Reversal of Biological Clock Restores Vision In Old Mice (scitechdaily.com) 53
John Trumpian shares a report from SciTechDaily: Harvard Medical School scientists have successfully restored vision in mice by turning back the clock on aged eye cells in the retina to recapture youthful gene function. The team's work, described today in Nature, represents the first demonstration that it may be possible to safely reprogram complex tissues, such as the nerve cells of the eye, to an earlier age. In addition to resetting the cells' aging clock, the researchers successfully reversed vision loss in animals with a condition mimicking human glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness around the world.
The achievement represents the first successful attempt to reverse glaucoma-induced vision loss, rather than merely stem its progression, the team said. If replicated through further studies, the approach could pave the way for therapies to promote tissue repair across various organs and reverse aging and age-related diseases in humans. Sinclair and colleagues caution that the findings remain to be replicated in further studies, including in different animal models, before any human experiments. Nonetheless, they add, the results offer a proof of concept and a pathway to designing treatments for a range of age-related human diseases.
For their work, the team used an adeno-associated virus (AAV) as a vehicle to deliver into the retinas of mice three youth-restoring genes -- Oct4, Sox2 and Klf4 -- that are normally switched on during embryonic development. The three genes, together with a fourth one, which was not used in this work, are collectively known as Yamanaka factors. The treatment had multiple beneficial effects on the eye. First, it promoted nerve regeneration following optic-nerve injury in mice with damaged optic nerves. Second, it reversed vision loss in animals with a condition mimicking human glaucoma. And third, it reversed vision loss in aging animals without glaucoma.
The achievement represents the first successful attempt to reverse glaucoma-induced vision loss, rather than merely stem its progression, the team said. If replicated through further studies, the approach could pave the way for therapies to promote tissue repair across various organs and reverse aging and age-related diseases in humans. Sinclair and colleagues caution that the findings remain to be replicated in further studies, including in different animal models, before any human experiments. Nonetheless, they add, the results offer a proof of concept and a pathway to designing treatments for a range of age-related human diseases.
For their work, the team used an adeno-associated virus (AAV) as a vehicle to deliver into the retinas of mice three youth-restoring genes -- Oct4, Sox2 and Klf4 -- that are normally switched on during embryonic development. The three genes, together with a fourth one, which was not used in this work, are collectively known as Yamanaka factors. The treatment had multiple beneficial effects on the eye. First, it promoted nerve regeneration following optic-nerve injury in mice with damaged optic nerves. Second, it reversed vision loss in animals with a condition mimicking human glaucoma. And third, it reversed vision loss in aging animals without glaucoma.
Re: The Supreme Boundary of Ethics (Score:2, Interesting)
There are worse questions. If the old don't die off what about promotions? Jobs? Do you get stuck with idiot politicians over and over again ?
Your society stagnates your. Culture never has growth. New ideas get buried as the old people don't want to think of them.
New ideas fresh blood new people. That is how growth is achieved. That is why politician are old they have stopped growing and learning.
Re: The Supreme Boundary of Ethics (Score:1)
Growth?
I agree with your other points, but...
With all this overpopulation, you want growth?
Or if you meant financially: With all these poor people you want a few corporations to grow even more powerful by draining them even more?
I want anyone who makes more than two kids to he looked down onto, and anyone who has only one kid to be looked up to, and anyone in such a dire situation to *need* many kids just to survive to get their fair share of the wealth generated by automation, so they don't need to make ki
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Everyone worried about overpopulation is, at best, misinformed and at worst, calling for a new Holocaust.
Educate yourself; it does not befit you to be so devastatingly ignorant:
https://www.gapminder.org/ [gapminder.org]
https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info]
The demand for resources in the next 100 years will be dominated by economic growth, not population growth. The extra 2.2 billion we will add before hitting the plateau will be added in low energy consuming societies. Meanwhile 5 billion Asians growing richer (and half of Afr
Re: The Supreme Boundary of Ethics (Score:2)
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I agree with you but I think your questions are fair, not worse. Social evolution clearly has a relationship to political systems, thus political systems need a means to evolve. In fact when I was in school this was one of those paramount things people argued about the US constitution, was that it could be amended and thus evolve with society. Not sure if I believe that's really happening...
But I still think we haven't hit the root of the question, is being biologically immortal a bad thing for all people?
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~IDanceiNmyCar
Not sure if I believe that's really happening...
Oh, it's happening because it happened. Prohibition was entered and struck-- elevating the Constitution to a literal "minutes" of its own history. And all by design, too. As wide a parameter of chambered voting ratios to structure a clock of checks and balances as anyone since can put to paper. That was the model, a clock. God was a clock maker that walked away from his work for mortals to tinker-- Deism-- which avoids identifying with a dogma other than monotheism.
But they went one better by choosing the
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"There are worse questions. If the old don't die off what about promotions? Jobs? Do you get stuck with idiot politicians over and over again ?"
Now and again one LHO has to do their thing then.
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Tthere is a great deal of thought that maybe we shouldn't freeze aging because of the ethical nightmare of indeterminetly long lifespan.
Though the opposite question is also valid, is it ethical to make everyone deteriorate over years until their body finally fails if we had the know how to do so?
It sounds nightmarish to have, say, a mandatory kill off at 100 and it's better instead for 'nature' to be the bad guy and kill us off due to old age problems somewhere between 60 and 120 or so, with our bodies beco
Algernon here (Score:5, Funny)
Hi I'm algernon the rat and I just wanted to chime in that this treatment does a bit more than just reverse aging. I am now able to navigate mazes like the internet and post on slashdot. And reading the comments here I can see that I clearly have enough brains to take your jobs. So I'd not worry so much about that lack of promotion those renewed seniors will be blocking you from. You'll soon have your own apartment with window walls on every side, excersize gear, free food, and even fresh sawdust on the floor and an upside down straw to drink from. You won't even know you have a job till someone grabs you by the trail and drops you in a blender,
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New ideas fresh blood new people. That is how growth is achieved.
Either that or it's how you keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. Experience is worth something.
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no need to deliberately kill off but those who are not resourceful will waste there lives away
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The fact that we will be able to halt aging is a guaranteed outcome and seemingly likely to occur in a brief time relative to the existence of modern humans. It also seems likely revolutionary leaps in this field will come before those in quantum or fusion which means the lifespan of the average person will come before rapid leaps in computing or power. When this is considered the potential for overpopulation becomes exponential, especially if we don't ask some serious hard questions of ethics.
I'm not so sure about some massive threat of overpopulation. Have you talked to your great-great grandparent lately about the world today?
Halting physical aging does little for the massive impact on mental health as the aging human finds themselves more and more incompatible with society. We humans tend to hold on to certain times in our lives. We often gravitate towards music and clothing styles we enjoyed in our younger years. This is why your great-grandpa still has his bowler hat and bowtie collecti
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I've heard this version many times. I think you've got the cause and effect mixed up. The feeling of "seen before", that incompatibility you're referring to, that's ageing.
Yes, and thirty-somethings, look at the actions of high school kids,, and scratch their heads. That didn't take long.
We see examples of mental incompatibility today across a couple of generations. It's not hard to imagine how that problem exacerbates itself across a couple of centuries, no matter how young your body feels.
Maybe the answer is like a corporate Windows computer. Wipe and reload every few years. Although, humans won't ever stop fucking, so I doubt it's gonna be the Neuralyzer that lands th
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Imagine the 200-year old mind walking down the street of modern music, movies, and style in the year 2150. I know fashion revolves, but the door isn't that wide.
Since I cannot predict the future, let's take an example from the past - Let's say someone born in 1820 is alive today and wants to dress in the fashion that was popular when he was young. He would probably not look that different, since men wear suits today and those suits do not look very different from 200 years ago. Fashion for women change more though.
However, such a 200 year old probably would not be alone, there would be more of them, so they probably would not look more out of place than current old
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Imagine the 200-year old mind walking down the street of modern music, movies, and style in the year 2150. I know fashion revolves, but the door isn't that wide.
Since I cannot predict the future, let's take an example from the past - Let's say someone born in 1820 is alive today and wants to dress in the fashion that was popular when he was young. He would probably not look that different, since men wear suits today and those suits do not look very different from 200 years ago. Fashion for women change more though.
However, such a 200 year old probably would not be alone, there would be more of them, so they probably would not look more out of place than current old people do.
Another thing is that right now, as people age, their ability to learn new things decrease (along with their physical health etc). If aging is "cured", then people would probably forever be like they are 30 or 40, with much better ability to learn.
While I can understand that suits perhaps haven't changed much, I'm more talking about the ever-shifting tides in society revolving around morals, ethics, laws, and belief systems. Take for example religion, which is deeply engrained in some people. Abortion, divorce, gay marriage, birth control...all of these topics have shifted (some considerably) in the eyes of various religions because of societal shifts. When you start changing core beliefs, it can become much more difficult for some to adapt.
Sadly,
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I think that someone who has lived all that time (as opposed to time travel or some other sci-fi method of going from. say. 1840 to 2020 without experiencing the years in between) would change his opinion on some things. To them the change would be gradual and while not everyone would change their opinion (obviously), I think that people would change them. Just like right now people of all ages have different opinions.
200-year old comedy, would likely not wear well either. We get offended over 10-year old comedy today.
Sadly, some people think that their purpose in life is to find new ways to be offended. We
Re:The Supreme Boundary of Ethics (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, put ME at the first of the line for this, I'd like to live forever, or at least have the option.
I LOVE my life, I love being "me"...hell, if I could turn into a vampire to live forever, I'd do it....
I don't understand people that have no joy for life, there is SO much to do here and so little time, hence, I try to make the most of it and do what I have to to enjoy the short time I have here on earth.
I guess it takes all kinds, but me? Please put me at the head of the line to live past 100...well past it if I can have physical health as being hypothesized here.
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Halting physical aging does little for the massive impact on mental health as the aging human finds themselves more and more incompatible with society. We humans tend to hold on to certain times in our lives. We often gravitate towards music and clothing styles we enjoyed in our younger years. This is why your great-grandpa still has his bowler hat and bowtie collection, and you'll catch him bebopping to Bing Crosby every now and then. Imagine the 200-year old mind walking down the street of modern music, movies, and style in the year 2150. I know fashion revolves, but the door isn't that wide.
The biggest problems you can think of are pop culture and fashion? If that's the biggest problem you can think of, you've just identified a non-problem.
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Halting physical aging does little for the massive impact on mental health as the aging human finds themselves more and more incompatible with society. We humans tend to hold on to certain times in our lives. We often gravitate towards music and clothing styles we enjoyed in our younger years. This is why your great-grandpa still has his bowler hat and bowtie collection, and you'll catch him bebopping to Bing Crosby every now and then. Imagine the 200-year old mind walking down the street of modern music, movies, and style in the year 2150. I know fashion revolves, but the door isn't that wide.
The biggest problems you can think of are pop culture and fashion? If that's the biggest problem you can think of, you've just identified a non-problem.
In other posts I've touched on the more critical issues that delve down into those core beliefs that are instilled at an actual young age. Ethics, morals, laws, belief systems...they all can go through considerable shifts over a period of a century or two. 100 years ago in America it was perfectly acceptable to insist a woman stay in the home "where she belongs", and forget about a Right to vote. 200 years ago we were still enslaving humans.
Ultimately we are talking about Adapt or Die here, but I still f
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Your complaint is that people listen to Bing Crosby. Something is wrong with your head if that's your complaint. Imagine your shock when you find out that people still listen to Beethoven.
Like the bowtie and bowler hat, it was merely provided as a timely example, not put forth as a "complaint". Any one of those sit in the minority. Bowtie all three together, and you're likely down to single-digit percentiles, which tends to lend to my point about sustaining mental health while avoiding feeling left behind or out of step with the rest of society. Toss in the fact that an elderly mind also sustains core beliefs instilled two centuries prior, and you've got one hell of a rare old dog brain w
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Don't make the same mistake as the AI enthusiasts. If we are able to reverse aging in one cell type, applying it to improved treatment for eye diseases does not have any ethics implications, just like applying narrow AI to drive cars. Ethics questions should be applied to technology applications as the actually arise.
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Ethics questions should be applied to technology applications as the actually arise.
I, as well as numerous others, strongly disagree with this statement.
Considering the ethics of a 'thing' before actually doing it is the preferable order of events. A good example [wikipedia.org] of such was actually in the field of biotech. The principles agreed upon at that conference have largely guided biotech research to this day, even as the tools available (e.g. CRISPR) have become immensely more powerful.
In a sense wisdom is recognising the mistake before we make it.
Quite Amazing. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow. This really is quite amazing that they've done this, even in mice.
I know someone who went blind after falling into a diabetic coma. Extremely unfortunate, but I wonder if this would show considerable promise, even in cases like that. Even if the solutions were a few more years away, it would still be something to look forward to.
Re: Quite Amazing. (Score:2)
Jeez, haw bad was his diet?? :/ I hope he gets better. ... And learned from it!!
I'm sorry for your buddy, but I'd bet money this could be seen and prevented, *decades* before. Even in the way his parents behaved.
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Jeez, haw bad was his diet??
Let's just say he challenged himself often metabolizing ethanol. Doesn't mix well. At all.
I'm sorry for your buddy, but I'd bet money this could be seen and prevented, *decades* before. Even in the way his parents behaved. :/ I hope he gets better. ... And learned from it!!
Tried multiple times to help him. Learned? Yes, he sadly has. The hard way. But the fact that he has, gives me hope this will help him one day.
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Let's just say he challenged himself often metabolizing ethanol. Doesn't mix well. At all.
Now there's the medical breakthrough we're really waiting for; making the liver young again.
Except, most "age-related" diseases are ... (Score:1, Interesting)
... merely the result of decades of eating bad things for food.
As none of those diseases exist in aboriginal peoples that haven't seen food from a factory yet. (See table 1 [nih.gov].)
So for such diseases, this can merely be a crutch until we finally get poisoning^Wfeeding billions of people right.
(Hey, you can do it today. Unless you are working poor and can't afford to grow crops, raise livestock, and not eat basically white powders in various textures and forms.)
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travelling millions of light-years (Score:1)
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"This is good news. Does this mean humans can now travel millions of light-years and conquer new habitable planets? "
No, it means that the universe will be populated by old mice.
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Why would we have to travel to the ends of the Universe to find new, habitable planets?
(Of course, why bring science into it?)
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Because when you get down to the core of it, we really don't have any idea just how common or rare actually habitable planets actually are.
Okay,there are hundreds of billions of worlds in our galaxy alone. and trillions of galaxies
But this number is finite.
And the universe is finitely old.
We have no objectively justifiable basis to presume that our existence here was the result of statistically unlikely events that are so small in reality that they could otherwise fall within a margin of error to r
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For a change, something that's actually important, but you have to click the title to view the text. Why?
This happens at random on Slashdot, and has nothing to do with the article.
I guess we have to update the nursery rhyme (Score:2)
I guess we have to change the lyrics to the nursery thyme. But "Three formerly-blind mice" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
Re: The Supreme Boundary of Ethics (Score:1)
Already in use ... (Score:4, Interesting)
The Adeno-associated viruses are already used in FDA approved gene therapy for certain hereditary blindness. Lookup Luxterna. It costs ~ $900,00, and worth it for those afflicted.
Contrary to the current adenovirus vectors used in COVID-19 vaccines (e.g. Oxford/AstraZeneca, Janssen/JnJ, CanSinoBio, Sputnik V), the AAV DNA strand persists in the nucleus of infected cells (but does not integrated into chromosomes).
Source: Dr. Vincent Racaniello Virology course at Columbia University, available on Youtube.
A new era of requirements (Score:1)
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You realise that's complete rubbish? The young are not held hostage; they're simply shown what doesn't work, and what does.
In places that this bit fails, and the young get all the say, then there's lots of aggressive shouting, polarisation, and generally very little stability.
Like everything else, there's a good equilibrium to be found, enough stability to provide a framework to leap from, and enough disruption to push for the new.
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If this can apply to other parts of the human body (Score:1)
It would be great if they could reverse hair loss...
Fairly necessary for continued medical care. (Score:2)
Looking at the metrics in healthcare at the moment, increasingly, the larger bulk of the funding is going towards gerontology related issues.
This is because we've become so good at keeping people alive that they get old enough to simply start failing due to age, and we have the technology to patch some of that up too, until something critical, or just too much failure occurs.
Having the ability to rejuvenate aspects of the body may not grant huge extensions in life (we're quite a way from that yet), but if i