[...]
... I don't think it's by chance that the life expectancy of dogs is 10 to 15 years, of horses is 25 to 30 years, of humans is 73 years and of the Greenland shark is 270 to 512 years. They are all different for a reason. Evolution has achieved an equilibrium over millions of years of adaptation. Our technological and medical advances of the last few hundred years are only a fraction of a second in evolutionary time scales, yet we're trying to double or triple our life expectancy in such a small amount of time. Cancer is the current challenge. Solve it, and another, perhaps more deadly challenge could come, and so on.
Of course, we humans will never stop trying. Will we succeed? I hope so, but I'm not so sure.
Greenland shark's meat is saturated with ammonia and its eye has a nasty parasite that embeds itself in the eye ball...interestingly, the parasite probably releases something that alleviates pain because shark doesn't try to rub it off. Greenland shark is certainly a very unique species.
That said, I am pretty positive that some life extension could be obtained in the next, say, 10 years.
In fact, some ague that at the population level, GLP-1 agonists could be already extending lives.
Interesting. I wasn't aware of the Greenland shark. While composing my reply above, I Googled "animal with the longest life expectancy" and found it. It certainly is a unique species. Female Greenland sharks reach sexual maturity around 150 years of age, and can be pregnant for a humongous 18 years! [1]. While investigating about creatures with the longest lifespans, I found these (all sea creatures):
Top Longest-Living Animals [1], [2]
Glass Sponge: Lives up to
15,000 years in deep ocean waters by slow filtering and growth.
Black Coral: Reaches ages of over
4,200 years in deep-sea environments like those near Hawaii.
Ocean Quahog (Clam): Reaches confirmed ages past
500 years, with the oldest recorded individual ("Ming") estimated at 507 years old.
Greenland Shark: Holds the record as the longest-living vertebrate, living for
400 to over 500 years in icy Arctic waters.
Bowhead Whale: Lives for more than
200 years, making it the longest-living mammal.
Sources:[1]
https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/longest-living-animals-world[2]
https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/the-longest-living-animals-on-earth-2024
Poll
