Scientists think the cell nucleolus may play an important role in aging
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
The nucleolus is the site of ribosome synthesis, and ribosomes are needed to make proteins. Under caloric restriction, the growth pathways in the cell get turned down, and protein translation is held back until resources become available again. It makes sense that the cell would stop synthesizing ribosomes, which are HUGE structures that take lots of energy to make.
So I would say that reduced protein translation is a hallmark of longevity, and the methionine restriction experiments support that. The nucleolus getting smaller is likely one of the many effects of this adaptation.
I agree with the author however that this is a great and easily-measured microscopic phenotype. Perhaps this can lead to awesome assays of cellular aging, and perhaps even drug screening for compounds that are rejuvenating.
This is an example of the broad, dominant class of aging research that is purely investigative. Most research into the detailed mechanisms of degenerative aging is very far removed from any thought of application, and it is lucky happenstance when such an opportunity does arise.
Unfortunately, systems very closely tied to cellular housekeeping, or responses to stress, or replication seem unlikely to result in the foundations of truly effective therapies. We can look at calorie restriction or exercise, both of which alter all of the above items quite profoundly and throughout the body, to see the plausible benefits that might be attained through manipulation of these fundamental aspect of cellular behavior. We can also look at the past fifteen years of research into these mechanisms to see just how slow and expensive it is to try to produce therapies to slow aging - there is very little to show for all of the effort invested.
Searching for means to adjust metabolism to modestly slow aging is not a winning strategy; the expected benefits are just not large enough. We must find ways to add decades of vigorous life, not just a few few healthy years.
However, the current paradigm is to reward people who check for "significant differences/correlations", which just means that they "discover" all these non-zero correlations. Basically it is a huge waste of time and money but it works really well to generate an endless series of breathless press releases.
It required training myself in math, programming, history of the topic, and stats in addition to the normal grad school stuff (memorizing stuff for classes, data collection, etc) which amounted to about 3 years of working almost nonstop.
Turns out nobody cared, all they wanted to know is if there was a significant difference between groups. My attempt caused me health, financial, and social problems for literally an anti-reward so I would not recommend anyone try it. I also don't believe anyone would get a nobel prize for that in the current environment, they would be ignored or fought against because some holy cows would need to be sacrificed.
EDIT: As a more concrete example. Look at the pushback against Tomasetti & Vogelstein for daring to point out that there is a base rate of mutations per cell division and accumulated mutations lead to cancer, so cancers arise more often in tissues with more divisions. This is almost common sense, but people cannot handle it for some reason: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/no-cance...
The bad stuff was the usual misinterpreting correlation coefficients and p-values (this is standard, found in pretty much every paper) and that the data is messy/incomplete. I mean, sure more people should be working on figuring out the number of stem cell divisions by tissue and other nations should collect data of the same quality as SEER...
If it was just another standard "smoking/sunlight/etc causes cancer" paper with the same issues there would not have been this response. It even says so in the atlantic, people think this information undermines their public health campaigns:
>'The paper triggered a hailstorm of criticism. Some scientists chastised the methods. Why did they ignore common cancers like breast and prostate? Why did they only focus on the U.S.? Others accused the duo of undermining public health. Many personal choices, from quitting smoking to staying lean, can dramatically reduce one’s risk of cancers, but why would you bother if you read headlines saying that these diseases are “largely down to bad luck?”' https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/no-cance...
Now I am sure there is some other info in these papers that may be useful about how the nucleolus changes with age, etc but, like the OP noted, the headlines are all about "playing a role".
"The fundamental drivers of degenerative aging lie in the biochemical and cellular side-effects of essential metabolic processes in the body. ". http://www.sens.org/research/aging-as-weve-known-it
Nucleolus = ProteinFactoryFactoryJust give it to Bill Gates and he can hook you up with enough cash?
Of course, with some effort we might simply figure out how to double our lifespans to 160-200 years.
Albert Einstein, for example, could still be alive discussing physics with Stephen Hawking.
If Hawking and Einstein lived longer so would everybody else. And that would mean that a younger generation of scientists would have to wait much longer before their ideas could be discussed without opposition from the established elders who see their pet theories attacked by these uppity youngsters.
The quote is a riff on what Max Planck, himself an eminent scientist said on the subject:
"Science advances one funeral at a time."
Munger’s Psychology of human misjudgment, for instance, is enlightening: https://youtu.be/pqzcCfUglws
Okay I will accept that premise for the sake of the argument even though I don't actually believe it's true.
Based on that you go on to conclude it's a good thing that scientists die, so that science can keep advancing.
You're essentially faced with a trolley problem, where pulling the lever one way will make everyone immortal at the cost of slowing down scientific progress, but pulling it the other way will euthanize everyone in the world, and euthanize the countless billions that might live in the future. Somehow your morals (or whatever you call it) tell you that euthanizing everyone is better than slowing down scientific progress. I disagree with you there.
Why not even try to solve the problem some other way than killing everyone? I don't know, why not, say, create an off-world colony outside the reach of those evil progress-impeding elders. Just throwing ideas out there.
Taking your logic to its limit, why not just kill every scientist after their first paper is published? But I don't think you actually want that, so lets hear your argument against my strawman.
If he were talking about politics, he'd have a point, since there's a lot of irrational dogma in that field.
Also, don't forget, if we can figure out how to eliminate aging, that also means we'll eliminate many (maybe all) things that go along with biological aging, such as the changes to the brain that cause older people to tend to be less adaptable (which really is a bit of a stereotype and not all that true; my 80 year old mother happily uses a laptop computer, smartphone, and tablet, while 30 years ago she wouldn't have dreamed of being like this).
You seem to be operating under the assumption that science is apolitical. As someone who's worked in science, I can assure you that it is not. Many non-scientists listen to popularizers like Neil deGrasse-Tyson and come to believe in a very idealized model of how science operates when the de facto "nature of science" is more akin to what Thomas Kuhn describes in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions". I really wish that NDT were a bit more forthcoming about his own experiences in science, seeing as how he barely made it through the grad school gauntlet himself. Ditto for Carl Sagan, who made a powerful enemy in Harold Urey (I can't find a link right now, but iirc Urey basically gave Carl a bomb of a recommendation letter that cost him a tenured position Harvard and compelled him to "settle" for Cornell).
In my personal experience (as well as the experience of many, many others if you dig deep enough into this), some scientists can be very egotistical to a point where they take a challenge to their theories as a personal affront, and will employ insanely Machiavellian tactics to suppress dissenting opinions (i.e., senior researchers are the ones who hold the purse when the NIH makes funding decisions).
Yes I'm familiar with the quote and of course it was obvious that you were referencing it. What's funny is that you seem to believe the only reason I'd disagree with something you said is that I'm unaware that Planck said something similar. I'm unable to get a hold of Planck to discuss it with him, and thought I'd ask you about it since you're here promoting his ideas, but I realize that I should have made that clear to you.
Pick two, or more, of your favorite scientists. Richard Feynman?
Immortality will create a lot more problems than it will solve.
No reasonable person is talking about immortality. The issue here is defeating the diseases of old age.
> will create a lot more problems than it will solve.
That's a massive unfounded claim you're holding up against saving the lives of a hundred thousand people per day.
[1] As in no inherent old age, rather than un-killable.
Second, even if that's not the case, people are constantly getting killed off thanks to our addiction to the automobile (and in America, the gun). Eventually these Boomers are going to get knocked off. Maybe if we restrict guns and get better public transit the Boomers can live for centuries, but I don't foresee this; these changes are going to take centuries.
Edit: "addiction", not "addition"
Pneumonia, heart disease, stroke, COPD, pneumonia and lung cancer each kill more than cars in the first world.
In the third world, top causes of death are HIV, pneumonia, heart disease, diarrhea, stroke, malaria, TB, COPD, and measles - cars don't even make the top ten.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rat...
Cars are the #1 killer for people less than middle-aged (where age-related diseases take over). 30,000 people a year die in the US alone from cars, and it's even worse in other countries.
>Pneumonia, heart disease, stroke, COPD, pneumonia and lung cancer each kill more than cars in the first world.
Only for old people. For young people, the ones who really matter more for the future of society and the economy, cars are easily the #1 killer.
Here's a source: https://www.everydayhealth.com/kids-health/car-crashes-the-n...
Guns are probably the #2 killer of children.
It occurred to me to look up statistics adjusted by years of life lost, which gives more weight to younger victims and seems to favor your agenda.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_of_potential_life_lost
"While the most common cause of death of young people aged 5 to 40 is injury and poisoning in the developed world, because relatively few young people die, the principal causes of lost years remain cardiovascular disease and cancer.[4]"
[Regarding Australia:] "When disability adjusted life years are considered, cancer (25.1/1,000), cardiovascular disease (23.8/1,000), mental health issues (17.6/1,000), neurological disorders (15.7/1,000), chronic respiratory disease (9.4/1,000) and diabetes (7.2/1,000) are the main causes of good years of expected life lost to disease or premature death.[7]"