Axolotl

Just a small observation. Today's FT's Science byline covers a piece that Radio Four referred to this morning, on research being carried out into a protein - named IL-11 - that would appear to be instrumental in the ageing process, the suppression of which could slow ageing down and suppress normal degenerative diseases such as age-related cancers, and thus concomitantly increasing the potential lifespan of a complex organism such as a human. They have shown as much to be so in middle-aged mice, increasing their longevity by up to 25% in laboratory experiments. It should be said that the therapy at the moment is only being aimed towards humans with fibrotic lung disease, but the implication remains of the possibility of more generalised therapies going forward. This obviously could throw up deeply philosophical and moral quandaries and questions, let alone the practical economic and logistical issues that would follow as a result of increasing general human longevity. Anyway, that's a future potential worry/benefit, but it appears that the presence of this protein is central to the abilities of certain species to re-grow lost limbs or appendages: the example cited in the FT piece being axolotl salamanders; and I'll have nothing said against axolotls, thank you very much...