Talk:Methuselah Mouse Prize

Mouse versus fruitfly

There is some interesting stuff about the comparison between doing this prize with a mouse and doing it with fruitflies (drosophila). A couple of the more interesting points are that in a lab you can cheaply maintain and process larger numbers of fruitflies than mice, and the fruitfly lifespan is much shorter than the mouse lifespan so you get quicker feedback.

But I also understand the publicity argument that people feel more kinship with mice. It's easier as a non-scientist to believe that results in mice are much more relevant to humans. Results in mice will more easily attract funding for subsequent work.

Does it make sense for researchers to work with fruitflies first, and then port their techniques to mice for later confirmation and to collect the prize? Hopefully that would take relatively little more time and expense than doing the whole thing with fruitflies. We'd eventually need to port these techniques from mice to humans anyway, so there is a presumption that porting across species is feasible. -- WillWare 20:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe they are trying to double the life span of a mouse. Scientists nearly tripled the life span of a fruitfly seven years ago [1]. Also, it's less impressive since the doubling of the life span of a fruitfly is only 80 days. Richard Cane 10:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect request

Could someone who know how to do it put up redirects for mprize and m-prize? Would be useful. Filur 04:24, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done. For future reference, just search for "redirect" to learn how. :) --Nectarflowed ^(talk) 09:04, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I just put up loads more, anything to get people to read :) Tyciol 12:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

4 years

For comparison: mice whose grandparents have been caught in the wild live nearly 4 years on average.

4 years = 1461 days. So, if this is average life time, that suggests that some of the mice live longer without any special treatment. So the 1551 and especially 1356 don't seem like an achievement at all. I suspect the "nearly 4 years on average" part needs some corrections. Taw 18:27, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No no no, on Wikipedia everything is always absolutely correct: [2]. The point is that the mice with 1551 and 1356 days were standard laboratory strain mice, which normally don't live nearly as long, because of the inbreeding. AxelBoldt 03:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds useful to clarify in the article.--Nectar 19:38, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, good to hear about this, criticism is of utmost importance regarding these claims. We should be looking at max lifespan of the species, not of breed history. After all, we're hardly going to make human anti-aging treatments family-dependant. We're also probably slightly less inbred, weak and identicle. Tyciol 12:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lifespan of mice

Apparently we're having a little dispute: should we mention the fact that mice whose grandparents have been caught in the wild live on average almost 4 years because of the lack of inbreeding.

I certainly think it is an interesting fact, and others seem to agree, as the discussion above shows. Then the question remains, is it relevant to this article? I argue it is:

the prize is about the lifespan of house mice and does not specify a particular strain. So the first question on the reader's mind would be "Well, how long do house mice naturally live?" While the fact that most researchers seem to be using a certain standard strain of laboratory mouse is clearly relevant, information about the naturally longest lived mice is important as well: if you want to win the prize, you might want to look into using this type of half-wild mouse.
the people behind the Methuselah Mouse Prize found the fact important, interesting and relevant enough to include it on their page about record holders.

I don't think mentioning this fact takes away from the accomplishments of the record holders, but it provides necessary context. How does removing this information improve the article and help the reader? AxelBoldt 19:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good.--Nectar 22:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mascot!!!

Time for some fun. Considering the name, if anyone of you have read the series Redwall then I'm sure you know who I'm thinking of. I love that old coot Methuselah, such a great dude, I wish he was in the other books but you know... *mumbles* Read the book! Tyciol 12:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

whats with his beard though?

Why does he let himself appear so old...? --Procrastinating@^talk2me 14:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]