2004, and studied a GDF11, which is a protein that affects the activity of stem cells in the body. De Pinho studied telomeres, which are "caps" on the ends of chromosomes that keep them from fraying, like aglets on shoelaces. As the level telomerase, the enzyme that creates telomeres, drops, the fraying chromosomes seemed to be responsible for many of the affects of aging. However, telomerase can either prevent cancer by keeping frayed-chromosomes from creating mutated cancer cells or progress it by re-capping the chromosomes once there are cancerous cells in the body and therefore increasing its spread.
When humans' organs begin to fail, some are looking into the science of 3-D printing or cloning to replace them. This will even further increase human life expectancy. And if that keep increasing, so does the retirement age, further increasing the economy.
Immortality is definitely not worth the price. For every good thing about it, there are three terrible things. For one, our planet could never support it. If a person can live for 400 years, imagine how many kids they would have... then imagine if all their kids also lived to be 400. Our planet is already beginning to feel the affects of our huge population; it can't take much more. Researching immortality is a huge mistake. I think we should leave it be and let our bodies age normally like they have for thousands of years.
Rachel,
DeleteI agree. I think the overcrowding would be devastating to our ecosystems. We would run out of food, space and energy. Great job on this post.
Stein,
DeleteI agree that billionaires like rushing into ideas without considering the setbacks. We would run out of food, space, energy, money, order, and many more. Great job on this post.
I agree with Rachel. Billionaires should focus on bigger problems in the world. No one will survive if there are still deadly illnesses that risk the people.
DeleteI would not want to live any longer than what I would now because it would be unfair to the normal people of this world, especially because I'd already have billions of dollars. If I had to be immortal, I would frankly hate it because you have the rest of time and then some to think upon all your sins and embarrassments, which is really no fun at all. A question is raised here, what's the point of doing a job when you're never going to retire, every job that a person does is a dead end because there's no end goal, which would drive people insane, probably to the point of suicide, oh wait, they can't commit suicide, shame. Also, what about the jobs like doctors and firemen, since no can die, there's no point to those jobs either, only to get rid of pain and to save family possessions, then those jobs would just be seen as mundane middle class jobs, nothing special about them. Really, immortality is a lot like communism, great in theory, but when you get down to the nitty gritty stuff, there are way too many holes to keep it afloat.
ReplyDeleteAndrew,
DeleteI like that you compared immortality to Communism. I wonder what Karl Marx would think? I wonder if he would have wanted to live forever? In a Communistic society would there be billionaires?
I agree, there are too many details that get over looked, immortality is a bad idea
DeleteI agree with Drew because I also wouldn't want to do a job without ever retiring, that would just be to painful and stressful for one to handle. Working for the time people do is tough enough but imagine never retiring, that would be bad. I also agree with how it sounds good in theory but really wouldn't be that great.
DeleteI also agree with drew I would feel bad for all the normal people who don't have the ability to live for a long time.
DeleteAfter reading the article I was surprised with the amount of foundations working to find ways to stop aging cells by using stem cells and other research. If I was a billionaire, I would probably like to live until I was 100. I think being a billionaire would be so cool, but, After a while it would get old. Life is not as fun when you have all of the money in the world. It seems as it would get boring. I would also probably work for a little bit, and then use my money to do cool things like travel the world, and I could give money to charities and foundations like the ones trying to stop aging cells. In 1956, Clive M. McCay, a gerontologist sewed the flanks of live mice together in order to link their bloodstreams. One mouse was young while the other was old.With their bloodstreams linked, the old mouse seemed to age in reverse, getting healthier and younger as the experiment continued. The young mouse, meanwhile, aged prematurely. Amy wagers also did something that has never been done before in 2004. She reproduced his work with this mice and found a protein called GDF11 which was common in the mice blood. When this was injected into the mice, it could stop the aging and put it in reverse, like Clives experiment proved. Ronald D. Pinho was also successful with his research. He His team genetically engineered mice whose telomerase output could be toggled and found that in the “off” state, where there was no telomerase at all, the mice aged prematurely. This research could potentially prevent cancer because it could prevent the chromosomes from fraying. living for hundreds of years would, in my opinion, not be good. The population can become overwhelming and too much. It can also be harmful to the economy. It can wipe out all of the money. But, this research can also be a good thing as well. It can repair so many of our bodies dead cells and organs that we as humans ever thought was possible. Overall all of this research we are doing to figure out how to live for hundreds of years can be both amazing, and harmful.
ReplyDeleteAbby,
DeleteI think living to 100 is totally possible. Would you want to be part of this research? I would also like to travel the world and do volunteer work. I think that if we take care of ourselves that it will be possible to do this without spending millions of dollars on immortality.
I'd also want to live up to 100 years old because it seems achievable and there has been people who have lived up to that age and a bit higher! People used to have short life spans than now. Like in the middle ages, people tended to die at 30 years of age. The life expectancy obviously increased from that and I don't see why it can't increase to at least 100. Higher than that is excessive though, why would you want to live for so long?
DeleteI agree- immortality would definitely hurt the economy. We are not fit as a nation to support as many people as this would lead to.
DeleteI agree, by having immortality it would definitely become more challenging to support the growing population.
DeleteIt's strange to see how far we have come in a reasonably short amount of time. If i was a billion air i still wouldn't think that i would want to extend my life span by to much. I would like to still be able to stay healthy but not extend how long i would live for. the reason for this is i just wouldn't know what to do with an extra 300 or so years, not to mention working for hundreds of years, that is if there are any jobs available with how many people would be living at that point. Older citizens in our society today seemed to be treated like they don't know what is going on in the world around them. In 1956 Clive McCay conducted an experiment in which he sewed the flanks of two mice(one old and one young) together in order to link their bloodstreams the results were that the old mouse at times began to age prematurely as the old mouse began to become healthier. in 2004 Amy wager reproduced McCays experiment as well as located the protein responsible know as GDF11. when this protein was injected into the bloodstream of the mouse the aging process began to reverse. Ronald d Pinho was able to genetically engineer mice so their telomerase output could be toggled on and off which would extend life as well as help with the prevention of cancer. Overall i don't think living for a long time would be a great idea the world will surly become overpopulated as well as a lack of jobs and space.
ReplyDeleteDo you think D'Pinho's research will help eliminate cancer or cause more cancer? I agree that we would run out of jobs, but perhaps with the increased population there would be more jobs to take care of old people?
DeleteIf I had the power to live to any age possible, I would want to live however long I was expected to live. Tampering with life expectancies to well over 400+ years is more of a punishment than anything else. To me, there’s a line that modern medicine should be able to reach. Things like immortality cross that line into far fetched areas of who knows what. From that point, it seems like going any further would lead to disasters and catastrophes. Therefore, I’m not a big fan of the “fountain of youth”. If somehow there was a major breakthrough where everything worked and it became public there would be no way of knowing the next step. Reality would become one of those sci-fi movies that you thought could never happen. As far as overpopulation goes, we’d be done for. The amount of resources wouldn’t be enough to support life and it seems like everything would sort of just, end. Although immortality would drop jaws, it’d destroy us in the long run.
ReplyDeleteAlso,Clive McCay is a gerontologist who performed an experiment to link mice’s blood stream in 1956. Amy Wagers is another person who performed the exact same experiment as Clive in 2004 and even ended up with the same answers. She figured out that GDF11 is a protein that causes this link bloodstream to work. Ronald De Pino is another scientist who experimented with the enzyme telomerase. When switched off and on, it allowed cells to repair and grow. Telomerase is related to cancer because it prevents and progresses cancer. It’s the biggest problem with using telomerase.
This reminds me of the Indiana Jones movie and the quest for the Holy Grail. Is the search for the Holy Grail like the billionaires quest for immortality? Is there really such a thing as the Fountain of Youth or is it just a legend?
DeleteIf I were a billionaire I would not want to live past when I would typically have lived. I think that I'd run out of things to do and I would probably just be bored all of the time anyway. Since I would have a ton of money I wouldn't have a full time job but I would probably volunteer at a food pantry or a homeless shelter for something to pass the time.
ReplyDeleteClive McCay sewed live mice together to connect their blood streams to see what would happen. The older mouse got more youthful while the younger mouse got older. Amy Wagners tried repeating McCay's experiments to see if she could reproduce his results. She also found a protein called GDF11 that was common in young rodents but was lacking in older ones. Dr. Ronald DePinho was interested in telomeres, structures that cap the tips of chromosomes like aglets do the end of shoelaces.
Alyssa,
DeleteWhat do you think would happen to the over-population problem? Would an increased population cause damage to our ecosystem?
I agree with Alyssa that I would rather live my normal life rather than 300 years or so. There would be nothing you could really do at 300 and life would get boring.
DeleteI agree with what you said about how when you reach a certain age in your life you will start to get bored if you lived forever. The good thing about not living forever is that you don't have to experience some things that people wish they were never alive for, like wars or outbreaks of diseases.
DeleteI agree with you Alyssa that if we were so rich you would become bored and wouldn't know what to do because you have done everything. I think that living for 300 years would be an over kill.
DeleteI agree with Alyssa because dying to me is what makes life so special. Even after 200 years I would start to get bored. I also agree with Matt because some people are luckily able to avoid terrible wars or even diseases.
DeleteI agree with you completely; living past a normal age is not important to me and i'd rather focus my money into helping others live to a good age through charity because whether it be disease, poverty or etc. not everyone is able to live to a normal age
DeleteIf I were a billionaire I would want to live to normal age. I think that the mouse experiment preformed by McCay was very interesting, but if that were to happen with humans, they would need to both agree because you are basically stealing the youth's life to give it to an older person. McCay was the scientist who mixed the bloodstreams of mice (one old and one young). He found that the older mouse grew younger and the younger mouse grew older.
ReplyDeleteI think that society can be really mean to the elderly. I mean look at the sitcoms we watch on TV. The elderly in those make the elderly look cranky and forgetful. They look fat or unhappy or hateful. That isn't true for all elderly. Some are sweet and nice, but many look to TV or the internet as what is right and that's not true, it's a stereotype.
Immortality is not worth it. Imagine the heartbreak you would have to endure. Seeing all the ones you love die while you stay alive. You could't make too many ties because you would out live all of them. I would not want to live forever. What's the point?
Chloe,
DeleteDid you ever read the "Twilight" series? Granted it has to do with vampires, but the negative sides of immortality are definitely visited in that book.
I agree, I would want to live a to normal life span because then you would outlive everyone you know, and that would be very depressing.
DeleteIf I ever had the opportunity to be a billionaire, I would choose to live forever. Sure, I would be bored of life, but I could die of unnatural causes if that causes. :) However, I believe life will deteriorate as it goes by. We just get used to the same old thing that we don’t appreciate experience anymore. If jobs were still here, I don’t think I would ever stop working, having money for an indefinite amount of time is pretty impossible.
ReplyDeleteIn our society, elderly is treated as a minority. We believe they are always in need of help and incapable of sustaining them. For the fountain of youth, It does seem interesting, but rather too good to be true. It might show sign of reverse aging, but doesn’t really affect life span.
CLive McCay is gerontologist in Cornell University that linked flanks of live mice together in 1956. It relates to stem cells because it is implementing new, healthy cells, into old, damaged cells. THese cells are pluripotent.
Amy Wagers, part of Harvard University’s department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, repeated McCay’s work. She found GDF11, a protein young mice had. SHe injected this protein and these old mice started getting younger.
Ronald De Pinho, a senior scholar in the Ellison Medical Foundation’s school of aging, was interested in telomerase. Telomerase is linked to the prevention and progression. When levels rise, cancerous cells multiply.
If scientists are able to insure immortality, and we use De Pinho’s telomerase treatment, cancers will decrease since less chromosomes will fray. The economy will get worse with too many people and less momey. And no, overcrowdedness will occur, pollution, decreased biodiversity, and many more with a type 3 survivorship curve. Immortality is not worth the price.
There are some aspects of life that would make immortality desirable, but what if a couple hundred years down the road nothing about society and the world is the same? I can guarantee it wouldn't be. What if it's a dangerous and awful place to live? We can already see the negative effects of technology, and it will only increase from here. The problem is human curiosity: We are never satisfied with what's in front of us because we are intrigued by possibility and the unknown. Humans will always keep pushing the boundaries of what can and cannot be whether it be helping people live longer or destroy life by the thousands. With each harmless step forward there is the potential for a dangerously large step back. I wouldn't want to live long enough to see that, if it doesn't occur during my natural life span.
DeleteI think this article is very cool; science will forever amaze me. If I could choose, I would live to be 100 years old. Many people would want immortality, but personally I think that living forever would make my life a bore and a waste. Living a short time improves the quality of life, because if it were possible to live forever, life would not be as meaningful. Along with life comes stress and a great deal of work; living forever would mean forever having to deal with the many troubles life contains. If I could, I would stop working whenever I could and spend my time traveling with family and friends. In our society today, old people are treated well but are viewed as weak and unable. It is interesting that some people think they can create a modern fountain of youth, but they need to think through the consequences of these actions. With this creation would come an overpopulated earth and many bored humans. In 1956, Clive McCay sewed a young mouse and an old mouse together and wanted to see what would happen. This relates to stem cells because they both involve regenerating life in some form. These are multipotent stem cells because they can replace stem cells where they are found. Ronald De Pinho is a scientist interested in telomeres, so he experimented with mice that had telomeres and mice without telomeres. Telomerase is related to cancer because aging cells that lack telomerase are more likely to become cancerous. If immortality is a possibility, cancer could become a bigger problem because increased telomerase increases the risk of cancer. Also, with immortality the economy would plummet due to overpopulation. Since there would not be enough resources for everyone, we would quickly run out of water, shelter, and food. Ultimately, immortality is not worth it because it could very well be the downfall of the human race.
ReplyDeleteI think that this article reminds us to optimize the time that we have with our family and friends. I hope that I do not reflect back on my life and wish that I had worked less and traveled more.
DeleteI agree 100% when you say that life won't be as meaningful. I said that too in my response.
DeleteI would totally agree that I would only want to live for 100 years if I was a billioniare because the quality of life would not be so amazing and everyone would take life for granted.
DeleteI agree that life and work is very stressful and I think that is our downfall as a race on this earth.
DeleteI totally think that you are correct when you say that we treat old people as a minority. Often, I even think that the elderly are discriminated against when it comes to looking for jobs. Who would want to hire an old person when they could hire someone young for the same job?
ReplyDeleteIf I was a billionaire, I would want to live until I was 400 or 500. I would want to live this long because that would give me enough time to accomplish all of my goals in life and make enough money to support these goals, but not long enough that I would get bored with life. I would want to work until I had enough money to support everything that I want to do with my life and never have money be an issue. Our society treats old people like they don’t matter and disregard their ideas even though they have more years of experience. I think the Ponce De Leon style Fountain of Youth would be cool because all you would have to do is drink something to stay young and healthy, no surgeries or injections or anything else complicated. Clive McCay stitched two mice together and the old one become younger and the younger one aged prematurely. It relates to stem cells because GDF11 is what allowed the old mice to become younger and GDF11 keeps stem cells active. He was working with multipotent stem cells. Amy Wagers repeated Clive McCay’s experiment. She worked with GDF11 with the mice to keep them young. Ronald De Pinho experimented with telomeres, which cap the tops of chromosomes. Telomeres can stop cancer or spread it once it reaches the chromosomes. Humans would have to get artificial or cloned organs to replace old and failing ones if we could live longer. CAncer would increase, because the chromosomes would have more time to fray, leading to cancer and aging. The effect of living forever would affect the economy by allowing people to work longer, but would require more money to be put into research for artificial organs and treatments for cancer. I planet could not support an extended amount of humans, it would be over populated, unless we could somehow accommodate the earth for a never dying population. I do not think immortality is worth the price. Part of life and people’s religion has to do with dying. It has to happen at some point, I would be fine with living an extended life, but not forever.
ReplyDeleteI see where you're coming from, but I definately feel that by the time I was 500 I would be sick of everything on earth. It seems to me that the value of life would sort of detiriorate.
DeleteIf I were a billionaire, I wouldn't want to be a billionaire. Money is too much power and if i had all that power I would not know what to do with it. Plus money cannot buy happiness. If I could live for as long as I wanted, i’d probably want to live to around 90. Would you rather live for hundreds of years without any meaning to life, or would you rather live for a certain amount of time while living life to the fullest? If I were a billionaire, I wouldn't work at all. I would retire in my early fifties probably. I think in today's society, there are some people who treat older people with kindness and respect, but then there are others who just think that old people are a bunch of already dead bodies just taking up space. I love old people because they grew up in a time with no cell phones and all this technology and they’re so wise and enlightened. Clive M. McCay is a gerontologist. In 1956, he sewed the flanks of live mice together so he could link their bloodstreams. What he did relates to stem cells because he’s taking the healthy side of the mice and giving it to the old mice who is not as healthy. I think it’s a totipotent stem cell research because they cells are literally able to change into any type of cell they want. Amy Wagers is the person at harvard’s university’s department of stem cell and regenerative biology studies who copied flanks experiment. She discovered that the protein GDF11 is found in the blood of young mice and not common in the blood of old mice. The protein she discovered caused much of the old mice’s reverse aging. Ronald DePhino is working at the M.D. anderson Cancer center in Houston. He’s very interested in telomeres. His team genetically engineered mice whose telomerase output could be toggled and found that in the off state, where there was no telomerase at all, the mice aged prematurely. Aging cells that lack telomerase are more likely to become cancerous. Telomerase is linked to both the prevention and progression of cancer. Scientists think that the telomerase therapy will reduce the causing of cancer in the future. Like it says in the article, if there are much longer periods of life for one person for up to 400 years, people will have to change the way they do things and change their perspective on the meaning of life. I don’t think that immortality is worth the price because in the time it takes for one person to die in 400 years, 5 80 year olds could have the chance to live their lives. If people live for so long and a person can only carry a certain amount of ideas, then there won’t be any new, innovative, or creative ideas being spread if more people have the chance to live to spread those ideas.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article I think it was really interesting how many people are trying to “cure death” by finding a way to prevent ageing cells by using stem cells. If I was a billionaire I would enjoy it because you can do whatever you want. But I think it wouldn’t make me a stronger person because you don’t necessarily have to work for anything cause it is handed to you. I would personally like to live for 100 years because when you grow old you can’t really experience all the fun stuff you could when you are younger. Also when I die I want to be able to be with my parents and family again. I don’t think you would have the same quality of life because when your old can’t do as much. I would like to work until I want to start exploring the world and traveling to seek new adventures. I think our society and media treat old people as weak people. Media categorizes old people as people that are un able to do anything on there own. I think this fountain of youth should look in at all of the outcomes before just going for it. In 1956 Clive McCay gerontologist sewed the flanks of live mice together in order to link their bloodstreams. This relates to stem cells because both the stem cells in the experiment involved regenerating life in some form. A type of stem cells that is working would be multipotent. Amy Wagers reproduced Clive McCay work with his mice and found a protein cell GDF11 which is common in mouse blood. When this was put in the mice it made the mice to stop aging and to make the process go into reverse. Ronald De Pinho is another researcher that was successful. He was interested in telomerase, so he experimented with mice that had that and mice that didn’t have that. Telomerase is related to cancer because it can cause cancer. I think that cancer will increase because telomerase is an increase in cancer. I wouldn’t like having everyone live forever because every area would be too crowded for me and I wouldn't enjoy it. I think this could affect the economy because if everyone lived forever every job would be filled up so it would be extremely hard to find a job. I don’t think immortality is worth it because there would be to many of us and I think it can affect the way we have to live.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Carla about the economy. If everyone were to live forever we would run out of jobs very quickly!
DeleteIn response to Carla, I agree with you that we would run out of even more jobs. That's already a huge problem today, so we don't need to make it bigger. Also, I think that we would as be very limited on space, food, and water.
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ReplyDeleteIf i were a billionaire i would never want to live past 110 because i think i would just get bored of living. I would exhaust everything that i wanted to do and would end up being miserable. My quality of life would deteriorate, and i would also be forced to work maybe even a hundred years, where id only want to spend 20-30 years working. Unfortunately we don't treat our elderly with as much respect as we used to. We act like they are a burden to us and forget about how they have lead to many of the successes. we enjoy in our society today. I think we need to stop tampering with life and death, and with ideas that were going to live forever. There is nothing to make us live forever in nature because we arent supposed to. Clive McCay was a Gerontologist who performed an experiment on mice in 1956. He sewed two mice together. One old and one young. The old mouse became younger and the young mouse began to age prematurely. It relates to stem cells, because new cells begin to grow where old cells have died. They work with totipotent cells because they can change into any type of cell, and the scientists are trying to extend our lifespan by replacing all our dead cells. Amy Wagners is a scientist at Harvard for regenerative biology who tried to recreate McCays experiment. She discovered that a protein in mouse blood called GDF11 was more present in young mice and very scarce in old mice. Ronald De Pinho who works at the Ellison Medical foundation figured out the telomerase keeps cells healthy and stable. telomerase is also present in cancer, so the mutated cells can multiply unchecked and rapidly. If humans increased life expectancy humans can just replace their organs with new 3D printed replicas. However, cancer might increase with the flood of telomerase because of its importance in cancer. With so many people on the planet, it would be super difficult for the economy to handle the large number of people. 7 billion is a lot, but possibly 9 billion super humans would lead to disastrous effects. Our planet would eventually run out of resources. Immortality is not worth the destruction of the economy and ecosystem.
I am so happy that you mentioned the 3-D printed replicas of organs. I think that these organs are in our future. No longer will people be on transplant lists for years.
DeleteIf people were to become immortal, I don’t think that would be the best idea. The reason I think that is because the Earth would be overpopulated within not to many generations. If I were a billionaire I wouldn’t want to live forever because the Earth would be overpopulated, it wouldn’t be fair to normal people who work their butts off, the person who is immortal would be very lonely, and the immortal person would never see heaven or the afterlife. The reason they would be lonely is because if they only were immortal, then they would have to go through their whole family dying and sooner than later, their ancestors would only have limited children for the Earth being overpopulated. The billionaire wouldn’t be happy if he has nobody to talk to and the saying goes “Money doesn’t buy happiness.” Also, if the billionaire never died he would never go to heaven or the afterlife. If I were a billionaire, I would want to live long but surely not forever. There are people like Clive McCay, Amy Wagers, and Ronald De Pinho all research and experiment with stem cells. In 1956, Clive McCay sewed the flanks of mice together linking their bloodstreams. There was an older mouse and a younger mouse, once he linked the bloodstreams, it was a reverse process, as in the younger one getting older and the older one getting younger. Clive McCay’s work has to do with stem cells and he provided a successful experiment on stem cells. In 2004, Amy Wagers repeated Clive McCay’s project and it worked. She found a certain protein in the mice called GDF11 and this protein is responsible for aging because if the GDF11 lowered, then the age lowered. GDF11 is also responsible for keeping stem cells active. Ronald De Pinho was interested in telomeres, so him and his team took telomerase off the mice and saw that they were equivalent to a 90 year old human and then they restored the telomerase and they restored themselves. Basically GDF11 made the mice younger. Immortality would surely cause a lot more cancer and have a lot of people suffering over cancer and it would be bad. The economy would also be terrible because it would cost a ton of money for all of the people in an overpopulated world. If organs were to fail that would be bad and cause people to die even when supposed to be immortal. Our planet would probably not be able to support all the needs of people like water and food. In my personal opinion I don’t think immortality is worth the price.
ReplyDeleteI think the article is very interesting, I like the concept but are they thinking of the future? If everyone could live forever then the world would be overpopulated and most people would die of starvation. If this is not taken into account and I was a billionaire I would want to live till I was 250. This way I could see many of the technological advances and new ways to live. I think I would have the same quality of life because I would work until I saved enough money to travel around the world. Clive McCay sewed the bloodstreams of a young and old mouse and they reversed aged. The old mouse got younger and the young mouse got older. I do not think this has to do with stem cells because he connected the mouses bloodstreams, he did not use stem cells. In 2004 Amy Wagers studied McCays’s work to see if it actually worked and it did. So she tried to isolate individual proteins to see what was causing the ghoulish effect. She found the protein GDF11 which is found more in young mice than old mice. Ronald DePinho worked with the enzyme called telomerase. He also worked with reverse aging. Telomerase keeps telomeres at a stable level and when Telomerase levels drop the chromosome becomes fragile. This is said to help cause aging. Telomerase is related to both prevention and progression of cancer. If scientists do raise our life expectancy we can live more than 400 years old or until our organs suddenly fail. If we do find a cure of death and we are all immortal, then our economy will be forever changed. With more people that means we spend more money, but with more people that means we use more natural resources so prices will go up. Our world can’t support this type of extended survivorship curve, being immortal is not worth the hassle or the money, we would just dig a deeper hole for ourselves.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Maverick, I agree that if we become immortal then it would be more of a hassle towards us instead of helping because by drinking from the “Fountain of Youth”, you therefore have dug yourself deeper.
DeleteI think this article was very interesting, knowing that scientists can "reverse age" things! If I was a billionaire I would want to live until my mid 100's. I wouldn't want to life to be very old because then all of my friends and parents would die before me and it would be a lonely life to live. Living almost forever would become very boring. I think that I would have a different perspective on life considering that I know I would live longer due to the change on stem cells. Also I would do more with my life and not be afraid. Because everyone is afraid of dying but if you know you're going to live long it would be easier to do more with your life! I would not want to work for long. And probably wouldn't have to if I was a billionaire. Society treats old people in different ways. I feel like since people know they are going to die soon they don't help them as much as they would a younger human being who has a whole life ahead of them. I think the fountain of youth thing is a stretch. Yes it's cool and it could work but is it really the "fountain of youth?" Clive McCay was a gerontologist who preformed an experiment in which he sewed the flanks of an old mouse and a young mouse together to hook the blood streams. Amy wagers conducted the same experiment as Clive and found out that the "reverse aging" worked again! The young mouses blood contained a protein called GDF11 which activists the stem cells. That's why when she sewed the mice together that protein activated the stem cells in the old mouses blood, thus making the old mouse younger. Dr. Ronald De Pinho, who works with telomeres; structures that cap the end of chromosomes keeps the cells young and healthy. He played around with this and figured out that telomerase repaired damaged organs. This relates to cancer because I'm cancer its usually because you have a tumor or an organ in your body is damaged. This is able to slow the rate of cancer growing. When humans organs start to fail they will use this to fix them quickly so they can live a lover life. If scientists are able to prove immortality, I think the rate of cancer will go down because more discoveries will come from experiments. If everyone lives to be 200 the economy and the earth will definitely be screwed up. There will be way more people in the world, considering that people are living longer and others are giving birth. Our economy will not be able to support this many people. If we are lacking natural resounded now image what will happen in the future if scientists can prove that humans can live forever. I don't think this is worth the price because everyone is bound to die and that's the way of life. To many people living forever will be a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that being a billionaire would make me want to live any longer than if I wasn't. Living for 200 years or longer would somewhat destroy the value of life and the precious time that we have on Earth. Despite the fact that I wouldn't want to live any longer, I definately wouldn't be working because there would be no point in me earning more money and I could just spend more time doing adventurous things that I've always wanted to do like explore different exotic parts of the world. I wouldn't say elders are treated well by society, but I also don't think they are necessarily treated poorly. Clive McCay was a man who was able to make rats live longer by seeing them together which sounds cool, but it's also kind of creepy. His results were reproduced by Any Wagers and she worked with a protein that affects the aging of stem cells. De Pinho worked with telomeres to discover what changes as the body ages. The worlds population would also skyrocket and it simply wouldn't be able to hold so many people.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Clive McCay's experiment sounds creepy. It somewhat reminds me of Frankenstein.
DeleteI agree that living beyond 200 would destroy the point or value of life. I also agree on how connecting the bloodstream between rats and sewing them together was creepy but yet kind of cool.
DeleteI agree with Kyle, that living for a very long time destroys our valuable time that we already have on Earth. I also like how he stated that tte population would make a huge jump and we could not handle that many people
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ReplyDeleteIt is good that researchers are researching drugs to help cell damage that occurs with age, but I think that the money used in the laboratories trying to find immortality could be used in a better way, such as focusing on curing cancers and other deadly diseases and mutations. If I was billionaire, I would probably live my life to the fullest as a normal aged person and put my money towards charity or curing diseases. Most of the older people that I talk to who are in their 80s or 90s feel that they have lived a full life. Clive McCay sewed an old and a young mouse together to link their blood cycles. The young rat soon aged and the older rat showed signs of youth. Amy Wagers used this experiment to find GDF11, which would halt the aging of the mouse and put it in reverse. Based off of this data, I think that if immortality was to really happen, the overpopulation of the Earth surely lead to chaos.
Rylie,
DeleteIf you had billions of dollars, what would you spend your money on? Do you think a billion dollars could cure cancer?
I agree with Rylie. There should be a point where living doesn't contain its vitality anymore.
DeleteIf I had the opportunity to decide how long I lived, I would the same age that I will die now. I wouldn't want it any other way because that is what makes life special and amazing; trying to live life to the fullest knowing how at any moment your life could be over. I obviously would chose not to work as long because it would result in more time to do activities that make you who you are. Old people to me are treated like they can 't do anything. They shouldn't be treated like this though because they know better than anybody how to live your life to the fullest. Ponce De Leon is considered to be a legend, that is exactly how I would categorize him. Clive McCay tried to find the median of two mice by interconnecting bloodstreams. The older mice began to gain its youth back while the younger mice aged quickly. Amy Wagner was able to prove why Clive McCay's experiment worked. The younger mice had GDF11 which made the mice much more active. It is a protein that is responsible for aging. Ronald De Pinho was focused on telomerase and found out how it is able to keep stem cells stable and healthy. The bad news is that it is found in cancer which greatly increases the chance of getting cancer. Lastly, immortality would change everything. Our resources would vanish before our eyes. The economy will plummet. Immortality is defiantly not worth losing our resources.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the article was really interesting. The article talked about what scientists are doing to keep us alive longer. In general, people want to live longer so they will do what it takes, even if that means changing out the old cells for new ones. In a way, this is almost like cheating death, you keep living while those around you die, because you have the resources to become almost immortal. I don't know what the point would be to stay alive for so long. You would have all this time to live, but really you will be thinking about death and about how soon it's coming. If I had a billion dollars just to spend, I wouldn't want it to spend it on life. I would want to give it away. Anyway, if someone did this, they would practically need to own a blood bank in order to get the blood they need, which is a problem as you would need to constantly be finding matches with your same blood type, or find a lot of people with O negative blood. Think of how wasteful that would be. To keep yourself alive, you would be taking lots of blood, which then would mean that there is less blood for people who actually need it, like when people have surgery or if they need blood transfusions. If scientists could do this to everyone, that would have lots of consequences. First off, we would become overpopulated and people would only be allowed to have one child. Secondly, if everyone relied upon blood, who would be there to replenish all the blood? And lastly, would people then start doing this to their animals and pets? I think that this is completely crazy and is crossing the line.
ReplyDeleteIf I were a billionaire I don't think I would invest my money in immortality. Sure, it seems nice to live forever, but I think the appeal would diminish as time went on and times advanced. The people you loved would die around you, unless they of course were immortal themselves. I don't think it's a good idea to lengthen our lifespan, we were put on earth to live this long for a reason. Our planet is already extremely populated, and if we were to start living for more than 80 years, no one would be able to have kids anymore, there wouldn't be enough resources to support everyone. That would pose a difficult choice: immortality or family. I would definitely choose to have a family, I don't need to live forever. Especially with the way we're heading, the world might be a scary place I don't want to be a part of in a hundred years. On a similar note, Clive McCays experiments on mice are quite disturbing. I would hate to think that one would have to steal another's healthy blood to live far longer than necessary. It would be much simpler to just eat well and exercise regularly to keep healthy as you get older. Living to one hundred is a big achievement we don't need to make any more difficult. My great aunt and uncle are almost ninety and they are still super fit and healthy like they were sixty. They even so zumba! Isn't that long enough? Most people would probably get tired of living to two hundred plus years. Curing cancer I support 100% but I don't believe in immortality. We are guests on this planet and we shouldn't overstay our welcome.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that if we lived forever on this earth it would diminish the value and it would get boring. If we are meant to only spend 100 years here, or less, that is not really up to our decision, and I don't want to be guest who overstayed my visit.
DeleteI think this article is very interesting and it makes me think about life in general. This article was long, but it kept my focus. I found everything in this article so incredibly engaging. If I were a billionaire, I don't know how long I would want to live to be completely honest. I hate thinking about dying so I would want to live for forever, but at the same time I don’t think I would because if other people around me couldn’t live for as long as me, I would have to see everyone around me die. I also hate funerals so the thought of having to go to funerals for everyone that I love, is scary to think about too. I don’t think that if I could live for 500 years say, that I would take advantage of life. Like I could put things off because I have 500 years to do it. I know that I wouldn’t live in the moment and that thought also scares me. But knowing that I could only live for let’s say 100 years or 80 years, like a normal life, I know I would take advantage of every moment, because that is what I do now. Any thing I get to experience now, I take full advantage of it. Again, I’m not sure how long I would work. I’m a very indecisive person so I would have to see how my life played out. Who knows, I might get bored and want to work for a really long time; that is if I really enjoyed my job. I don’t think the media treats old people with less respect due to their age. I don’t think people mean to, I think it just happens. For example, some older people will ask questions about technology or something and the kids just say something along the lines of “just don’t worry about it” or “you won’t understand it”. I know that my cousins do this to my grandma all of the time. They just think that since my grandparents are older people that they don’t eat anything that we have in our generation. I think the Ponce De Leon fountain of youth is interesting, but it makes me question if people actually believed that it restored the youth of anyone who went into it. I guess if that myth was being spread I would go in it once to see if anything happened. Clay McCay “sewed flanks of live mice together in order to link
ReplyDeletetheir bloodstreams” (Isaacson) in 1956. This definitely relates to stem cells; when he sewed the flanks together, he had to make sure he connected the stem cells. McCay was working with multipotent cells because blood cells are multipotent. Amy Wagers repeated McCray’s experiment and she took it a step further by isolating single proteins to see what was causing this outcome. During this, she found a protein called GDF11 which was the cause of keeping these stem cells active. Ronald Depinho was interested in telomeres and he was a student at “Senior Scholars in Aging”. He looked at the telomerase enzyme and saw that it was fraying the edges of chromosomes. He took that a step further and found out that these fraying edges create cancerous mutations. Scientists believe that as the years go on, our organs will begin to fail, but we can live up until our organs give out. Scientists also believe that with telomerase therapy cancer will be reduced. The economy will have all the money sucked out of it, unless there isnt a retirement age, then the economy will grow. Sadly, as good as immortality sounds, our planet cannot hold everyone. It will be a mess that could poorly affect the world in many ways. Now I know this is controversial, but if we find another planet to live on (which is an on going debate) that can support human life, then maybe this immortality won’t be so bad because more space will be provided. Other than that, I think it will not be good for the Earth and I don’t believe that it is worth the price.
If I were a billionaire I would want to live until my body just gave out on me. I would only want to live as long as I’m supposed to. Living until the 200’s just does not sound natural to me, because it isn’t. Doing something to keep myself alive is a waste of time and your money. It would be a sad long extra 100 years that that is not worth it. I would most likely be alone and I wouldn’t want that. Considering I would be a billionaire I would want to work for 75 years because I probably own my own company and I’d like to keep my eye on it for a while. Our society and media currently treat old people like detritus. “Between 8 and 10 American seniors were reportedly abused last year” (Isaacson 30).
ReplyDeleteClive McCay is a gerontologist that sewed the flanks of live mice together in order to link their bloodstreams in 1956. This relates to stem cells in a way because McCay was taking a healthy mouse blood and transferring it over to a old sick mouse. I think the type of stem cells they were working with are totipotent cells because they can change into anything.
Amy Wagers is a somebody who works at Harvard University’s Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. Amy found the protein GCF11 when she was working on coping the sewing of the flanks. She discovered that when you inject that protein into young blood it restarts dormant stem cells. This would help produce healthy, vital tissues.
Ronald De Pinho is a doctor at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He worked with telomeres and mice to see the loss of a telomere and the fraying of a chromosome was responsible for physical affects of aging. It turns out he was right in a research study he conducted. De Pinho and his team genetically engineered mice with no telomeres then they toggled it back on. To their amazement the organs started to restore themselves. Telomerase is related to cancer because if you have low levels of it, it can prevent, but also progress cancer, which leads to more cancerous situations. Eventually the telomerase levels will rise again and lead to mutant cells spread and divide uncontrollably.
When humans organs begin to fail they will just make a copy of that organ to replace it. Such things can be done with 3-D printing or growing it in a lab. I don’t think our planet would be able to support such an extended living because there would just be a build of people and the world and resources would be at an all time low, and who knows we could possibly even run out at that rate. I don’t think immortality is worth the price because it would pretty much just mess up the planet. We all have to die at some point, and its time to face that. You can’t just decide when you want to die because it will happen when it will happen. Don’t “play God” with your life, because will it really be worth it in the end?
I totally agree with living a normal life span. Life would lose its excitement if an extra 300 years were added on. There is a certain amount of time to live and you have to enjoy it.
DeleteThis article was kind of shocking. Especially with the fact that some people want to live to be 10,000 years old. To me, living to 100 would be just perfect, as living any amount after that would make life loose its quality. In my opinion, I would want to finish working as soon as I could and use the added amount of time to travel and see the world. Personally, I feel as though our society treats older people harshly. I think that because they are older, they can be more wise as to how the changes that we make can change the world. Take WWII for example. Many of our grandparents were alive during this horrible time period. Imagine the insight that they have on how to avoid a World War III. In my opinion, the fountain of youth kind of reminds me of Tangled when the "mother" of Rapunzel uses her hair to become young again. Clive McCay and Amy Wagers both conducted the same experiment, only 48 years apart. Ronald De Pinho on the other hand, conducted his experiment where he made the mice age and then quickly reversed it. If we lived like this, we would become old and then reverse ourselves, and in the process our children would become "older" than us. What a scary thought. Telomerase, which De Pinho worked with, is linked to cancer in a negative way. Telomerase actually is said to increase the rate that the cancer takes over the body. Therefore, as we are trying to make ourselves live forever, we just as well could be killing ourselves in the process. Finally, if scientists were able to make a 2.0 human, over population would eventually be our demise. There wouldn't be enough space for everyone olive. not to mention we would run out of fresh water by then with that many people. So in my opinion, immortality doesn't sound that great. It just sounds like a lot of people getting old and having more to complain about. I personally think that more time and effort should be going towards curing cancer and diseases like that so people can live to be 100, and then let a new cycle come through next.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that a lot of people really don't treat the elderly as we should. In certain tribes back in the day their elders were respected above all others but now we just treat them as an old child that has to be taken care of but some elders can live without a ton of help. Also, they are wiser because they have more experience than we do so they would know what could cause what and what would be good or bad. Such as a war. People who have been alive during wars and survived them know what it's like to have their life completely turned upside-down. They would also know what could provoke leaders into starting a war for they have seen it before.
DeleteWhen I read the article I thought about Tangled too! I think it's interesting that people want to live to 10,000 years old, but take Shi Hung Di. He wanted to live forever and took Mercury pills to give him that immortality.
DeleteI agree with Tara that 100 would be a preferable age to achieve. And spending your life traveling and exploring sounds great too.Your reference to Tangled is creative and insightful . I can see how reverse aging could become a problem or obsession just as it did in this film. I can also agree that ones children being older than them would be creepy. And finally the negative effects of immortality being over population is a great point and the lack of resources and space would definitely cause at least a huge unhealthy population decrease, if not of demise altogether.
DeleteI agree! I couldn't believe this could happen especially the fact that people want to live until they are 10,000. In my opinion that sound impossible but maybe one day people can live until 200 or older because as of now 10,000 sounds very far fetched with today's knowledge.
DeleteI tough it was interesting how we are getting closer to having immortality. Personally if I was a billionaire I would only want to live to be 200 years old. I say this because I would want to be able to live a long life but I would also find it sad and lonely to live while my friends and family die around me. In our society we do not treat old people with that much respect. It seems we just put them in retirement homes and don’t visit them a lot. Clive Mccay is credited for sewing 2 rates together thus increasing their life span. De Pinho wanted to know what happened when the body aged.
ReplyDeleteIf I were able to live to any age I wanted I would just want to live until I'm "supposed" to die. I would try to work as long as I possibly could, because it would keep me occupied and I wouldn't just be sitting around all the time. Our society currently treats older people well, but we view them as more fragile and weak. Clive McCay was a Gerontologist who actually sewed an old and a young mouse together. The older mouse began to get younger, while the younger mouse aged over time. This project relates to stem cells because once the old cells have died, new cells replace them. Totipotent cells are being worked with in this experiment, because they can turn into any kind of cell. Amy Wagners was a scientist who tried to recreate Clive McCay's experiment, and she uncovered that GDF11 was hardly in older mice, while very present in younger ones. Ronald De Pinho leanred that telomerase keeps cells stable and also healthy; it is found in cancer as well. I don't believe that our planet would be able to support the population growth, because there would be a high need for water and food.
ReplyDeleteI found it not very surprising that "godfather" of the Russian internet want to be 10,000 years old. That's insane. I surely would not want to live that long. I would settle for at least 100 but no more that 105. It would get boring after a while and I would feel miserable having to get whatever procedure every time I got "older". Currently people treat old people as if they can't take care of themselves. As if they are an old child. They are weaker but they can care for themselves unless said otherwise. I think that this "fountain of youth" will sooner or later become a disaster because we were made to die so we would not overpopulate the earth and I believe if all of us were to live forever than there would be no room left sooner or later for anyone or anything. In 19456 Clive McCay sewed 2 halves of 2 different mice together. The older mice would grow younger while the younger one would age quicker. 48 years later Amy Wagers conducted the same experiment to see if it worked and it did. She found that there was GDF11 commonly found in the young mice's blood but not as common in the older one's. She concluded that this protein was what kept stem cells active. Ronald DePhino researched on telomeres which capped the tips of chromosomes and found that telomerase kept these healthy and was found in larger quantities in young bodies but not as many in older bodies. His experiment was able to turn a mice that was about 90 human years old and reverse its age making all its organs regenerate. This would be nice that there would be no death but we would, as I said earlier, run out of space in the world. This would not be worth the price because if there is no room for people than we wouldn't be able to do anything and the earth might become inhabitable because we use up all the resources just to keep billions and maybe even trillions of people alive. The destruction of the earth is not worth immortality. Maybe just extending the average life span of people would be good but making people young forever. That's just plain crazy.
ReplyDeleteI never really took the time to ponder upon the idea of immortality. I kind of forgot about the idea of researching the idea for a cure for death. I never really thought it possibly. I have grown up believing that we live and then we get old and die. I don’t really think it’s a good thing to prevent death. It’s part of life, to die. We all have to do it. I guess the good things would be that you get to stick around here longer, but would you really want to. What if your family was dead. I feel like 100 would be a good age to die at. You have lived a long life. On the other hand that would only be if I was healthy enough to pick up my grandkids. If I couldn't do that then that would mean the quality of my life wouldn't be worth living. I wouldn’t want to live if was incredibly sick beyond repair. Today I have always know to respect my elders due to my grandmother's condition. Although today most kids either laugh at them or take pictures of them and make fun of them on social media. Clive McCay was a gerontologist and he sewed two mice together a healthy mouse to an old one. Their blood then fused together and hey ended up sharing blood. His Experiment was a dead end but it did show miraculous potential. The ole one slowly became healthy but the younger began ageing more rapidly. If we did end up becoming immortal I believe the things that could possibly kill us off would be cancer and organ failure. Due to the enzyme telomerase the scientists are using to prevent aging. This enzyme causes cancer. Also even though we might be able to print 3-d organs they might not always be there in time. I do not think that our world can survive this. If This progresses as rapidly as it is we will kill our home. Even though this probably will only be available to the rich at the beginning. By the time we have completely figured out the idea of becoming ageless, I believe we will have already moved to another planet. That way our population ordeal won’t be a big deal. Now if we haven’t left and we are still on earth I think this is a bad idea. God allows us to die so we should embrace it and die.
ReplyDeleteThis article surprised me. The idea of immortality might sound great at first but if you stop to think of the consequences you may start to waver from dreams of never dying. In my personal opinion, or rather according to my beliefs, God will take you when it’s your time, the longer you live the more ways he plans to use you to make the world a better place. Besides beliefs look at the possible consequences of this particular scientific research. For english this year we all read Frankenstein and one of the discussions we had is what it taught us about science. The story alludes to the dangers of science and discovery, depicting it as this great monster that runs wild on a murder spree. Sure, while scientists aren't looking to create life from the dead just yet they are contradicting the natural ways of nature. Mary Shelley said it well enough, trying to extend life and cure death only causes you miss the one already given to you. We can see the negative effects of immortality research already, even as far back as 200 B.C. when Qin Shi Huang committed accidental suicide by taking poisonous medication meant to prolong his life. If I was a billionaire I wouldnt waste my money on trying to extend my life unless it was rational medical reasons. I honestly believe there are so many better things to spend your money on, better things to waste it on too.
ReplyDeleteI can however also see the benefits of certain research in the age department. Such as the research of age-related diseases, as that would save many lives, and yes, extend them for a bit longer. Once again going against the ageing research, the idea of reverse aging by using blood transfusion like the modern “fountain of youth” definitely concerns me. It reminds me to the newer spinoff of Snow White with Kristen Stewart. In the film, the evil queen kidnaps young girls and somehow absorbs their beauty through violent and bloody acts against them. Unsettling is definitely a word that comes to mind when I think of this. Not to mention how much power it would grant those who could afford it, if this was the case we could have a mass murdering on our hands in no short a time. Looking past the highly exaggerated consequences the idea still creeps me out.Another downside of immortality and reverse aging would be population issues. If the natality rates overcome the mortality rates by too much our population would plummet do to overcrowding and all the deaths brought about by that.
Overall, the negatives outweigh the positives of immortality research. In my opinion, lets leave life and death in the hands of God and try solving bigger problems such as, starvation. The life you live and the length you live it is a gift that you should cherish.
If I were a billionaire I would live for 100 years because having a "normal" length life is worth living. If I lived to 400 for example, life would lose its excitement. When you know that you are not going to live forever then you are more spontaneous and you try to fit as many good experiences in as you can. I would not want to work forever if I did live forever because honestly, who would want to do that? If work is as hard or harder than school then I wouldn't want to do it forever. From what I can see, the elderly are treated fairly well. But I have heard that they have been treated poorly also. I would not want to drink out of the fountain of youth because again, I want to live a “normal” life. In 1956, Clive McCay did an experiment where he attached two mice together (one young and one old) and fused their blood together. The old mouse started to become younger and the young mouse started to become older. This connects to stem cells because the blood from the young mouse caused the stem cells in the old mouse to become active again, causing the old mouse to get younger. The stem cells they are working with are multipotent stem cells. Amy Wagers discovered that the protein GDF11 keeps stem cells alive in mice. If the blood of a young mouse is put into an old mouse, then the GDF11 from the young mouse will go into the old mouse and activate the dormant stem cells, causing the old mouse to become younger. Ronald DePinho discovered that telomeres had an effect on aging. He experimented on mice by taking telomeres off of the chromosomes they were on, and the mice became older. Telomeres is connected to cancer because without it, the chromosomes without it will create mutated cells. These mutated cells then make more telomeres. If the life expectancy was risen and people’s organs began to fail, I think that a storage of organs would be created to replace the failed ones. Although, the brain would not be able to be replaced because then you would not be yourself. The amount of cancer would increase if immortality was guaranteed because more people in the world causes for more mutations to occur. The economy would be ruined if we had so many people on Earth because all of those people would need to work, so paying them would cause the money to run out. On top of that, the planet would not even be able to hold so many people because there would not be enough resources to support them. Immortality is not worth the price because why live forever if there is only going to be problems that keep coming up?
ReplyDeleteThis article was very interesting, and it proclaimed a lot of different aspects of life that I have never thought about. The thought of scientists creating a way for humans to live longer is so intriguing, yet so scary and confusing. If I was a billionaire I would only want to live for 100 years because if you had the possibility to live forever I feel like the quality of life would be decreased so much. Having a short life allows you to realize the true beauties you are accompanied with, and if you could live forever you would probably take your life for granted. In addition, if I was a billionaire I would want to work for about 10 years maybe because I would then feel like I had given back to my community, but after that I would want to spend the rest of my life traveling with friends and family and giving money to many charities. In regards to the topic of society and elders, I feel like society takes for granted what the old people have done for us and also we don’t realize what most of them are suffering through, with illness or loss. In 1956, Clive M. McCay, a gerontologist, sewed the flanks of live mice together in order to link their bloodstreams. With this experiment, the old mouse seemed to be aging in reverse and the young mouse aged prematurely. This study involved the use of stem cells and was very interesting at the time because little was known about the makeup of blood. Amy Wagers successfully reproduced McCay’s work in 2004, and studied a GDF11, which is a protein that affects the activity of stem cells in the body. Dr. Ronald Depinho is a scientist interested in telomeres, so he experimented with mice that had telomeres and mice without telomeres. Telomerase is an enzyme that is related to cancer because aging cells that lack telomerase are more likely to become cancerous. With the possibility of insured immortality, there is a chance that cancer may raise or decrease. Telomerase is likely to reduce cancer by making chromosomes less likely to fray, but also there is a chance cancer could increase from promoting cell regrowth. With the research towards human immortality, I believe this would not be beneficial towards our universe because we would run into problems with extreme overpopulation and resource limitations.
ReplyDeleteI thought this article was interesting... Yet ridiculous. For me, I only would like to live for about 85-90 years, because eventually I would miss the loved ones that I have lost. I also would wake up everyday doing the same things over and over again if I stayed alive for ever. It would eventually get boring. I would only want to work until I was about 65. Today, social media treats old people as weak, but reliable. Ponce de Leon I thought was very determined to attack something with no evidence. I believe that what he did was very brave on his part Clive mccay and Amy Wagers conducted the same experiment. The two connected blood streams to an old mouse and a young mouse. The old mouse preceded to become younger, while the younger mouse became older. This relates to stem cells becuase it's keeping the cells active. I think that they are using pluripotent cells. De Phino was a guy that used telomerase. Telomerase was related to cancer and actually increases the rate of it. I think that if we Persue to do this and try and save people's lives, then we will become over populated and there won't be enough resources. Also it's almost impossible to die if this works because they are starting to make 3D organs. This will help with survivorship. But In someways, I don't think it will work believe work because cancer will increase becuase of the telomerase. I also believe that the economy will crash becuase we won't have enough supplies.
ReplyDeleteIf I was a billionaire I wouldn't want to live too long because I dont want to stick around this planet forever. If a crisis was happening on our planet I wouldn't want to stick around too long. How long I work really depends on what my job is. If i'm an orthodontist being very successful then yes I would like to work a big portion of my life. But if my job is being a janitor then no I would not want to work a large amount of time of my life. I think in the back of our minds we think we are treating the elderly very nice and being polite to them but according to that article, a pretty big amount of elderly people get abused which is very sad to hear. The ponce de leon style fountain of youth i didn't really understand but from what I did I think he is a legend thats about how I would characterize him.. Clive was a professor at cornell university who was known for life extension. He interconnected bloodstreams between mice. The older one got younger and the younger one got extremely old. Amy Wagner was able to prove why Clive McCay's experiment worked. Ronald De Pinho was focused on telomerase and found out how it is able to keep stem cells healthy. The bad news is that it is found in cancer.
ReplyDeleteOur planet could only support that kind of population before severe consequences from peoples mistakes would start showing in our planet's eco system.
The fact that people are experimenting with natural aging is extremely intriguing to me, but also creeps me out a bit. I would want to live a natural amount of time, maybe 80/90 years, but nothing like 200 or 300. I feel like I would get tired of living, and my quality of life would be very low. I think older people are treated as mentally and physically weak in today’s society. The fact that people are searching for this hypothetical “fountain of youth” is a bit far-fetched, but if it furthers the human race, so be it. Clive McCay developed a way to link two mice together and connect their blood streams. One mouse ended up aging prematurely, while the other aged in reverse. Using this data, Amy Wager performed a modernized version of the experiment and obtained the same results. She concluded that the young mouse’s blood contained a surplus of the GDF11 protein, which aids in healing and keeps stem cells active. Dr. Robert DePinho was more interested in the chromosomal aspect of aging; he found that as telomerase levels drop, it is significant in physical aging. This research can also aid in the treatment and prevention of cancer. Some scientists say that we will live young and healthily until right before we die, while others say the same toll of aging will happen, but spread out over a longer period of time. This would act as a money-sucker on the economy, because the elderly cannot work, thus putting them under the care of the government. Immortality, or extended life, is really not worth all of the consequences. I understand the use of research to help with cancer, but to extend one’s life is selfish and a bit wasteful.
ReplyDeleteI agree! I thought the mice experiment was kind of weird.
DeleteThis article is very interesting because people have the potential to be “fixed”, and maybe eventually people would have the potential to live longer. If I were a billionaire I would still only want to live to 100. This is because I would see too many people die and I don’t think life would be enjoyable if I couldn’t live it with my loved ones. I may only have enough money for myself so this is why this is my reasoning. I don’t think the quality of life would be the same if i lived a longer life. I would enjoy when I was younger somewhere around 40-50 because I could feel younger and things would be more enjoyable if I were not in pain. However when I was older things would not be fun sitting in a wheelchair or using a cane. I would want to work until 70 so I could live a good life. I know that the fountain of youth is a lie but this new research could actually be a “fountain of youth.” Clive Mccay was a scientist who sewed two mice together and connected their bloodstreams. The older mouse began to get more energy and seemed to become younger as the younger mouse began to age very quickly. This is relative to stem cells because the older mouse got younger blood which made him feel younger and healthier. Amy Wagers recreated Mccay’s experiment and was founded so she was able to do more research. Older people are treated awfully. Between 8 and 10 percent reported abuse last year. That is awful to think one in ten parents and grandparents are being hurt.
ReplyDeleteI thought this article was very interesting and also shocking. If I was a billionaire I would want to live as long as I can because there are so many things you can do with billions of dollars and a normal life span wouldn't be enough. I think if you could live for hundreds of years you wouldn't have the same quality of life because you wouldn't be living everyday like it's your last, you would be wasting a lot more time. If I could live for 300 years I would want to work until I can't if it was a job I like but if I have 300 years on the Earth that's enough time to do the schooling to get a job I wouldn't mind doing.
ReplyDeleteOur society treats old people poorly because we don't know how it feels to be old. The elderly are often blamed for ruining the economy but I know that when I'm old I am going to want benefits too.
I think this fountain of youth sounds awesome because no one wants to live forever we just want to stay young forever. Clive McKay was an gerontologist who in 1956, preformed an odd experiment on mice where by sewing the flanks of two mice together to connect their bloodstreams was able to reverse aging on one of the mice. This experiment relates to stem cells because in 2004 Amy Wagers, a biologist who performed the same experiment found a protein in young mice blood called GDF11 that is responsible for keeping stem cells active which is the reason the older mouse aged in reverse. Since they were working with blood cells they were working with multipotent stem cells.
Ronald De Pinho, a doctor at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center worked with telomeres and mice to see if the loss of telomerase and the fraying of a chromosome were responsible for the effects of aging. De Pinho genetically engineered mice without telomerase and found that they aged prematurely, when the mice were the equivalent of 90 year old humans he put the telomerase back on and found that the mice aged in reverse becoming healthier. Telomerase is related to cancer because Aging cells that lack telomerase are more likely to become cancerous and once cells become cancerous, their telomerase levels rise, letting the cancer cells multiply uncontrollably.
If scientists are able to increase our life expectancy humans may be able make a copy of that organ using a 3-D printer. If scientists are able to insure immortality the rate of cancer go down because there will be more research and medicine to treat cancer. If our greatest scientists could live forever there's no telling the incredible scientific breakthroughs they could achieve.
One of the biggest downsides of immortality is the economy. There would be fewer jobs for future generations and more money being spent on caring for the elderly. I don't believe our planet would be able to support an immortal species of people because there would be more pollution and natural resources being used. If people were to live forever it could only be like 20,000 therefore the population would remain stable.
I think the whole idea of living forever would be really cool. If I was a billionaire, I would want to live to be 400, so I could see what the world look like in the future, inventions, generations grow up, and spend most of my life trying to change the world and make it more eco friendly. I think my life would be a lot better, considering I would have so much time to do whatever I want and to try new things. If I lived to be a 400 year old billionaire, I would probably work for the first 200 years of my life, then pass my business onto my children and do whatever i pleased. Usually society treats old people pretty well, even though there have been reports of beatings. I think this Ponce de Leon style fountain of youth is really cool, but may be really risky on humans. Clive McCay is a gerontologist who in 1956 sewed the flanks of live mice together to link their bloodstreams. This has to do with stem cells because the young mouse would give them to the old mouse, repairing his damaged, aged ones. Amy Wagers is at Harvard University’s Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. Amy found the protein GDF11 and injected old mice with young GDF11 to reverse the aging process. Ronald De Pinho is the Medical Foundation’s Senior Scholar in aging. His work with telomeres was that he found a way to take it away and put it back making someone either young or old. Telomerase is related to cancer because when you don’t have enough of it when you’re it could cause cancer since your body is more prone to getting it. I think once our organs start to fail, we could get a transplant or put telomerase into our body to help renew the organ. I think the numbers of cancer will reduce dramatically because we will have a lot of telomerase to make sure we don’t show the slightest bit of cancer. I think this affect the economy by how pricey this is and how much people are willing to pay for it. I don’t think our planet could support so many people on the planet; the earth is already dying, so I don’t see how we should make it worse. Even though the thought of immortality would be cool, I don’t think it’s worth killing the earth and having too much population.
ReplyDeleteI think this article is cool since it might just be a break-through. Those scientists may have actually found “The Fountain of Youth”. If I were a billionaire, I wouldn’t want to live forever or even 100 years more because I believe in life after death. Plus, wouldn’t you consider this as cheating death? Though if I were able to choose how long I could live, I probably wouldn’t appreciate the quality of life and take it for granted. Plus, if I were to live forever then I would have to keep working in order to support my family and I. In the medias the elderly are looked at as though they cause problems. The majority feel as though themselves are a burden to society. I think this is cruel since everyone will one day be old and if society does not change now, then it will always be mean to the elderly. I think the “Ponce de Leon” style fountain of youth may not actually work even though they have not yet tested to see any animals life spans but a scientist says he has tested it on flies. The flies having live longer with it than without. Clive M. McCay was a gerontologist who in 1956 sewed the flanks of mice together in order to link their bloodstreams. One mouse was young and the other was old. The older mouse started aging in reverse, getting healthier while the younger mouse keep aging prematurely (still at a constant rate). I think this relates to stem cells because the mice were able to have regenerative properties when its cells were able to heal it faster and making it healthier too. I think they are working with pluripotent because they are using young, embryonic cells. Amy Wagers in 2004 repeated McCay’s flank-stitching experiments. She found a protein called GDF11 that is common in the young blood of mice but is sparse in the older rodents. GDF11 is responsible for keeping stem cells active. She used the young blood cells from a mice and gave it to an older mice causing it to age in reverse because the young blood contained high levels of GDF11. Dr. Ronald DePinho was also a scientist who was interested in tolemors. In the article it stated that, “His team genetically engineered mice whose telomerase output could be toggled and found that in the “off” state, where there was no telomerase at all, the mice aged prematurely.” (Isaacson). He had brought mice to the age of 90-year-old humans and then toggled their telomerase back on and the organisms started to restore themselves. Telomerase is linked to both preventing and progressing Cancer. If scientists were to allow us to live longer than expectancy, people would think they would have a solution to organ failures and think it’ll work and will try to fund them with the millions of dollars they made over the 100 years they were given extra. If guaranteed immortality I would think that cancer would increase because the telomerase has a higher chance of increasing cancer than decreasing it. In a way we would end up finding death. Though if we were able to live forever then the economy would be affected harshly because it would be hard to get the resources in order to keep the population alive. If we just kept adding instead of decreasing, people still will find death by starving. I think immortality is not worth the price because we would burn through all of our supplies and cause the world to have corruption.
ReplyDeleteIf I were a billionaire I would want to live to however long I was suppose to, give it 40, 50 or 100. I believe we live here for a reason and because we live shortly, that makes everyday a blessing and something to love. It doesn’t really matter how long you live, but how you live it. And that’s what makes life such an adventure.
ReplyDeletePersonally I feel social media gives elder folks a bad rep. All my experiences with older people have been amazing, most are very kind, sweet, funny and so wise. They’ve seen so many walks of life, nothing really surprises them and they think all folly is funny. But social media gives them an old tired look, like they can never have fun, they’re just have too old of a mindset. And are just they are just grumpy angry beings, that are burdened by the world. Though in reality, no matter what age, you can be grumpy and angry beings.
Clive McCay performed an experiment with an old mouse and young one, by linking the two’s blood streams together he concluded that as the old mouse got younger the young one aged prematurely. This relates to stem cells because McCay used the young cells that could still differentiated properly and linked those cells with ones that were old.
If scientists are able to make someone live to 200, then technology would be so advanced that we would have artificial organs, bones, blood, and everything that could be made by stem cells. But if we would be able to take this leap into technology then cancer could be cured, and other diseases. Which would make us a superhuman race, immortal to all disease and infections.
It reminds me of the movie Elysium, in this movie where the earth is overpopulated and is in mass poverty. All except for the wealthy ‘good’ folk who live on this gigantic ship that technology is so far advanced that their machines can cure cancer is 3 seconds. I feel like that is what would become of our world, overpopulated and filled with selfish people that take for granted the whole meaning of life, suffering and the adventure that comes with each and every day.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting article! I have to say that if I was a billionaire, I would be perfectly happy living to my natural age. I wouldn't want to toy with nature and try to prolong my life it's unnatural. I would never want to live for so long, sounds amazing, but in actuality it would be awful. Also I think our society does not treat elders well, which is very tragic. I think what Ponce de Leon is doing is amazing! I don't know if I think it's a good idea but I still admire him for all his work! Amy Wagers and Ronald De Pincho and all the other people are all people coming up with different ways to try and develop a way to live longer. GDF11 is something that could potentially help us to live longer but could cause cancer. Also if we increased how long every one lives our world would be a mess! The population would be out of control, but to mention the economy would go down the toilet and become extremely unbalanced. I think immortality is not worth it and people should stop trying to play God!
I agree with the last line completely.
DeleteI stuck with this article and let me tell you I was not rewarded. The whole time I was wishing it was a joke. If I was a billionaire I would not want to live to be older than 100. I feel like after a while it would just get so boring, I mean life isn’t just about money and if thats all you're worried about than thats just sad. If though I was a billionaire I would choose not to work. I think that one of the main reasons of illness these days is from stress at work. I would choose to spend time with my family instead. I was really sad to hear that people aren't treating our old people with kindness. I think its so wrong when families just drop their parents or grandparents off at a nursing home. As their families, we should be taking care of them ourselves and not just looking at them as a burden. As for the “fountain of youth” it’s a joke. We are not mice, nor will we ever be mice. As humans, we have been given the most spectacular piece of art in the whole world: Our Bodies. We should not be playing around with the delicate balance God has given to us. Clive McCay performed a somewhat interesting experiment on mice in 1956. He attached the blood cycle of a young mouse to the blood cycle of an old mouse and the results were shocking. Even though this was an experiment to get excited about that was really all it was. We are not going to replicate the same thing in humans because once again WE ARNT MICE! Amy Wagers 48 years later did the same experiment and produced the same results. Amy found though after much research that the reason for this is a protein called GDF11 and it is found mostly in young mice. This protein is sparse in older mice, so when the bloodstreams were connected the GDF11 was put back into the older mouse and helped with the “reverse aging.” Robert DePhino was a scientist who once again did an experiment on mice. Only this time he tried something different: giving telomerase to a telomerase-deprived animal. The results were once again shocking and they had thought they found the next fountain of youth. What they didn't realize though is that the Telomerase is actually a cause for cancer, and I mean what isn't these days. We are doing some many new thing, trying different chemicals, that we are actually creating a disease. People are so blind to not see that things like GMOs, and Plastics, and microwaves are causing a terrible disease all because we as humans wanted something easier, faster, better. I feel that the last few questions all tie into each other and heres what i’ll say, We should not be messing with things like this. I know that God has created me and each and every person on this planet for a reason, and he is going to take you from it at anytime for a reason. You see what people don’t understand is that we are all on this earth to serve God and he doesn’t want us to be immortal on the earth because by accepting him as our savior we can go to the greatest place ever imaginable: heaven. And there we will live eternally but, we get to do it with Jesus.
ReplyDeleteSounds like Benjamin Button will no longer be a work of fiction. It sounds like they’re doing some amazing work, but I fear of the repercussions. So, because of this, I don’t want to live a day past 100. Also I feel that there is something peaceful in dying of old age and it is not something I wish to prolong. Sure it would be great to have time to do everything you want in life, but is it really worth it when you have to continue working, and accumulate the stress that follows, for another 200 or 300 years? I think not. The one aspect of this research that I am fully supportive of is that it could improve the quality of life because I’d like to enjoy all that life has to offer up until my death and not have to worry about my brain wasting away. If I were healthy and capable for the majority of my life, then I would probably end up working longer so I can have money to spend on a bucket list of sorts and to help alleviate my family’s burden in regards to funeral expenses. Generally, I feel like most people secretly view the elderly as a burden and a hassle, but they often show a fake sense of respect for them. With this research, society’s view of our senior citizens will no longer be a negative one; we will pay more attention to their good deeds instead of worrying about their medical bills. Clive McCay, a scientist in this field, conducted a frightening experiment where he surgically attached an old mouse to a young mouse and create Benjamin Button mouse and a-witch-without-her-youth-spell mouse (aged rapidly). His work relates to stem cells because the young blood of the mouse reactivated the older mouse’s stem cells causing a shift in aging. Amy Wagers, a modern-day scientist, recreated Clive McCay’s work and did research on GDF11 which gave the anti-aging effect. Another scientist, Ronald De Pinho, developed a way to toggle telomeres on and off proving to also have an anti-aging effect. Telomerase contributes to both the prevention and progression of cancer; it can help cap fraying ends of speed up the production of cancerous cells. Like I mentioned earlier, I am worried what implications this may have on humanity. Our planet will not be able to support a growing population AND a 0% mortality rate which is scary prospect for our future generations. Also I would very much like to have children when I’m older and not have to worry about some kind of child limit like they do in China. Another thing is that this idea of living longer is a real gamble with our economy because it can be both good and bad. Overall, I don’t think it’s worth the risk, I mean, we’ve gone on dying for hundreds of years so why complain now? (I know, it’s a morbid way of putting things). While they go on trying to prevent death, I'm going to continue living life to the fullest and let nature take its course.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. Honestly, who wants really wants to live in this world for a hundred years. I would rather die somewhere in my 80's that have 20 more years of this place. I would assume that one would get sick of having to see the change in our society, and honestly, it won't get any better. I also second the notion about the planet not being able to support more and more humans. The whole world would be one huge city with the population density of some current city in india. Of course we could send people to mars which even today would solve so many probelems.
DeleteAfter reading the article I thought it was very interesting that there are so many studies and tests going on to "cure death." Especially because none have ever been successful. I personally think time and money should go towards other causes like curing world hunger or bad diseases so people can live longer, but not forever. If scientist ever "cured death" I think only the "important rich people" would get to use it because it would be expensive and the demand would be high.
ReplyDeleteGoing back to the tests and studies that scientists are doing, Clive McCay for example is attaching mice in hopes that one mouse will age backwards. I think this is really weird and unnatural. It also made me wonder if someone would do this to themselves in order to stay young? So I think there are better causes to be curing because death is apart of nature and whenever humans go against nature bad things happen (Frankenstein).
This was a very interesting article in the fact that they view humans as machines. Being able to rejuvenate the bodies of mice by using certain proteins found in them is a fascinating thing that could lead to huge discoveries. I can infer that if we could do that with humans, that would lead to people almost becoming younger which would be a huge scientific breakthrough. Unfortunately, I would never agree to use this since it would involve killing a younger human which would be unethical. It is also so cool that in the future we may be able to live exponentially longer compared to now and we could also generate new body parts with a printer. This theory that states that we could perfectly healthy for hundreds of years until we die is exciting to think about. I do not think though, that we could fix whole bodies. This is just like Frankenstein's mistake. We would not know what the outcome could be if humans were given new bodies. In my opinion I would not want to live forever. It is the nature for all things to decay and die, humans included. I would never want to see what this world turns into 1000's of years later. Lastly, The old deserve respect. They are memory and wisdom to us. When we treat them like crap, just because they are old and may seem to be out of it does not mean that they are not humans. By creating everyone to be young and full of youth really shows what people think about being old. It is easier to walk up to an old person and show respect than to talk to a younger person in the same way. Our sense of civil respect toward our elders would go down; and that is not good. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
ReplyDeleteto live for thousands of years or even be immortal will have its benefits; but, is it really worth the price that billionaires pay to try to change the way nature intended the span of our lives? I believe that if I were to be a billionaire I would choose to live for a couple of years longer than my expiration date because many people choose to focus on other things and don’t experience the things on their bucket list. But if I were to prevent my aging that I would go explore the world because that is something that many people would do; however, I believe that people would choose to use this advantage as a way to become more successful instead of using this “power” as a way to also benefit others. even then I would question the way people would treat me? What if yes I am able to live to 400 years old, but I believe that people would treat me differently or try to use me as a selfish advantage in order to become young themselves, which is what many people treat the older generation as a laughing joke or a quick way to get money in their will. Yes it is true that not all old people are the sweetest but they should still be treated with respect which I feel like that wouldn’t be shown towards me if I was older. I still believe that this idea can shape the future; yet, what if we create the ability to become immortal? our resources would only be even more limited to what we have unless these scientists can find ways to create inevitable resources. However, the improvement of research towards the nutrition of aging had started with CLive McCay when he had proved that caloric restriction increase the lifespan of rats. I believe that this sets up the further enhancement of improving not only the lifespan but also stem cells. If we were to have immortality this would affect society because the resources would be limited. In conclusion I believe that immortality isn’t worth the price of creating everlasting life because we could put the billions of dollars of research that is going towards these studies to help more than just one person and improve our society as a whole instead of wasting millions on just one person.
ReplyDeleteThe article was incredibly fascinating, but one thing I realized- immortality would cause serious over population. Because of this, I assume that governments would implement a huge tax on any sort of pill like this. Another thing would happen- someone would try to fake it- they would make a placebo, and because people would never know if it works until they live long- it would sell, and people would be none the wiser. To be honest, I would however like to live to 200 years old.
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ReplyDeleteIts always been in the mind of humans about how great it would be to live forever. Personally I only want to live to about 80 because by then I can see my kids grow up, meet their kids and be a good father and grandfather. If I was a billionaire I’d work till I had enough money to support my family till I am long gone. I don’t want them to create a fountain of youth like treatment because I think it would be better to have a sickness free life then to live forever to endure many diseases. McCay did an experiment in 1956 where he had a young mouse and a old mouse on a circle of blood transfer, the unexpected result was the older mouse getting younger and the younger mouse growing old. Obviously it relates to stem cells because, if it didn’t have to do with stem cells then they wouldn’t be a big deal. Wagers conducted the same experiment as McCay except in modern times so she was able to isolate the protein that is responsible for the results. GDF11 is responsible for keeping all your stem cells active which is what deteriorates at we grow older. Dr. Depinho discovered that telomerase can is like aglets it stops the chromosome ends from fraying; the important part is that it can prevent or progress cancer so it has a really good side but one of the most dreadful sides also. Our bodies are only built to sustain us for around 100 years so if we can live longer than organ failure is the inevitable. The amount of cancer could increase or decrease there’s no way to say due to the how they decide to manipulate the telomerase. Our economy will fall because the rich will stop working because they will have time to pursue dreams so only the middle class and poor will work so and due to the tax system, that will not be enough money to benefit and family let alone a whole economy. I’ve never personally seen media say much of anything about senior citizens so I can’t go one way or another on that topic. Our plant will not be able to sustain for that many people unless we can find a way to filter the ocean for water and somehow find a food that we will be able to live off and never run out of. Immortality is not worth the price it is like playing the act of god, and since we are not good we shouldn’t act like it.
After reading this article, I thought it was very interesting, this is definitely something I never would have guess could actually happen. If I was a billionaire I would want to live until I was 100 because I feel that’s a good amount of time to experience a whole decade worth of time. I don’t think people were put on this earth to live for ever. The reason I feel this way is because the fact that it will cause many issues that no one would think about. I feel if people were to know when they were going to die they may not live everyday to the fullest because as of today I never know when I may die but, if I were to live until I was around 100 years old I would work until I was in my 60s then retire. The media doesn't target elderly as much. They target, the age group around 35-54 as their primary target. This is usually because, they have the most amount of money to spend. On the other hand, the elderly don’t spend a lot of money or either have a fixed income. So, when the elderly takes the time on the elderly, they do at specific times because they know they may be up at certain times. Ponce de Leon was very brave to discover something there wasn't any evidence of. In my opinion this is truly amazing because I would have never expected someone to discover what he did. Cive M. McCay performed an experiment in New York campus of Cornell University. He sewed the flanks of the live mice together, doing this to connect their blood stream. One mouse was healthy and young while the other mouse was old and in relatively bad shape. Doing this experiment, McCay saw that when the blood streams linked the old mouses age seemed to go in reverse allowing it to become healthier and younger. Amy Wagers conducted the same experiment and the results she gathered were the same. When performing this experiment she noticed that the young mouse’s bloodstream contained much GDF11 (protein), which keeps stem cells active; eventually, GDF11 levels drop, which causes the mouse to become old. When containing plenty of GDF11 in the young mouse’s blood stream it allows the mouse to be more active. I think that the use of these stem cells that they’re using pluripotent cells because, they are experimenting with younger cells that are embryonic body cells. Ronald Depinho experimented with mice and changed the telomeres to mirror aging of human. Depinho studied the telomeres that he experimented. Stated in the article it stated, that telomerase is linked to both the prevention and progression of cancer but, what causes cells to become cancerous is when the cells are lacking telomerase. In my opinion if the average life expectancy increases, and human organs start to fail I think that people will find a way to continue to extend their life expectancy. I think that this would affect many and cause serious problems because there isn't much as of now that you can do with damaged organs.I feel that the amount of cancer won’t have much of a change unless scientist find a cure to decrease the amount of people struggling with this. I also feel as good as the idea of people living longer sound this will come with many issues including the fact that the world will become overpopulated and this wouldn't allow everyone in the world to have all the resources that they really need. Economy wise I feel that the economy would most likely fail due to everyone trying to spend all this money to be able to live longer. Overall, as exciting as this is that scientist may be able to do this, it will definitely have pros and cons that our world will have to decide if it’s truly a good investment.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that we should invest put time and money into the idea that we can become immortal or live for hundreds of years. If I was a billion I would not want to live forever or hundreds of years because humans and all animals are not ment too. Instead of the wasting billions I would have I would do something useful to help the people that are suffering in America because those peoples life's can be saved. My quality of life would be better because I would be rich. I would work for thirty years just because it adds makes you think about how much you are spending because you actually had to work for it and then I would travel the world and see as many places as I could because the time we are given here is a gift and it does run out. Sadly today we see the elderly as people that can no longer do anything for themselves and must be take care of because they are incapable of doing it themselves that is how many people view elderly people. I do not like the fountain of youth because like I said we are not ment to live forever and if we did the Earth would begin to kill is off Because our population would become to big and we would run out of resources. Clive McCah was a scientist who did expirements on rats to see if he filtered a younger rats blood into an old rat and vise versa. The reason he did this was to see if the blood had an effect on aging. His research shows that as you get older a protein GSF11 starts to decrease in your blood. Because of the decrease of GSF11 stem cells began to become dormant and stop making new tissue for the body but when the younger rats blood was transferred the stem cells in the older rat began to activate again making new tissues for the aged rat making it in a sense causing age reversal. He was working with multipotent stem cells.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that we should invest the time and money into the idea that we can become immortal or live for hundreds of years. If I was a billionaire I would not want to live forever or hundreds of years because humans and animals are not meant too. Instead of wasting billions on immortality I would do something useful to help the people suffering in America because those peoples lives should be saved instead of making me or others immortal. My quality of life would be better because I would be rich. I would work for thirty years just because it makes you think about how you are spending because you actually had to work for it after those thirty years I would travel the world and see as many places as possible in my lifetime. sadly we today we see the elderly as people that can no longer do anything for themselves and must be taken care of because they are incapable of doing it themselves, that is how many people today view elderly people. I do not like the fountain of youth.
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