It was like stepping on to an escalator; I could do anything. I was just made for science.
It's possible that we could change a human gene and double our life span. I don't know if that's true, but we can't rule that out.
Generally, older people in their fifties, sixties, and seventies are running most countries and are CEOs of corporations. Which isn't to say there aren't entrepreneurs, but if the young were better in every respect, there'd be no reason for the old. Our life span reflects our particular life strategy.
In the early '90s, we discovered mutations that could double the normal life span of worms.
If I were a worm, I would rather be the long-lived mutant than the normal worm, that's for sure.
With worms you can just change genes at random and see if you can find a mutant that does what you want it to do.
Age is the single largest risk factor for an enormous number of diseases. So if you can essentially postpone aging, then you can have beneficial effects on a whole wide range of disease.
The hope is that if we can increase youthfulness, we can postpone age-related diseases.
There are lots of different strategies that an animal can use to survive. What a worm does is try to convert food into worms as soon as possible. In three days a single worm produces 300 progeny. So why put your resources into developing if you can make a brand-new worm in no time at all?
It is unlikely that changes in telomeres are influencing the lifespan of the worm. That is because telomeres only shorten when cells divide. Most of the cells of the worm stop dividing when the worm becomes an adult.
