
Ageing: The girls who never grow older - kercker
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140520-the-girls-who-never-age
======
ars
Summary:

There are no conclusions or new research in this article.

Talks about some theories of the scientist interviewed about what aging is
(Spoiler: He doesn't know and all current theories have flaws), wastes some
time on human interest fluff, gives an interesting picture of girls with
Syndrome X (that prevents them from developing, in a way that might be a lack
of aging - if you've already heard about it there is nothing new here, if not
this is a reasonable introduction), but has no conclusions or new information.

They are doing genetic testing of the girls involved, results are not in yet,
this article should have waited for the results.

~~~
jostmey
I actually thought this article did a pretty good job explaining why we age.
As pointed out, our bodies fall apart because they are the product of an
evolutionary process.

Our genetic code is like a computer program that runs into a bunch of fatal
errors after it has been left running for too long. These fatal errors do not
matter to our genes provided enough time has elapsed since our birth for our
DNA to pass on several copies of itself. There is simply an absence of
selective pressure for us to live past a certain reproductive age.

(If I wrote in laymen's terms it is because I am a laymen on the issue, but a
well informed one at that.)

~~~
ars
Yes, that is one explanation, but it's refuted by other evidence. (And the
article covers this.)

The main problem with the argument is that our body does a great job of fixing
errors - so why does that process suddenly seem to stop? Why not just keep on
fixing errors. If you can fix errors for 40 years why stop there? Why does the
process suddenly stop at that age?

It's not like there is a gradual accumulation of errors - it's no errors for
40 years, then suddenly error correction mode is switched off. Why?

It also just raises the question of why there is a reproductive age in the
first place? Why does that stop? (For women anyway - it doesn't seem to stop
for men, so the evolutionary argument fails there too.)

But the biggest argument against that theory is other animals. Why do they
have different lifespans? The genetic machinery for all mammals is more or
less the same.

~~~
jostmey
First of all, there are a number of things that go wrong in our bodies as we
age. Certainly genetic errors build up over time and are left uncorrected. But
this is just one of many things that go wrong. The reason our bodies are
allowed to degrade in the first place is because we have usually already
survived well into our reproductive age.

The evolutionary theories of aging actually provide a pretty solid explanation
as to why separate species have different lifespans. Some species take longer
to reach reproductive maturity than others. Some species reproduce more slowly
than others, which in turn effects how quickly the animal may age. Individuals
in some species don't survive very long due to external pressures such as
starvation and predation, which also shapes lifespan.

The best introduction into the evolutionary theories of aging I have found is:
[http://www.genetics.org/content/156/3/927.full.pdf](http://www.genetics.org/content/156/3/927.full.pdf)
. It is worth noting this theory explains human mortality curves once external
causes of death have been removed.

~~~
crystaln
Would it not make more evolutionary sense to remain reproductively capable for
hundreds or thousands of years?

The motive for genes to reproduce does not end after a single set of
offspring. In fact, I don't think the motivation is even reduced.

~~~
jostmey
The mathematics of life is exponential growth. Two begets four begets eight
and so on. So if you happen to die from old age after the fifth or sixth
generation, the effect on how many copies your genes make of themselves is
marginal.

~~~
ars
You are completely forgetting that if the parent organism has extra copies so
do all the children.

Compare 2^100 vs 3^100:

    
    
        2^100: 1267650600228229401496703205376
        3^100: 515377520732011331036461129765621272702107522001

~~~
jostmey
No, I am not. I assumed that the offspring will die of old age too.

You neglected the variable of time. That third offspring will be born after
the second one, which is born after the first one. You need to use the Euler-
Lotka equation. The mathematics was worked out centuries ago. Here is the
wikipedia article

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%E2%80%93Lotka_equation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%E2%80%93Lotka_equation)

~~~
ars
> No, I am not. I assumed that the offspring will die of old age too.

How does that change the conclusion? 3 children vs 2 is still immensely more
children, not just a marginal amount as you thought.

~~~
jostmey
When that third child is being born the second child is already beginning to
reproduce (if you reproduce like Yeast). Clearly, that second child is more
important because it has already given you a grandchild when your third child
is still in the process of being born. That second child has already resulted
into two offspring, and counts for twice as much.

~~~
ars
That only matters at a specific moment in time, but if you take a slightly
longer view that 3rd child had an enormous impact.

> That second child has already resulted into two offspring, and counts for
> twice as much.

Only for one generation, but we care about many many generations. 10
generation down the line the slight difference in timing makes no difference.

But the increase in number made an _enormous_ difference.

You really need to sit and run some numbers and you'll see you are mistaken.

Maybe your intuition will help you if think of it as a steady state - babies
in (born), babies out (die), rather than thinking about one moment in time. In
a steady state the timing make no difference (because you've already waited
out the time) - only the number matters.

------
kohanz
The takeaway of this story for me, after reading this, is not the scientific
implications, but I come away with tremendous sympathy and respect for the
parents.

Having just become a father a few weeks ago, I'm beyond grateful that our son
so far appears to be a healthy boy and when I read about parents having to
deal with adverse health events of their children, I can't think of anything
tougher to go through than that. I don't know if I would have the strength or
resilience to do what these parents did (raise these girls, who never develop
beyond infancy), nor do I know whether it's the "right thing to do" (or if
there even is such a distinction under the circumstances), but I respect the
hell out of them.

------
gejjaxxita
Amazingly this can't be accessed from the UK, a bizarre consequence of the
license fee:

We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our
international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run
commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the
profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new
BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital
activities at www.bbcworldwide.com.

~~~
bnchdrff
BBC re-posted the article from this source:
[http://mosaicscience.com/story/arrested-
development](http://mosaicscience.com/story/arrested-development)

~~~
gone35
Nice; that's a much better version. It includes references, for one.

For those interested, here is a non-paywalled version of the Walker 2009 paper
that describes the case study [1].

[1] [http://www4.utsouthwestern.edu/cellbio/shay-
wright/publicati...](http://www4.utsouthwestern.edu/cellbio/shay-
wright/publications/MechAgeDevel-Publication-4-1-09.pdf)

------
joe_the_user
This is a new article on a condition that's been written about already.

These are children who fail to reach maturity normally.

 _All of this was evidence of what Walker dubbed “developmental
disorganisation”. Brooke’s body seemed to be developing not as a coordinated
unit, he wrote, but rather as a collection of individual, out-of-sync parts.
“She is not simply ‘frozen in time’,” Walker wrote. “Her development is
continuing, albeit in a disorganised fashion.”_

The first this subject came up here, someone pointed out this has nothing
really to do with the aging that anyone would want to stop. It might help
understand the process of development and maturation but it clearly won't help
us directly stop aging.

And "never grow older" seems like a rather poor and even cruel way to describe
a unfortunate syndrome.

~~~
drcode
I really cringe at how this article takes some unfortunate people who are
expected to die in early youth and sensationally spins it into "girls who have
beaten aging".

------
hazz
Wayback Machine link for people in the UK:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20140521084936/http://www.bbc.com...](http://web.archive.org/web/20140521084936/http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140520-the-
girls-who-never-age)

------
kstop
What is with the terrible stock images?

------
owlmonkey
Another researcher was sequencing Brook before she died, and I believe using
the PacBio sequencer to get the full sequence (instead of an incomplete
"whole" sequence using Illumina sequencers.) Hopefully something useful will
emerge. Here is a link to a video of Brook on Katie Couric's show:
[http://katiecouric.com/features/is-there-a-way-to-slow-
your-...](http://katiecouric.com/features/is-there-a-way-to-slow-your-aging-
process-2/)

------
balor123
There's nothing charming about aging and the horrible conditions that come
with it. Those people are delusional.

------
sixQuarks
Does anyone have pictures of these girls? I'm curious to see what they
actually look like.

~~~
chrisdone
I'm imagining Alia of the Knife.

------
malkia
I had a third cousin with such development. At 12 she still looked like a
baby.

