3 ms·

Almost completely useless. It didn't even touch the most important aspect: does she age at a cellular level? Come to think of it, the whole thing is misreprese

Almost completely useless. It didn't even touch the most important aspect: does she age at a cellular level? Come to think of it, the whole thing is misrepresented. It's not that she doesn't age (they didn't say anything at all about this) only that she doesn't grow up.

callahad 17y ago
There was some decent discussion over at Metafilter when this was brought up [1]. In particular, one poster dug up a journal article about Brooke [2], including this juicy tidbit in the abstract: "Dental and bone ages are pre-teen, while telomere length and telomerase inactivity suggest a cellular age at least comparable to her chronological age." One poster's interpretation [3] was that "The telomere length means her cells have divided "at least" as much as an average 16 year old's. The fact that she is no larger despite all this cell division means that most of the daughter cells did not survive." [1]: http://www.metafilter.com/82714/The-girl-who-doesnt-age http://www.metafilter.com/82714/The-girl-who-doesnt-age [2]: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T31-4VP666B-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=937936727&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=2ce790def5bbae1e00df22d2f2b848c1 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi... [3]: http://www.metafilter.com/82714/The-girl-who-doesnt-age#2619243 http://www.metafilter.com/82714/The-girl-who-doesnt-age#2619...
- dkarl 17y ago
  So, as far as we know, she does age, and just doesn't develop normally? That's a disappointment, and it utterly ruins the newsworthiness of the case. Everybody would love to slow down aging, but I don't think anybody is keen to speed up or slow down human development.
  - quizbiz 17y ago
    That sucks but it's interesting to note that physical depiction is in this case related to nothing other than the developmental.
albertcardona 17y ago
The actual paper states: "Analyses of her chromosomes and DNA have thus far yielded normal findings. Nonetheless, the data suggest that spontaneous mutation of the gene(s) directing normal development occurred and that the difficulty in identifying it (them) may be due to assay limitations and/or the extent to which analyses have been employed." Richard F Walker, Lawrence C Pakula, Maxine J Sutcliffe, Patricia A Kruk, Jesper Graakjaer, Jerry W Shay. A case study of “disorganized development” and its possible relevance to genetic determinants of aging. Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, Vol. 130, No. 5. (May 2009), pp. 350-356. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T31-4VP666B-1&_user=18704&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000002018&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=18704&md5=a3b708b5eefdc0d1c96ac137b5ea317a http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...

callahad 17y ago

There was some decent discussion over at Metafilter when this was brought up [1]. In particular, one poster dug up a journal article about Brooke [2], including this juicy tidbit in the abstract: "Dental and bone ages are pre-teen, while telomere length and telomerase inactivity suggest a cellular age at least comparable to her chronological age." One poster's interpretation [3] was that "The telomere length means her cells have divided "at least" as much as an average 16 year old's. The fact that she is no larger despite all this cell division means that most of the daughter cells did not survive." [1]: http://www.metafilter.com/82714/The-girl-who-doesnt-age http://www.metafilter.com/82714/The-girl-who-doesnt-age [2]: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T31-4VP666B-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=937936727&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=2ce790def5bbae1e00df22d2f2b848c1 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi... [3]: http://www.metafilter.com/82714/The-girl-who-doesnt-age#2619243 http://www.metafilter.com/82714/The-girl-who-doesnt-age#2619...

dkarl 17y ago
So, as far as we know, she does age, and just doesn't develop normally? That's a disappointment, and it utterly ruins the newsworthiness of the case. Everybody would love to slow down aging, but I don't think anybody is keen to speed up or slow down human development.
- quizbiz 17y ago
  That sucks but it's interesting to note that physical depiction is in this case related to nothing other than the developmental.

albertcardona 17y ago

The actual paper states: "Analyses of her chromosomes and DNA have thus far yielded normal findings. Nonetheless, the data suggest that spontaneous mutation of the gene(s) directing normal development occurred and that the difficulty in identifying it (them) may be due to assay limitations and/or the extent to which analyses have been employed." Richard F Walker, Lawrence C Pakula, Maxine J Sutcliffe, Patricia A Kruk, Jesper Graakjaer, Jerry W Shay. A case study of “disorganized development” and its possible relevance to genetic determinants of aging. Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, Vol. 130, No. 5. (May 2009), pp. 350-356. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T31-4VP666B-1&_user=18704&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000002018&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=18704&md5=a3b708b5eefdc0d1c96ac137b5ea317a http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...