Immortal Jellyfish DNA in Humans

[Zipfinator]

Well we were talking about Immortality or something, and Melvin gave us a link to a Jellyfish that reverts back to a sexually immature stage once it's at a mature one, basically restarting it's life cycle. We had a long discussion about it, and it turns out there's a lot of disadvantages and advantages, more than you'd think about right away.

Here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_nutricula

Here's the extremely long chat log:

Code: Select all

Zipfinator: And a big mac takes off 2 years of your life?
Zipfinator: That's bullshit
CanMan: I ate KFC for lunch, had 2 big macs, 4 servings of fries, 10 chicken nuggets and 2 large pops.
CanMan: In one day
CanMan: I am going to die
Zipfinator: Nah
Zipfinator: Everyone will die
Zipfinator: Unless a new technology comes out
Zipfinator: and were robot people
Zipfinator: or there's special life vitamins or something
Zipfinator: which would be good
Zipfinator: or we get regenerating cells
-MELVIn: there are a few lifeforms that regenerate cells etc. so that they will never die from age
Zipfinator: Like what?
Zipfinator: And we should try and take that from their DNA
Zipfinator: :P
-MELVIn: a certain jellyfish
-MELVIn: sec I'm gonna google it
Zipfinator: Probably would need to be born with the DNA though
-MELVIn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_nutricula there
CanMan: Why don't they start trying to inject the jellyfish DNA into fetus' then?
Zipfinator: Haha it's more complicated than that
CanMan: I know
Zipfinator: Doing that would kill  the kid...
Zipfinator: Make him half jellyfish
CanMan: But they haven't even started to test yet
Zipfinator: and he's melt or some shit
-MELVIn: I'd hit that
Zipfinator: Well they should
CanMan: Not necessesarily
Zipfinator: haha
CanMan: Just because it's jellyfish dna means it'll turn the kid into a jellyfish...
-MELVIn: the human body is to complex to be able to revert backwards
Zipfinator: haha I know
Zipfinator: But that wuold be wierd
Zipfinator: and yeah it is
Zipfinator: Didn't know it worked like that
Zipfinator: Oh well then, we need cell regeneration
-MELVIn: this doesn't prevent aging, just sort of rewinds the body
Zipfinator: or mechanical humans!
-MELVIn: TERMINATOR
-MELVIn: Run sarah, run!
Zipfinator: Or Vorg
CanMan: Terminator was just a robot
CanMan: Not even a real person
Zipfinator: Yeah not a human robot
CanMan: So you faillllll
Zipfinator: That would suck though, reverting back to like 4 years old
Zipfinator: lol
Zipfinator: You get to like 20
Zipfinator: wake up and your 4
Zipfinator: That would suck...
-MELVIn: noway
-MELVIn: I would be a total menace
-MELVIn: smart like a 500 year old
Zipfinator: haha
-MELVIn: and being able to get away with it
-MELVIn: by saying that your 4
-MELVIn: AWESOME
Zipfinator: Would you restart school though?
Zipfinator: Or keep your job...
Zipfinator: Confusing
Zipfinator: And what if you had kids, haha
Zipfinator: He's 8 and your 4
-MELVIn: child labor would'nt be illegal anymore
Zipfinator: Or just looks like it
Zipfinator: Not relaly that age
Zipfinator: nvm that would actually suck
Sathôr entered chat.
Sathôr: as promised, i am back :D
-MELVIn: SATHOR
Sathôr: yeah
-MELVIn: human immortality, yay or nay?
Sathôr: it would suck
Zipfinator: Most likely'
Sathôr: and what is immortality
-MELVIn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_nutricula
-MELVIn: this
Zipfinator: We're talking about that
Zipfinator: Are you serious Sathor...
Zipfinator: haha
Zipfinator: Means you life forever in short
Sathôr: No
Sathôr: it is a definition
Sathôr: If I'd shoot you
Sathôr: and you die
Sathôr: you werent immortal
Sathôr: even if age cant kill you
Zipfinator: Well
-MELVIn: thats also a topic
Zipfinator: Sort of
Sathôr: As I have read the article now, it just means no death by age
-MELVIn: would the jellyfishes cell regeneration cure deadly wounds?
Zipfinator: Shall we make a thread fellows?
Sathôr: melvin, not if it is dead
Sathôr: because the cell regeneration stops at that moment
-MELVIn: doh obviously
-MELVIn: havent slept in a while
Zipfinator: Well should we make a thread?
-MELVIn: but it would probably cure non leathal wounds
Sathôr: Why not
-MELVIn: go aead
Sathôr: but under serious discussion
-MELVIn: indeed
Sathôr: ... the human does heal non-lethal wounds? ^^
Zipfinator: Should I copy the chat in?
Sathôr: Yes, perhaps
Sathôr: you could leave out unimportant messages in between ^^
-MELVIn: yeah but I'm talking about more serious ones
-MELVIn: like if I would cut a toe of
Sathôr: your toe is missing, obviously
Sathôr: I think there are animals who can regrow body parts, but i am not sure
-MELVIn: yeah but the body know that theres supposed to be a toe there
Zipfinator: Some body parts
-MELVIn: lizards can
Zipfinator: Not all, that's impossible
Zipfinator: Well that's their tails
Zipfinator: not legs
Zipfinator: lol
Sathôr: yeah
-MELVIn: cell regeneration would cure a lot of disceases (spell?) aswell
Sathôr: no
Sathôr: the human has cell regeneration
Zipfinator: Diseases
Sathôr: but it is slow dude )
Sathôr: ;)
Zipfinator: But not massive enough
Zipfinator: Yeah
Sathôr: the rest is science fiction
Sathôr: could you imagine the energy need of the human body to do something like that faster
Sathôr: fever is nothing but an overheating of the body
Sathôr: now imagine we could fight illnesses faster
Sathôr: we would like ... die xD
Sathôr: Though, I still hope something like the T-Virus exist. I want to live in a Zombie Apocalypse :D!

It starts to get off topic a bit after that as you can see...

So what do you guys think?

[RobQ]

You forgot Hydras. From wikipedia:

Hydra is a genus of simple, fresh-water animals possessing radial symmetry. Hydras are predatory animals belonging to the phylum Cnidaria and the class Hydrozoa. [...] Biologists are especially interested in hydras due to their regenerative ability. Hydras appear to be unique among animals in that they do not undergo senescence (aging).

And of course the human liver can already regenerate.

If you're interested in the science behind it all I recommend "Ending Aging" by Aubrey de Grey. It's amazing that we can already fix so much serious crap in mice but not people.
http://www.mfoundation.org/index.php?pagename=book_promo

[Penney]

A human body is much more complex then a jellyfish. but we have so many different types of cells could we manipulate them all to do the exact same thing as mr jellyfish without any problems? And what does it matter to US right now anyways? This stuff is years and years off and probably won't be any bennifit to us. and furthermore what makes you think everyone born would want to live forever? it seems like the backwards version of logans run! Society would be lots differents I guess.

[RobQ]

And what does it matter to US right now anyway? This stuff is years and years off and probably won't be any benefit to us.

Personally, I plan on being alive years and years from now, so it will matter to me. And if all our ancestors had said the same thing what would your own life expectancy be at the moment? Most likely you wouldn't be here to join in the discussion.

... and furthermore what makes you think everyone born would want to live forever?

None of us have said everyone born would want to live forever, or that they would be forced to.

[GalantnostS-]

Very interesting read indeed. A lot of people I talked to on this topic want to live longer, of course, but very seldom would they say they want to live forever. Think about the population explosion that would occur if everyone won't die at some point of their life

I don't know if I remembered correctly from my high school lessons, but human adults seem to generate new cells(excluding sex-cells) only by Mitosis, meaning one old cell is divided into 2 identical daugther cells. Therefore, both divided cells will retain the same age of the original, hence they are not exactly "new" cells in the sense of health and birth. So all these cells in us continue to age, making us unable to escape old age and death...

My personal opinion is that the next steps to extend life is (a)enable the ability to generate "true" new cells in us; (b) stop/slow down the aging process of our existing cells. And jellyfish DNA sounds like and interesting start; but can't we change the cycle to like, reverting from 50 years old to 20, instead of 20 to 4? Revert back to 4 years old physically everytime you need to extend your life is not fun at all...

Just a little off-topic thought, are there more people dying every year not because of old age, but because of diseases and accidents instead?

[Zipfinator]

Yeah as I said there's a lot of things to talk about, and we didn't cover nearly any of them!

First of course everyone wouldn't want to live forever. It would be fun, but it would get awful boring after a while maybe. I would like it, but I wouldn't like everyone else to live forever because then there would be way to many people, and it would get overcrowded, and the worlds resources would be gone, and then everyone would die or move to another planet, and then that would keep happening over and over again!

Secondly I like the Mitosis idea, just perhaps slowing it down a lot so we live about 300 years. Of course then our body's would seem a lot younger, and it would essentially be the same thing as now, just 1 year would be about 5 or something. Also reverting back to 4 would get annoying lol, silly jellyfish didn't think that through before evolving!

And lastly I think that more people are dying not of old age, but from stupidity or diseases! (Stupidity could be smoking, or just jumping off a house onto a trampoline, your choice) Hopefully the average lifespan for my generation increased! Only one way to find out though

[RobQ]

Most of the world's population explosion came from reducing childhood death rates, not from extending life. I dream of the day when the worst problem the world faces is something simple like population control.

De Grey's book (mentioned earlier) goes into detail about cell division and how it relates to aging, and his website has an FAQ that gives good responses to "I don't want to live forever" and "overpopulation".

Nick Lane's book Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life is good for details on cellular life and comparison of different cell types. Not too in-depth, about the trickiest chemistry and biology I recall it containing was the description of how mitochondria generate/store energy from oxygen.

Remember that your sex/germ cell line stretch back unbroken millions of years - mutated maybe, but not aged.

[zombie@computer]

Cancer is pretty much immortal. So if we know a way to tame cancer, we can pretty much become immortal. Quite a positive prospect of cancer, no?

[Haxel]

Immortality would be a bit of a problem for society, seeing as its in most humans to want to procreate, and if nobody dies then the population would grow out of control pretty fast unless no new people are born. Can't see it working out somehow...

I'm all for living double the average lifespan or something :p

[Athlete{UK}]

Immortality would be a big problem for society because John Romero would live long enough to fuck up a whole new generation of games.

[marks]

Immortality would be a big problem for society because John Romero would live long enough to fuck up a whole new generation of games.

Amen brother.

[Woe Kitten]

lol Athlete.

A lot of people tout this argument about society being fucked up if everyone lived for ever. It wouldn't need to be fucked up though. It would just need to be different. If we cut the birth rate to almost nil (what would be the rush to reproduce if you live forever?) society would actually function much better. Without the strains on society of child rearing and aging people who can't work we'd all be a lot richer we'd all be richer and better cared for by the state. And without a shit load of hormonal time bombs walking around there would be less war and violence. Noticed how you don't really get gangs made up of 60 year olds?

Personally I love my life, so living forever doesn't seem like such a bad prospect to me. I think I'd be more than happy to give it a go, and if everything really does get so tedious as to make me not want to carry on. I'd start doing the riskiest sports imaginable until one day my number comes up.

Most of the people on this forum might well have 40-70 years left in them. Anti-aging technology could well be relevant to us within that time.

Oh yeah and about jellyfish:

A jellyfish is not a single life-form, it's more like a colony of single celled organisms. So the individual entities in that colony are dying all the time and new ones are being born to continue the process. So a jellyfish lives for ever in the same way that a society lives forever.

[ad_hominem]

"The cream made so your face can live on after you're gone"

[RobQ]

History shows as prosperity levels increase birth rates fall off. Aren't parts of Europe and Japan facing negative population growth (discounting immigration)?

if nobody dies then the population would grow out of control pretty fast unless no new people are born. Can't see it working out somehow...

You really chose death over life, because you think this is an unsolvable problem?

[Woe Kitten]

Human population growth... isn't that what space was invented for?