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Science

Red Sea Urchins Nearly Immortal 107

Posted by michael from the pension-plan-underfunded dept.
varjag writes "A study by scientists from Oregon State University and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have revealed that Red Sea urchins are practically immortal. While they can die from diseases or predator attacks, it seems that their life span has no biological limit. Specimen as old as 100 and 200 years have been discovered, while previously they were expected to last no longer than 7-15 years."
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Red Sea Urchins Nearly Immortal More

Red Sea Urchins Nearly Immortal

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  • CORVALLIS, Ore. - A new study has concluded that the red sea urchin, a small spiny invertebrate that lives in shallow coastal waters, is among the longest living animals on Earth - they can live to be 100 years old, and some may reach 200 years or more in good health with few signs of age.

    The red sea urchin appears to be one of the longest living animals on Earth, with a possible lifespan of up to 200 years, according to a new study by marine zoologists at Oregon State University. (Photo by Richard Strathm
  • Man, this has "genetic analysis" written all over it. Screw world overpopulation problems; I wanna be immortal!
    Oh, and just cuz I can, fr0st p1st, bizzatches.

  • This explains a lot (Score:4, Funny)

    by Fux the Penguin ( 724045 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @10:39AM (#7527949) Journal
    The other day I was walking by the ocean, and noticed two red sea urchins sword fighting by the shore. One beat down the other, then said "In the end, there can be only one" and chopped off the loser's head. Then there was this lightning or something, and the street lights blew out.
  • So they have recorded lifespans of 100-200 years old? Isn't this just like humans?

    But somewhat remarkably, it appears to never really stop growing. It's just very, very slow.

    Isn't this ALSO just like humans? We typically 'increase diameter' as we enter middle age too, albeit from too much beer and chips. I'm not sure I give this study a lot of credibility using the word 'immortal'.

    --trb

  • We have found the secret to immortality! (Score:3, Funny)

    by fain0v ( 257098 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @10:42AM (#7527979)
    Now I just have to find someone that can graft a human head to a sea urchin.

  • Someone really should ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by the real darkskye ( 723822 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @10:42AM (#7527980) Homepage
    Combine scorpian, red sea urchin and transistor growing e-coli DNA and produce a walking, stinging, immortal indestructable computer ... which will be obsolite by the time it hatches

  • What (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @10:42AM (#7527981) Homepage Journal

    The key to their longevity appears to be always growing, but ever so slowly.

    I could see where age guessing of a slowly-changing organism would be difficult and that they would corroborate their results with nuclear information because biochemical indicators are so flat.

    This is also consistent with Duncan MacLeod and the other Immortals being under 40.

    • Re:What (Score:4, Insightful)

      by buttahead ( 266220 ) <[tscanlan] [at] [sosaith.org]> on Friday November 21, 2003 @11:43AM (#7528520) Homepage
      The key to their longevity appears to be always growing, but ever so slowly.

      acutally, consistant isn't indicated as the reason for long life... evolution can explain the age of these guys.

      Anything that happens after a creature stops reproducing does not contribute to evolution. So, typicaly you see creatures die soon after they stop reproducing, as there is no more need for them to exist. This has been indicated in women recently in small studies, but also makes some sence if you think about it.

      The fact that the urchins just keep on putting out sperm and eggs means that longevity can help them spread their genes more than any short lived urchin. and viola... if there is any age after which the urchins do go through a menopause... death for them will probably be within a few years after.
      • I'm not sure its that simple. Grandmas can help improve the chances of survival for their grandkids, even after menopause. The 'selfish gene' has very complicated ways of being 'selfish', some of which might even look 'altruistic'.
        • Correct, some people believe this is why women live longer than men on average. women typically are the child caretakers, while the men are off at the pub. I was a little too exclusive with the word "Anything". in this particular case, the urchins do not "raise" their offspring. the involvment of the parents is not helping to lead their evolution in a different direction.

          • Very good point: unlike humans, a sea-urchin's grandma doesnt bake cakes for her grandkids.

            I guess see the 'long life' / 'no menopause' pair as an inseparable chicken-and-egg problem.

            So, is it:

            a) they are able to reproduce at advanced ages, and this provides evolutionary pressure to increase their lifespan, OR

            b) their makeup somehow allows for them to potentially reach an advanced age, and this provides evolutionary incentive to increase the hardwired limit on the length of their reproductive ca
            • neither a nor b:

              evolution has no bearing on what happens after you stop reproducing. therefore, once you stop reproducing, evolution has no reason to prolong your existance.

              There are exceptions, as you pointed out, such as parents the raise thier offspring help to increase the offspring's chance to get to spawning age.

    • The first Immortal MacLeod met, Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez, had to be over 40...

    • Re:What (Score:3, Interesting)

      by azav ( 469988 )
      Um, no.

      Look at the factors that affect vertebrate aging. Aming them the telomeres falling off the ends of our DNA, Oxidative damage to cellular structures ala free radicals, etc...

      We are VASTLY more complex organisms than echinoderms on the most fundamental levels (bilateral symmetry vs radial) and what holds true for their life forms may not hold true to ours.

      FYI, radial vs bilateral symmetry in animals is a very very fundamental distingiushing factor with regards to evolutionary development. A long l
      • Although they can get cancer, not all animals have increasing cancer rates as they age, as humans do.

        Can Turtles Live Forever? [discover.com]

        It's not quite immortality, but it seems that cancer is 'just another disease' in some turtles, rather than the eventual destiny of long-lived humans that don't fall to senescence.
        • Good example. Turtles are vertebrates like ourselves and it has been showed that most vertebrates (lizards, birds, fish, lawyers) get cancer. Plants don't. I don't think that echinoderms do either. So looking at what causes this long life in the Red Sea Urchin would be the next step. If there were a commonality between what happens in them to prevent the aging and what happens in us to make us age, then we might have something that would apply to longevity in humans.
      • I've heard people say that sharks don't get cancer. I always thought that this was probably bullshit but this page [mote.org] seems to have actual evidence that sharks at least have an extraordinarily low rate of cancer.
    • Geesh, its Connor MacLeod, the one who beat the Kurgan and won the Prize, not some lame-ass made-for-TV guy. How old are you, 12?
  • Don't some species of parrot and sea turtle live to be 120 or so?
    • Yeah, but thats insignifigant. This is important because we previously thought they only lived to be 7-15 years old...
    • Didn't you see Finding Nemo? Crush, the sea turtle, was 150 years old.
    • Sea turtules do indeed live to be very old (with some speculation that they are "immortal" by some people). You can search for an article on them at discover.com.
    • Yes, but parrots and sea turtles show signs that they are wearing out, and will soon die. The urchins are living to the age of 120 and showing no signs of being less able to going on living for a long amount of time than very young urchins, which is why they're being labeled "immortal."

  • Sea urchin immortals?!?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Picass0 ( 147474 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @10:57AM (#7528098) Homepage Journal

    Oh great, now they are going to have poorly rehearsed swordfights and go on rants about "the prize".

    In the end, there can be only one sea urchin!

  • What if? (Score:3, Funny)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisum.gmail@com> on Friday November 21, 2003 @11:02AM (#7528156) Homepage Journal
    We're only seeing the 'larval' stage of these organisms, which happens to be a few hundred years old ... and the next stage is a monstrous life-stealing alien invader of Earth, eating brains and demolishing cities?

    That would be cool. Hope its not for a few hundred years though, that would suck...

  • Moses (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 )
    "So, Mr Urchin, were you too put out when Moses made you get out of the way when he parted the Eed Sea?"
  • This reminds me of all the cryogenics hype when somebody froze and reanimated a frog. Why in only a couple of years before we would be able to freeze astronauts and send them to the stars!

    The problem? Fogs aren't people, and neither are Sea Urchins. Any real benefit to humanity is going to be a long time comming from this one.

    That having been said, I'd personally like nothing more than to be proven wrong.
    • Yes but the worst thing about being proven wrong in THIS case is you'd be hearing about it for a LOOOOONNNNGGG time :)

      "Hey, remember a thousand years ago when you dismissed that urchin thing?"
    • This reminds me of all the cryogenics hype when somebody froze and reanimated a frog.

      Er, you can freeze and thaw frogs in your fridge. They do it every winter.

      I bet you were amazed when "they" cloned a tree huh? ;- )

  • Nearly immortal? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wizarddc ( 105860 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @11:36AM (#7528455) Homepage Journal
    Because 200 years is like FOREVER! When I heard nearly immortal, I thought theyw ould say soemthing like 500, 1000, even 5000 years old. Not 200. Don't some sea turtles live that long? Do we call them "nearly" immortal?

    • On the scale of a sea urchin, that's pretty damn close. Think Lobsters--the things could essentially keep growing to massive sizes, but they get eaten, stepped on, poisoned, diseased, shoved into massively deep ocean trenches and crushed into little tiny balls of lobster meat, whatnot.

      Rather, take the number with a grain of salt, and re-read the article while assuming laboratory conditions. There's a pretty big gray area between pure environmental factors which cause death (falling victim to the food cha
    • RTFA. The sea urchins would be immortal, but their heads keep getting removed.

      There can be only one.

    • There is a general rule of thumb that the smaller the animal is, the shorter its life span is. Most animals the size of a red sea urchin leave under 10 years. So 200 years for an animal that size is something like 2000+ years for a primate. Which is a hell of a lot.
  • ...then I would expect to find some which were at least a few thousand years old, and eventually that were dozens of thousand years old. So why are the 100-200 year old ones a big deal?
    • There are plenty of non-old age means for them to die. And if you assume that those dangers are equally likely to affect a couple-year old sea urchin and the 200 year old one, it just means living to older and older ages are progressively less and less likely.

      And the fewer there are that live to the really old ages, the less likely they are to be found by people, just because they become progressively smaller percentages of the sea urchin population.

      I also doubt there are a lot of records of the various

  • Lobsters too! (Score:2, Informative)

    by squidwanker ( 711197 )
    Lobsters also show no signs of senescence. Just disease and predation limit their lifespans.

  • Urchins are well protected (Score:5, Interesting)

    by barakn ( 641218 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @01:39PM (#7529674)
    and so if there's no biochemical reason for them to die then they could live to a ripe old age.

    A friend of mine was swimming off a beach in Bali and stepped on a long-spined urchin (unknown species) with both feet, which caused immediate and excruciating pain. After his brother helped him on shore, the Balinese natives broke the spines off right where they protruded from the bottoms of his feet. Then they poured lemon juice on the puncture sights and started pounding the soles of his feet with rocks, for hours. The pain was so excruciating he became delirious and started laughing.

    The treatment broke up and dissolved the spines below the skin, and that probably saved his life. Apparently there's some sort of toxin, as he was extremely sick for the next 2 weeks. Had the spines remained embedded in his feet, there would have been enough toxin to kill him, a doctor told him later.

    • Having lived on Bali and Java for some time, any idiot knows not to go walking around the ocean without sandals or shoes of some sort! That's just plain stupid, there are stone fish, sea snakes, urchins, rays, etc. etc.

      Hell... it's not wise to even walk on the ground without shoes, as there are many organisms that live in the soil that will get you too.

      Having said all that, I still love the place, my favorite country in the world.
    • Ouch. Here in Hawaii [birchalls.net] we have black and banded long-spined venomous urchins, probably pretty similar to what's in Bali. They're pretty visible (if you're watching where you're going) and easily avoided (thank goodness they haven't evolved the ability to launch venomous spines like torpedoes at swimmers!) but yeah, stepping on one would be nasty. I once stepped on a non-venomous collector urchin, and that hurt enough, so I give the venomous ones a wide berth unless I'm taking pictures [lava.net] of them.

  • free as in radicals (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    AFAIK, The effects of aging are thought to be caused primarily by interference with cell replication by "free radicals" - oxidizing agents that damage proteins required for proper cell function.

    What could we learn from the sea urchin about preventing this type of cellular damage?
  • So, let me get this straight, in Japan, an urchin's pussy is considered a delicacy?
    • So, let me get this straight, in Japan, an urchin's pussy is considered a delicacy?

      Your point being? I believe some Americans enjoy eating bulls' testicles, and they don't even have the excuse of belonging to an inscrutable oriental culture.
  • .....are really sea urchins? If there can be only one these little critters will never get the job done. THEY CAN'T MOVE LET ALONE SWING A SWORD!

  • This is weak evidence (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't think we can be sure that 19 centimeter sea urchins are two hundred years old.


    They say that they grow at a slow rate and they think that bigger equals older with the urchins. Maybe the big sea urchins are just big for some other reason. Genetics or a good food supply or something. There is no real evidence that they live for a hundred years.

    • there were two independent studies. if you dont believe in the biochemical one, perhaps you will have more faith in the nuclear one.

      read the article again, and this time pay attention
  • They may be immortal, but they're nowhere near as cute as the sea otters that eat them.

  • Hazy logic? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by brianjcain ( 622084 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @05:07PM (#7531860) Journal
    This just in -- housefly researchers determine that human beings are near immortal, with natural lifespans in excess of two months.

  • Tomorrow's news: Sea Urchins extinct. (Score:3, Funny)

    by dbirchall ( 191839 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @05:18PM (#7531960) Journal
    As soon as the nuts who take shark cartilege and all manner of other stuff in hopes of living past 120 hear about this, they'll wipe out the sea urchins...

  • Here we are, born in the seas! (Score:3, Funny)

    by jfisherwa ( 323744 ) <{jason.fisher} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday November 21, 2003 @08:12PM (#7533440) Homepage
    We're the urchins of the aquaverse!
  • ... welcome our Red Sea urchin overlords.

  • They have no brains and no sex--they just release their gametes into the water (come to think of it, that may be true for the average /.er as well). Do you want to live hundreds of years like that?

    Brings to mind...
    Methuselah lived nine hundred years
    But who calls that livin'
    When no gal will give in
    To no man what's nine hundred years
  • How about if I cast magic missile?

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