4 ms·
Interesting results. But were twins needed for this discovery? I would imagine the the telomere length change could have been discovered by pre-mission, in-miss
by ohitsdom 10y ago
Interesting results. But were twins needed for this discovery? I would imagine the the telomere length change could have been discovered by pre-mission, in-mission, and post-mission sampling. I'm guessing this was discovered in this study because of the in-depth DNA sampling, not due to having a twin to compare to.
- JamesMcMinn 10y agoI'm not sure of the exact details in this case, but having a twin as a baseline will likely to useful in a number of ways. Things change over time - how much did Scott's telomere length change in comparison to before he went to space and in comparison to his brother?
- ceejayoz 10y agoMy understanding (https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2013/09/108886/lifestyle-changes-may-lengthen-telomeres-measure-cell-aging https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2013/09/108886/lifestyle-changes-m...) is that telomeres can lengthen due to diet, exercise, etc., so having a twin on earth with a similar diet and exercise regimen would be worthwhile to account for as many variables as possible.
- godelski 10y agoThe twins were used because they are doing a wide variety of genomic testing. One serves as a baseline. So twins will give a low variance between candidates.