Re: Life Expectancy

Timothy Bates (tbates@karri.bhs.mq.edu.au)
Mon, 14 Jun 1999 16:19:38 +1000

Spike Jones asked
> how do we identify good genetic material?
>The goal is to maximize the only thing we
> *know* for sure is good: long life.
> How now, Dr. Bates? spike

Of course long life is all those things that you don't care to raise, like IQ, etc. As a for instance, several researchers believe that IQ simply reflects brain "health" - that IQ 140 means nothing wrong, and less than that is the sum of all things that have not gone wrong.

So, longevity (survival) is a function of the organism in its environment - you can't raise it in the abstract.

More narrowly, longevity as the all-things-being-equal ability of system to repair themselves is at this time an almost completely open question. No one knows the answer. Hope for master clocks at both chromosomal and organismic levels (with melatonin as a regulator for instance) and such-like remains strong but largely unfulfilled.

so .. go and donate lots of money to a research institute that you like ;-)

tim

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