this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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Excuse me?
Basically mice procrastinate much less than people.
Given the position of this statement in the article, I'm guessing they are trying to imply a correlation in rate of aging. Like 1 dog year = 7 human years. They are further implying that if a mouse maintains immunity for 90 days, a human would maintain immunity for 10 years.
It should be clear that it is the reporter stating this, not the original authors of the study.
I'm no cell biologist but I don't think immunity works that way. I don't know enough to dispute it though.
I am a molecular biologist, and it kinda works this way. B cells are called memory cells because they hold onto that "memory" of the invader for a really long time. You probably haven't had an MMR or a Tetanus vaccine in 10+ years because the body is really good at remembering. But we have to get flu boosters every year because the flu mutates so rapidly that traditional b cells won't recognize the flu after a year of mutating. (RNA viruses can't correct their mutations so they change much faster than bacteria or DNA viruses). RNAi was still pretty new when I was in school and I haven't kept up with the research so I can't speak to it's effectiveness at long term immunity.
I know enough about that, the part I was skeptical about though was the assumption that if a mouse is immune for 90 days, a human would be immune for 10 years.
And you are absolutely right to be skeptical about that, that is a crazy level of extrapolation.
It is good that you recognize that you don't know enough to dispute it. Now just recognize that people who do know enough aren't disputing it.
I assumed it had to do with heartbeats. Mice hearts beat much faster than human hearts, and I think of the heartbeat like a computer’s clock or an engine’s RPM. If you increase that, the rate of everything else increases.
You're excused