They are adorable! My first thought upon reading this excellent post are telomeres and how they can be an indicator of age. I quickly searched to find information about these cute creatures telomeres. Their telomeres are shortened during their life. They really do have super genes. The fact their tissues recognize tumor growth quickly and either neutralize the cells or kill them is remarkable. It seems they have super powered housekeeping genes. Evolution has treated these little ones kindly. More research on these amazing mammals would surely benefit humans. Thank you for sharing your insight @valth
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This will pretty much disprove their biological immortality, I suppose. It will still be interesting to see how long it will take before they get into any kind of genetic trouble because of these shortenings. And at this point I would not even be surprised if they had a mechanism to lengthen them again, because these animals seems to have an endless amount of tricks up their sleeves ;)
Yeah, I agree! I hope we are able to learn something about fighting cancer by studying this mechanism.
And thanks a lot for a very valuable comment, @kiristin! Comments like these really add a lot of value to the original post for everyone who reads them :)
Can I just say I’m so glad I’ve followed you. Your posts really bring great science content to the Steemunnity (just made that up). I love science and would like to follow more blogs like yours.
I worked with mice for a few years in a Nutrition and Genetics lab. Not understanding why more PIs aren’t working with them. Cool stuff. Cheers to the future!
Hehe, I love the word Steemunnity! You should totally check out @steemstem and their reports for more science content. They post about the best science posts on Steemit twice a week, and these posts are usually worth reading.