X-Message-Number: 10688 Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 07:24:43 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #10676 - #10687 Hi everyone! First, I promised Brian Delaney that I would give him the reference to mouse lifespans the next time I got on Cryonet. So: JB Storer, "Longevity and gross pathology at death of 22 inbred mouse strains", J GERONTOLOGY 21(1966) 404-409. This reference is only partially helpful, mainly because of the fact that since it was written our ability to produce special strains of mice has exploded. The ability to do this comes directly from our ability to modify/implant new genes and replace other genes. There are also some strains which Storer does not discuss (probably because they did not exist when he wrote his article) even though they seem to have been created by "normal" methods. Transferring human genes to mice is a nice way to study some human conditions: we get a strain of mice which develop similar diseases to those of humans, at least in a restricted way. (They better watch out here --- if they don't they might discover the mice making their own little machines and plotting how to overthrow those terrible humans ;-) !!!). Basically, except for a few experiments with antioxidants, the worst lifespans shown by any strain of mouse used in any aging experiment I know of were about average for all the different strains. C57BL/6J mice have been often used as "long lived" mice, but they are not the longest lived strain Storer discusses. This honor goes to a strain called LP/J mice, which for males lives twice as long as the shortest lived strain, and for females 3X longer. None of the strains I've seen used for aging experiments suffers from any particular characteristic disease, either --- though some of the shortest lived strains, for instance, have a strong tendency to die early of leukemia. To Marty Kardon: I must admit that for a substantial number of cryonicists there is a distinct whiff of religion about their attitude to cryonics. I personally think it comes with a very similar attitude to nanotechnology, in which at some (relatively) near future time we'll work out how to solve all our construction and medical problems using intelligent molecule sized robots. But I do not agree that such attitudes are universal. The major difference between those who accept cryonics as a strategy to prolong their own lives and those who accept it (to be perhaps impolite) as religion comes from attitudes to research. Some of us want very much to find out how to improve the process, how to make sure that we will be (as individuals) suspended in the best condition possible, and how to organize the societies so that they will continue to care for us while we are suspended. In short, we think that as much as we are able, it's OUR responsibility to increase the probability that our suspension will be successful. As for the future into which we might revive, I personally have always thought that it will have its own problems. We will never obtain ASSURED immortality, any more than we will be come (collectively or individually) all powerful. And even considering what we know of the Universe now, we have a long long way (and a long long time) to go before we even obtain any significant power over the Universe we live in. This is not to bring in all the problems we cannot list because we cannot imagine them --- likely to be a large number at any given time, though changing as time passes. Cavemen did not have the problem of possible shocks due to malfunctioning electronics, nor the problem of too much CO2 in the atmosphere. Actually, I think that a need for cryonics (in some form) won't ever disappear, either. Not only won't we be all-powerful, but we'll keep getting medical problems we had not imagined or encountered before. Yes, they WILL occur more and more rarely, but then our expectations will also rise, so that we'll continue to be concerned by such possibilities. Nor will we (at any given time) know how to cure all such conditions. Best and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10688