D: You know, when I watch futuristic sci-fi movies, I notice everyone has  a normal aging pattern. You don't encounter people who just having been107 years old. That's probably a mistake.

 

Y: A mistake? Why?

 

D: Because science is giving us longer lifespans all the time. Researchers these days are even starting to understand how the body sends signals to itself, determining how it ages.

 

Y: Now, that sounds like science fiction！

 

D: It's true. A study conducted by James Carey and his colleagues at the University of California, for example, found a link between how long a mouse lives and its ovaries.

 

Y: Its ovaries? What do they have to do with the aging?

 

D: The researchers removed the ovaries of one set of mice when they were a few weeks old. Those mice didn’t live as long as mice who still had their ovaries. Another group of mice had their ovaries removed but got young ones later.
The mice with the young ovaries implanted into them lived forty percent longer than the ones who kept their original ovaries, and sixty percent longer than the ones with no ovaries at all!

 

Y: Yalza! Sixty percent longer！？

 

D: Some chemical message is being sent from the ovaries to the rest of the body, telling it what stage of life it is in. By renewing their ovaries, the scientists were essentially able to set the clock back.

 

Y: So who wants mice to live longer?

 

D: Mice are just test. If we could understand how the body tells itself to age, maybe we could make other species live longer…like people.

 

 

 

 

D: 我看未来派科幻电影的时候，发觉里面的人物年龄都是很正常的，就像我们普通人一样，活不了特别长。在这种电影里，你根本就不可能会看到一个活到一百多岁的人。我个人觉得这有问题。
 

Y: 有问题？你又有何凭证？
 

D: 因为科学一直以来都致力于延长人们寿命的研究。近日，又有了突破性的进展。
 

Y: 这样听来倒真的像是科幻小说了！
 

D: 这可是真的。比如说吧，加利佛利亚大学的James Carey和他的同事们进行了一项研究，他们发现老鼠的寿命和它的卵巢有很大关联。
 

Y: 卵巢？卵巢和寿命会有什么关系啊？
 

D: 研究人员准备了三组老鼠。在老鼠几星期大的时候，他们将一组老鼠的卵巢切除。结果表明，被切除卵巢的一组老鼠没有未被切除卵巢的一组老鼠长寿。另外还有一组老鼠被切除了卵巢，但后来又被植入了年轻的卵巢。被植入年轻卵巢的一组老鼠比未被切除卵巢的一组老鼠寿命长40%，比被切除卵巢的一组老鼠寿命整整长了60%！
 

Y: 啊！60%！？
 

D: 卵巢可以将某些化学信息传送至身体的其他部分，生命究竟处于哪个阶段。科学家们再将卵巢植入老鼠体内，可以说是让时光倒流了。
 

Y: 谁那么无聊，想要让老鼠长寿啊？
 

D: 老鼠只是试验品。如果说我们能搞清楚老鼠的身体是怎样来发送有关年龄的信息的，有可能，我们就能使其他物种长寿些……比如，人类！