Biological Immortality?
By: Ben Johnson
Original Article: Here
The topic of this article is a tiny marine organism known as Hydra magnipapillata. This miraculous little creature was found to be one of the longest living organisms known to man, with a constantly low mortality rate. Unlike humans, whose mortality rate increases as the body ages, this hydra is suspected to be able to regrow any faulty or degraded cells, effectively eliminating aging as we know it. Scientists involved with this experiment concluded that if the hydra would be left in laboratory conditions, 5% of the population would still be alive in 1,400 years.
The original article is pretty short, so here are a few more that go a bit more in depth on this topic:
I am really excited to hear about this discovery and what it could mean for the future of humans. I am huge fan of using scientific discoveries for the betterment of humanity. I think this is very relatable to the stem cell debate, as they both focus on potentially mutating our cells or adding outside cells to rebuild or create new cells, tissue, organs, or even limbs. What side do you take on this debate and why?
The NOS themes I found in these three articles were:
Science is based on evidence - Evolutionary Biologist Dr. Edward Jones used over 40 control organisms to ensure accurate results
Science cannot provide complete answers to all questions - Dr. Jones, as well as other distinguished biologist working on the hydra experiments, are still not able to explain the exact process for this kind of cell regrowth
I think that if there was a way to add these organisms to our bodies as with stem cells, the effects could be revolutionary. The problem of this working out though would be the drastically increased lifespan of those with the organism. This could lead overcrowding in many countries. So as this could help humanity in the short run, it could have massive side effects in the long run
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you Alex! I am in favor of anything that improve the quality of life of humans and other animals. Discoveries like this that could drastically increase the lifespan of human will have huge consequences in the future. Our current high population growth can be attributed to low infant mortality, and longer life expectancy. Both these factors will increase with better heath care. http://www.edu.pe.ca/eastwiltshire/grass01/phys9b.htm
DeleteLobsters, and Planarians are also able to have biological immortality. They both use telomerase to protect their DNA and to prevent cell death. Human cells replace each other but are only capable of doing this 50-60 times, for the Lobster and Planarians they can replace cells indefinitely. If we could implement telomerase into our DNA we could have biological immortality, overcrowding would be a slight problem but i dont know if it would be that huge, because you could still die from disease, and mortal wounds. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2418252/Do-lobsters-hold-key-eternal-life-Forget-gastronomic-indulgence-crustacean-defy-ageing-process.html) is a great article.
ReplyDelete