Talk:Methuselah Foundation/Archive 1

Archive 1

Mouse versus fruitfly

There is some interesting stuff about the comparison between doing this prize with a mouse and doing it with fruitflies (drosophila). A couple of the more interesting points are that in a lab you can cheaply maintain and process larger numbers of fruitflies than mice, and the fruitfly lifespan is much shorter than the mouse lifespan so you get quicker feedback.

But I also understand the publicity argument that people feel more kinship with mice. It's easier as a non-scientist to believe that results in mice are much more relevant to humans. Results in mice will more easily attract funding for subsequent work.

Does it make sense for researchers to work with fruitflies first, and then port their techniques to mice for later confirmation and to collect the prize? Hopefully that would take relatively little more time and expense than doing the whole thing with fruitflies. We'd eventually need to port these techniques from mice to humans anyway, so there is a presumption that porting across species is feasible. -- WillWare 20:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe they are trying to double the life span of a mouse. Scientists nearly tripled the life span of a fruitfly seven years ago [1]. Also, it's less impressive since the doubling of the life span of a fruitfly is only 80 days. Richard Cane 10:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

To quote from the SENS website : "Why are you so fixated on mice?

Simple -- they have four characteristics that, jointly, make them the species in which life-extension successes dramatic enough to convince the public that aging is postponeable in humans will be achievable soonest. These characteristics are: (a) they're cheap and long have been, so biologists have developed loads of cool tricks for altering their genes and so on which don't exist in most other animals; (b) they're furry, so people identify with them more than with fruit flies and such like, (c) they're big enough to do surgery, bone marrow transplants and such like on, which fruit flies and nematodes aren't, and (d) they're not all that long-lived, so the effectiveness of candidate anti-aging interventions can be determined fairly quickly." [2]

The funding argument/the kinship arguments are good. Dr. de Grey's argument (c) is also a good one - the surgery aspect, which is one thing that should be added to the chart at the bottom of the article. Athap 20:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Redirect request

Could someone who know how to do it put up redirects for mprize and m-prize? Would be useful. Filur 04:24, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Done. For future reference, just search for "redirect" to learn how.  :) --Nectarflowed ^(talk) 09:04, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

I just put up loads more, anything to get people to read :) Tyciol 12:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

4 years

For comparison: mice whose grandparents have been caught in the wild live nearly 4 years on average.

4 years = 1461 days. So, if this is average life time, that suggests that some of the mice live longer without any special treatment. So the 1551 and especially 1356 don't seem like an achievement at all. I suspect the "nearly 4 years on average" part needs some corrections. Taw 18:27, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

No no no, on Wikipedia everything is always absolutely correct: [3]. The point is that the mice with 1551 and 1356 days were standard laboratory strain mice, which normally don't live nearly as long, because of the inbreeding. AxelBoldt 03:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

That sounds useful to clarify in the article.--Nectar 19:38, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Hm, good to hear about this, criticism is of utmost importance regarding these claims. We should be looking at max lifespan of the species, not of breed history. After all, we're hardly going to make human anti-aging treatments family-dependant. We're also probably slightly less inbred, weak and identicle. Tyciol 12:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Yow. So, apparently, what this prize seems to be doing is getting back the losses in lifespan due to selective breeding and inbreeding. Does sound like the prize is a bit irrelevant. Geoffrey.landis 21:00, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Lifespan of mice

Apparently we're having a little dispute: should we mention the fact that mice whose grandparents have been caught in the wild live on average almost 4 years because of the lack of inbreeding.

I certainly think it is an interesting fact, and others seem to agree, as the discussion above shows. Then the question remains, is it relevant to this article? I argue it is:

• the prize is about the lifespan of house mice and does not specify a particular strain. So the first question on the reader's mind would be "Well, how long do house mice naturally live?" While the fact that most researchers seem to be using a certain standard strain of laboratory mouse is clearly relevant, information about the naturally longest lived mice is important as well: if you want to win the prize, you might want to look into using this type of half-wild mouse.
• the people behind the Methuselah Mouse Prize found the fact important, interesting and relevant enough to include it on their page about record holders.

I don't think mentioning this fact takes away from the accomplishments of the record holders, but it provides necessary context. How does removing this information improve the article and help the reader? AxelBoldt 19:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good.--Nectar 22:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Mascot!!!

Time for some fun. Considering the name, if anyone of you have read the series Redwall then I'm sure you know who I'm thinking of. I love that old coot Methuselah, such a great dude, I wish he was in the other books but you know... *mumbles* Read the book! Tyciol 12:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

whats with his beard though?

Why does he let himself appear so old...? --Procrastinating@^talk2me 14:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Dump the Mouse vs Fruitfly section

There is a long section here comparing the Mouse and Fruitfly models for longevity. This is relevant to the study of longevity research, but has little or nothing to do with the actual subject of the article, the M prize. It should be deleted from this article-- possibly moved to another article, but it doesn't belong here.

As written, it's also a POV. I presume that the note at the end "Nucleic Acids Res. 2002 Jan 1;30(1):149-51" is supposed to be a reference, but since it's not explicitly listed, I have no idea of what, if any, portion of the opinions expressed are referenced to that article. Geoffrey.landis 21:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah the section is not necessary, its probably written by a disgruntled fruitfly expert. Fruitflies are important but its certainly silly to bring that up as a criticism of this prize, its obvious that the mouse was chosen for its similarity to humans.
There are many model organisms which can be used for age studies, if someone finds it annoying that the price concerns mouse he is free to set his own one for fruitfly, E. coli or whatever his favorite model organism.Enemyunknown (talk) 17:07, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Do Not Remove Mouse vs Fly Section. This was, and continues to be, a legitimate criticism of the structure of the prize: what was the reasoning behind the choice of model organism? prometheus1 (talk) 15:11, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Direct Apeal to Public for Funds

Isn't it strange that the M. Foundation seems to be going directly to the public for funding? Also, note their huge viral marketing campain on U tube. My radar says "scam". Shouldn't the article talk about the funding source, and how unusual this is? I hate to think of Wikipedia as supporting a huster, and, if all the relivent facts arn't brought out, I'm afraid that this is whats going on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steve kap (talk • contribs) 00:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Why has criticism been removed?

Surely, just like every other organization and movement known to man there has been some criticism made? prometheus1 (talk) 15:17, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I removed that criticism because it violates WP:SYN and WP:ATT. --Phenylalanine (talk) 15:21, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

You removed the entire criticism section. The issue of model organism has been raised a number of times in various online forums and discussion groups. It is legitimate and important. Very simply: was the decision based on science or marketing? Are you denying that this criticism exists or are you seeking to present this entry in a biased way that does not serve the interests of the Encyclopedia or its readers? Wikipedia is not your marketing tool, as it appears you're seeking to use it as, based on your disproportionate content on SENS and omission of a criticism section. prometheus1 (talk) 06:24, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I've now copied the removed section below for archival/reference purposes. In someone can find sources for it, it could be included back into the article. --AB (talk) 00:18, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

---

In keeping with the goal of accelerating aging research the choice of model organism has raised criticism as to its suitability. A comparison of the common mouse (mus musculus) being presently used, versus the fruit fly (drosophila melanogaster) according to criteria such as speed of discovery and relevance to human aging mechanisms was a topic of extensive discussion.

A comparison of fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) and mouse (Mus musculus) as model organisms for aging research

	Fruitfly	Mouse
genetic similarity to humans	44%	85%	Higher is better - but it is estimated that 75% of human disease genes have a fruit fly version*
lifespan	40 days	3 years	Lower is better - the less time one has to wait for a lifecycle completion the more experiments can be performed
number that can be screened per generation	100,000's	100's	Higher is better - want to be able to screen for the most numbers
cost of laboratory maintenance	Low	High	Low is better - the lower the cost of research, the more that can be performed
ethics approval requirement	No	Yes	No is better - ethics approval applications are time consuming and not always granted
difficulty in generating genetic modifications in embryos	Low	High	Low is better - preferable to be less technically difficult to generate transgenic animals

It was suggested that based on the above data a scientist would be hard pressed to justify basic research using the mouse as a model organism rather than the fruit fly unless a question specific to the mouse was being asked. Therefore, the scientific merit behind the choice of model organism was questioned since this choice appeared to be weighed more on being appealing to the target demographic of prospective donors rather than scientific validity. This was a topic of extensive discussion on online fora.

• Nucleic Acids Res. 2002 Jan 1;30(1):149-51.

Issues of Bias and Undue Weight

You are hereby being placed on notice regarding contravention to the policies of Neutral Point of View with particular note on the subsections on Bias and Undue Weight. prometheus1 (talk) 06:39, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I encourage you to seek Wikipedia:Dispute resolution or Wikipedia:Third opinion. --Phenylalanine (talk) 10:25, 9 July 2008 (UTC)