Jul 17, 2015
Cellular and molecular mechanisms of negligible senescence: insight from the sea urchin
Posted by Steve Hill in category: life extension
An interesting paper about Urchins and how some species effectively do not age (like some lobsters) by expressing telomerase.
Note the researcher makes the classic mistake about telomere biology not understanding the correlation between a short lived species which has longer telomeres and one that has negligible senescence and considerably shorter telomeres. The same applies to mice and men, mice have much longer telomeres than us but live about 3 years max.
The frequently made misconception about telomeres is that telomere length defines or causes aging, it does not. An organism’s telomere length has little to do with how long it lives or how fast it ages. People often point out, some animals, such as mice, have long telomeres and a short lifespan, while other animals, such as humans, have much shorter telomeres but longer lifespan.
