Mice with this form of dwarfism lived ten times longer than non-dwarved mice!!
Cleaner82 As someone who had to deal with a mouse infestation for a long time, the idea of eldrich dwarf mice is in a way terrifying.
Baldr Where are you getting that information from? The only genetic intervention that I know of that's extended life span that much was done in C. elegans. For mice it's more like a 20-40% increase in life span at best for alterations to the insulin-like pathway.
Also, if memory serves me, most of these dwarves are more susceptible to heart disease, and have to watch what they eat more than a normal person would.
2:50 of this video has the tidbit on the mice living 10x longer. I'm not saying I am a mouse mutation expert. I was just quoting the video. God nab it.
Baldr Sorry to beard out on you. I didn't notice that they had misreported that fact the first time I watched it. To clarify, Valter Longo has made yeast live ten times longer by altering that pathway, not mice.
As a general rule, it's easier to make simpler organisms live longer than more complex ones like humans. As you increase in complexity from yeast to C. elegans, to Drosophila, to rodents, the genetic interventions tend to have less of an effect on life span. This doesn't mean that this research isn't worth pursing, just that it's going to be harder to extend human life span than clips like this one would lead you to believe.
