UCLA Biologists Delay the Aging Process In Fruit Flies 82
An anonymous reader writes:Life scientists at UCLA have located a gene in fruit flies which, when intentionally activated, increases lifespan by about 30%. The gene (called AMPK) is normal important as an energy sensor, usually triggered by cells with low energy levels. By triggering it at other times, the researchers slowed the fruit flies' aging process (PDF), even beyond the organ system in which the triggering occurred. "Walker said that the findings are important because extending the healthy life of humans would presumably require protecting many of the body's organ systems from the ravages of aging — but delivering anti-aging treatments to the brain or other key organs could prove technically difficult. The study suggests that activating AMPK in a more accessible organ such as the intestine, for example, could ultimately slow the aging process throughout the entire body, including the brain."
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Posting to slashdot does not qualify as a proof, unfortunately.
You should have posted elsewhere, e.g., here: http://ip.com/ [ip.com]
(just found this website by googling)
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I really doubt that simply having an abstract idea for a feature on some abstract device is sufficient to obtain IP protection.
Otherwise, I now have a patent for antigravity boots. The boots would nullify gravity beneath the user's feet. No stealing my idea, now! Even though I have no idea how this could be accomplished, anyone who actually invents working a/g boots before my patent expires will owe me eleventy billion dollars. If they invent the boots after the patent (and my submarines!) expire, then they
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I'm just glad that science finally found a way to help one of nature's most annoying pests live 30% longer. Now if only they can prolong Justin Bieber's career, I'll be happy.
I don't want to live longer (Score:1)
Seriously. In Australia we're now being made to work until 70 before we can draw a pension. I don't want a career that spans an extra 2 or 3 decades. Especially in IT. I'm tired.
Re: I don't want to live longer (Score:2, Insightful)
Most people in IT would really appreciate any tech that would allow them to keep working into their fifties.
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If you had a 401(k) or whatever your local equivalent is, or your own investments, you wouldn't have to rely on a pension.
Method of delivery (Score:1, Funny)
Doctor to patient: You can take this and shove it up your ass. You'll live longer.
Old news (Score:3, Interesting)
Fitness community has been all over this for years http://suppversity.blogspot.co... [blogspot.com]
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That's really interesting! There's a common genetic disease called myoadenylate deaminase deficiency [wikipedia.org] that explains a lot of fatigue issues - fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and whatnot . It's interesting to see correlations and effects of excess AMP discussed so thoroughly!
Are they crazy? (Score:5, Funny)
I can't get rid of those beasts and they try to make them live longer?
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Still the same old beta, I see... (Score:1, Insightful)
With nobeta=1, it still took me four attempts to get from the front page to these comments without being redirected to the beta version. I came here to read comments, not look at pretty pictures.
Does anyone know how long this âtestâ(TM) will last?
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You've never had fruit flies? (Score:1)
Re:You've never had fruit flies? (Score:4, Informative)
Pour vinegar into a bowl. Add a bit of liquid soap, to lower the surface tension. Place it next to the place where you have your fruit fly infestation and wait a day or two.
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Pour vinegar into a bowl. Add a bit of liquid soap, to lower the surface tension. Place it next to the place where you have your fruit fly infestation and wait a day or two.
So apparently you CAN catch more (fruit) flies with vinegar than with honey?
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The same thing works just as well without the beer. I suppose the beer probably helps to kill them, but just the apple core and plastic do the job: the apple attracts them (I find a banana works better) and leads them through the holes in the plastic, but then they can't find their way back out so they just fly around inside the jar.
When all (or nearly all) the flies are inside the jar, I just put it under the tap and run water over it until it fills up through the holes. Then leave it for a few minutes t
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When all (or nearly all) the flies are inside the jar, I just put it under the tap and run water over it until it fills up through the holes. Then leave it for a few minutes to drown them all, and dump it down the sink.
You can just use some apple cider vinegar with a drop of detergent and skip the labor part (just take the plastic off and dump the mess down the drain). Refill & rekill.
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No kidding, the suckers are annoying enough!
What's next? Biologists create extra hard exoskeleton on mosquito? Biologists attach wings to brown recluse?
Normal Important (Score:2)
The gene (called AMPK) is normal important as an energy sensor, usually triggered by cells with low energy levels.
As opposed to really important?
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The drawback is that it keeps the body and the brain both from aging. Not sure if I want my 16 yo girlfriend to well, you know, like, keep the same mental maturity, or something like that, you know? Like, OMG, for real. LOL. BFN.
Old Saying (Score:2)
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.
Economic Impacts (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's assume for a moment this is scalable to humans and passes the requisite clinical trials. We'll treat this as a given in a Euclidian proof.
Premise 1: Humans will live longer, but this treatment will be expensive
Premise 2: In the absence of substantive reform that mitigates cost to the patient, regardless of socio-economic status, this will stratify the have and hane-nots further.
Premise 3: We already have a culture of the "disposable employee" in many markets, especially in retail, food-service, housek
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Technically, your conclusion is invalid due to hidden premise tied to your Premise 1. What you are trying to implicate with your hidden premise is that life-extending treatment will be forever unaffordable to masses.
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this will stratify the have and hane-nots further.
All of your premises assume that the ideas of "Haves" and "Have nots" are even valid. I would, ultimately, say those ideas are incorrect. No one "gets out alive" so to concentrate on that which cannot be kept is ultimately unwise. The idea that "those that die (or live) with the most toys win!" is quite ignorant. The idea that having or not having something is improving or worsening your life is a waste of good time. It's all relative and therefore mental gymnastics at its worst. Time to Wake up.
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The "have vs have not" discussion is not about the dissatisfaction from having only basic cable when other people get to have HBO, it is about the "haves" who can almost literally buy elections, design their own regulations, and even engage in rent-seeking endeavors to force the public to buy their product, and the "have-nots" who don't even have time to think about their own disenfranchisement because they are literally struggling to keep paying basic needs such as shelter and food. To be honest, this is
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if a life extension pill can be made cheaply (its a genetic trigger protein made by gene engineered yeast, and grown in bioreactors by the tanker load). you could buy a year's supply for 20 dollars. after the patent runs up in the US at any rate.
sure it would not be easily available to the extremely poor (think Liberia), but the average american could easily afford it after the patent period runs out.
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Premise 5: If unchecked, stagnant wages relative to inflation are going to exacerbate the current US status-quo in terms of younger working adults competing with Boomers who refuse to retire and becoming lower-wage workers who become "disposable labor."
I like your format, but there is a lot of assumption in this premise. I'd like to see it written out with more support, because historically where more labor is available, more jobs are created (although sometimes it takes time). Sometimes the jobs are silly things, like hiring someone to clip your toenails, but they're there.
Old Time Religion (Score:1)
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Did NASA use the wrong unit again? Tsk tsk tsk.
The have's and have nots (Score:1)
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can't see this going wrong... (Score:2)
"life extension"....heh....look at what these people do now with their lives....and they want to extend that....
One thing we don't need (Score:2)
One thing we don't need is longer living fruit flies. What are they going to eat in the winter
Is this really necessary? (Score:1)
Fruit Fly Sperm [wikipedia.org]
Listen, can you hear the noise from my kitchen? (Score:5, Funny)
They're getting intelligent too, the other day - one of them discovered that beer/vinegar + dish-washing liquid is dangerous, so only ONE of the little buggers died - the rest steer towards my beer bottles the SECOND I open it, I swear to you - these bastards have developed some sort of high end technology for seeking my beer, chocolate or any fruit I have laying around. Their targeting systems should be adopted by the military, they're more goal oriented than a group of old people at the mall fighting over the last piece of meat.
I'm going down to the kitchen right now to whack a few of the fat bastards.
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I CAN hear the fruit flies in your kitchen. The flies are doing that bullshit dramatic slow clapping people always do in films, but never do in real life. I never would have guessed film makers got that from observing fruit flies.
Great... (Score:3, Insightful)
More old geezers like me hanging on for another 20 years, waiting to die, who can't pee, filling up the pockets of corporations that own nursing homes, as I endure a miserable existence, forgetting who I am and why I'm wandering around in my pajamas with no money.
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Slowing the aging process doesn't add 20 years of the worst health at the end of the life but would extend each portion of the process.
IE, if the aging process was truly slowed 30% you'd get 30% longer years at 30, 40, 50 or whatever, not 20-25 years extra in the shape you'd be at 90.
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Slowing the aging process doesn't add 20 years of the worst health at the end of the life but would extend each portion of the process.
IE, if the aging process was truly slowed 30% you'd get 30% longer years at 30, 40, 50 or whatever, not 20-25 years extra in the shape you'd be at 90.
I guess it depends on when this technique is applied. If you're an old geezer now, chances are you won't enjoy any more years with the 20-year-old-you's physique.
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It's okay, peeing is overrated.
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...who can't pee, filling up the pockets...
Comma, or no comma?
Trade-off? (Score:1)
I bet there is some trade-off in organ or body ability. I doubt there is a "free lunch".
In most organisms there is an inherent trade-off among efficiency, metabolism, and entropy.
Bar flies? (Score:2)
Do you want bar flies? Because that’s how you get bar flies. Cougars too.