Word: worm
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...though it looks very different from most humans, the worm shares 40 percent of its genes with man, including almost its entire insulin pathway...
...their recent study, Ruvkun and his colleagues first used genetic tricks to deactivate genes that encode the proteins--known as receptors--that respond to insulin signaling in many worm tissues, creating a group of long-lived individuals...
Next, the researchers put the parts back in, but only in certain areas. In separate experiments, they turned insulin receptor genes back on in different worm tissues: first in the intestine but not the brain, then the brain but not the muscle...
...instead, in the worm--and, Ruvkun suggests, perhaps in people as well--aging seems to be regulated by the brain. Ruvkun says this makes sense, as the entire body ages at the same rate, which might not be possible if aging were not regulated centrally...
...same way myself, so I went back to San Vincente and its funfair. As night descended on Farclandia, I passed the evening watching the looks of disbelief on the faces of the cowboy drunks as they lurched out of the brothels to be nearly flattened by a giant grinning worm careening through the muddy streets...