I’ve heard the claim about naked mole rats, but not the details: is it possible to have a naked mole rat that lives for an arbitrarily long time if you keep them in a sterile environment where it’s hard to get significantly injured? That would seem to be a straightforward implication of them not aging, but I’ve never heard that this has been done.
This isn’t quite what it means to not experience aging. Instead, “not aging” means that the likelihood of dying in a given year does not increase with age. So a naked mole rat kept in a cage for an indefinite period of time can still die, and yet not be aging.
Thanks! Do you know what tends to kill them then? I was under the impression that organisms usually die of disease, injury, cancer, transposon propagation or programmed aging. I notice I am confused, because keeping a naked mole rat in a safe environment should protect them from disease and injury, and transposons and programmed aging would do more damage over time. Do they die of cancer then, or am I missing something big about biology here?
Captive NMRs are kept in colonies, and can inflict injuries on each other.
They do get cancer at very low rates.
Animals that haven’t been specially reared to have had zero contact with pathogens can also harbor dormant diseases, and the current longest-lived NMR has not spent his whole life in a sterile environment.
Complex organisms may be at a constant low-level risk of deadly internal injuries (i.e. a random stroke).
I’ve heard the claim about naked mole rats, but not the details: is it possible to have a naked mole rat that lives for an arbitrarily long time if you keep them in a sterile environment where it’s hard to get significantly injured? That would seem to be a straightforward implication of them not aging, but I’ve never heard that this has been done.
This isn’t quite what it means to not experience aging. Instead, “not aging” means that the likelihood of dying in a given year does not increase with age. So a naked mole rat kept in a cage for an indefinite period of time can still die, and yet not be aging.
The oldest known naked mole rat in captivity is 40 years old, while most naked mole rats live 2-5 years in the wild.
Thanks! Do you know what tends to kill them then? I was under the impression that organisms usually die of disease, injury, cancer, transposon propagation or programmed aging. I notice I am confused, because keeping a naked mole rat in a safe environment should protect them from disease and injury, and transposons and programmed aging would do more damage over time. Do they die of cancer then, or am I missing something big about biology here?
Captive NMRs are kept in colonies, and can inflict injuries on each other.
They do get cancer at very low rates.
Animals that haven’t been specially reared to have had zero contact with pathogens can also harbor dormant diseases, and the current longest-lived NMR has not spent his whole life in a sterile environment.
Complex organisms may be at a constant low-level risk of deadly internal injuries (i.e. a random stroke).
Source
Very interesting; thank you!