Lab mice aren't really a great model model for studying human health, but we use them anyway. And every so often, researchers stumble on drugs that seem to make lab mice live longer. Unfortunately, no one has found a reliable treatment for significantly extending a human lifespan just yet -- but if you want to raise old mice, there are plenty of things that'll work. Check out a few of these potential fountains of youth for mice.

• The first human clinical trials using nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) to slow the aging process should begin soon -- on a small sample of 10 healthy people. NMN works remarkably well in mice, but no one knows yet how well it will work in people. If it's safe enough, though, it's a good bet that people will be adding this stuff to vitamins ASAP.
• A hormone, osteocalcin, injected in old mice appears to allow the rodents to run just as far as much younger mice. Old mice that weren't given this hormone ran about half as far, so researchers are planning to try this in people next.
• If rapamycin works to delay the onset of certain diseases in mice, maybe it'll work... on our pet dogs? And if Fido lives a bit longer and healthier, maybe we'll try it ourselves, too. (Eating our own dogfood..?)
• How about chemical precursors to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) to try to keep yourself young? You can buy this stuff right now as a supplement, if you'd like to participate in your own highly unscientific study....

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Biology defies simple categorization -- even though some think of the field of biology as glorified taxidermy. We even have a difficult time defining what life is. (Are viruses alive?) Fundamental questions about how life began and how life even continues are still elusive. We've just started to scratch the surface of collecting data that might help us understand more about ourselves and the ecosystem we live in. Here are just a few links on genomes and biodiversity that lead to more questions than answers.

• What is the 'hypothetical minimal genome' required for a living organism to exist? Researchers thought that maybe a living cell could get away with 256 genes, but it didn't produce a viable living organism. So after a some trial & error iterations of editing simple bacterial genomes, it looks like 473 genes might be the smallest genome that life needs... to be called life. (And we still don't know what a significant fraction of these genes do.) [url]
• Genome analysis is becoming more practical to do on a large scale, and for just $25,000, you could have your own personal genome -- plus a battery of other medical tests that may or may not provide any meaningful results. Collecting all this health data, though, could start to provide some interesting correlations, and the company offering the service is named Human Longevity -- so there might be something in aggregating this information that might help people live longer lives. [url]
• How many mammalian viruses exist? At least 320,000? And there's probably no limit to the number. It's important to note that not all viruses cause disease -- bacteriophages keep us healthy by killing off bacteria that do cause diseases. So we don't want to eradicate viruses, but it would be nice to know more about them. [url]

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They say age is "just a number" -- but it'd be nice if that number could be a little higher before people were expected to die. The aging process has been studied for a long time, but no one has found the silver bullet that stops people from getting older (unless there are some immortals hiding among us). Still, medicine is making some slow progress towards understanding how we age -- and how we might prevent ourselves from aging.

• Researchers may have found a way to make mice live much longer -- by removing certain cells (senescent cells) from their bodies. Take a healthy mouse, start removing these senescent cells twice a week, and that mouse will live about 25% longer and stay healthier compared to an untreated mouse with identical genetics and a controlled diet. There could be serious side effects for doing this in people, but maybe start taking scientific "cleanses" seriously.... [url]
• There's a correlation with having more children and longer telomeres... for a sample of women from rural Guatemalan communities. Longer telomeres are associated with cell replication and longevity, but aging is a not a simple process. And obviously, there's a limit to the effect or else mothers of a dozen or so kids would live a surprisingly long time (plus the data could look a bit better). [url]
• If longer telomeres really does the trick, though, for leading to longer, healthier lives, then there might be a way to lengthen them artificially. It's too late for Roy Batty, but maybe not for us (or Rick Deckard). [url]
• There isn't just one theory about how cells age, but there's more doubt for the mitochondrial theory of aging that proposes that accumulated mutations in mitochondrial DNA lead to age-related mitochondrial defects. There may be other forms of genetic regulation, like epigenetic regulation, that lead to the effects of aging. [url]

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The topic of aging is a widely-studied one -- presumably because everyone ages and it's one of the leading causes of death. There's no cure for aging just yet, but scientists are collecting more information on the process of aging. Once the process is understood more thoroughly, there might be ways to treat it and extend human lifespans. Here are just a few more links on the subject of aging and possible ways to prevent it.

• Generally, people are born with about 20,000 hematopoietic stem cells to generate blood cells. When Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper died at the age of 115, she apparently had only two active stem cells -- and researchers are investigating how stem cells might provide an upper limit to aging and extending the human lifespan. [url]
• Syndrome X is the name of the disorder that Brooke Greenberg was diagnosed to have in 2009, but since then, other people have also been found to have similar symptoms that seem to halt the normal aging process. Gabby Williams, Mackenzee Wittke, and another girl are having their entire genome sequences analyzed to try to gain some further understanding of the aging process and how these girls' bodies have altered it. [url]
• Longevity entrepreneurs from silicon valley are looking into the problem of aging and the biotech solutions that might be available. According to Human Longevity Inc (HLI), "aging is the single biggest risk factor for virtually every significant human disease." [url]

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Lots of people say they'd like to live longer. So longevity has been studied extensively, and a vast number of correlations have been found. The list literally goes on and on and on. This doesn't mean anyone has discovered the cure for death, and these correlations often have no causation logic behind them whatsoever. Drink a glass of wine every day, eat no meat, restrict your calories drastically, and read some of these other correlations.

• Women who have kids later in life (33+yo) have a higher likelihood of living longer. The researchers note there is no causality here, but that women who are capable of having children in their 30s (and beyond) just seem to live longer as well. [url]
• Being short is not generally a desirable trait, but how about when height inversely correlates with longevity? Several studies show that short people live longer than tall people, and there are some reasons for this correlation -- but don't amputate your feet just yet.... [url]
• Serious coffee drinkers who ingest 4-5 cups of joe per day seem to live longer than people who drink just a cup or less. However, drinking more than 5 cups of coffee has diminishing returns, and the notable catch to this correlation is that non-coffee drinkers actually live longer than coffee lovers. [url]

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There's an Isaac Asimov quote: "If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster." But if there really were accurate predictions for a person's lifespan, how would people change? Maybe medical science is on the verge of creating a pharmaceutical solution for a fountain of youth. We seem to be a long way from a cure for death, but at least a few people think immortality will be available to humanity (eg. Aubrey de Grey, Ray Kurzweil, etc.) in the next few decades. Here are a few links to the study of aging and its causes.

• There is a curious correlation between body mass and lifespans for nearly all known species. There are a few exceptions, but generally, the bigger the animal, the longer it lives. (Maybe those exceptional species could point to genetic causes for longevity.) [url]
• Some rare genetic mutations can prevent people from aging normally. One 9yo girl has the body of an infant; a 29yo man looks like a pre-teen; a 31yo woman appears to be no older than a toddler. [url]
• Researchers are looking for genetic markers that correlate with aging -- finding thousands of indicators that could potentially predict an individual's natural lifespan. Some of the biomarkers suggest that men age faster than women, possibly explaining why women tend to live longer. [url]

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Several discoveries in biology could lead to treatments that reverse the effects of aging and prolong lifespans. There isn't quite a magic bullet, but it's not unreasonable to think that people could live longer and longer lives. The Methuselah Foundation has several monetary prizes for researchers in the field of life extension interventions. Here are just a few other interesting research studies on aging.

• Little worms (Caenorhabditis elegans) on the International Space Station are actually living longer in a micro-gravity environment than their earth-bound relatives. Researchers have identified several genes that contribute to this unexpected lengthening of longevity, but living on a space station isn't the fountain of youth. [url]
• The cost of sequencing the human genome has fallen dramatically from $3 billion for the first one... to a few thousand dollars. Having access to the information in our DNA could lead to lifespans of 150 years, but getting hit by a bus would still be a problem. [url]
• Certain kinds of exercise may extend your life more than others. Aerobic exercise is correlated with living a bit longer than non-aerobic exercise -- so expect a few more infomercials to start plugging exercise equipment with claims of helping you live longer. [url]
• Senescent cells can no longer divide, and they might bring down neighboring cells and create various symptoms of aging. Eliminating these senescent cells could lead to more age-resistant organs -- and people living longer (perhaps as undead zombies). [url]

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