I will look at my students in a whole different light after reading this article of how older mice receiving the blood from younger mice had improved learning and memory. The change from an academic to a vampiric interest in my students is due to these surprising findings in the effect of younger blood on brain cells. As the Guardian reports below, the late Kim Jong-il reportedly injected himself with blood from healthy young virgins in a bid to slow the aging process.
Saul Villeda of Stanford University says that the research does show promise in slowing the aging process as well as combating such conditions as Alzheimer’s. The researchers connected the circulatory systems of an old and young mouse in a process called heterochronic parabiosis.
He found an amazing 20% increase in connections between brain cells.
This use of rodents is not unknown to one other set of “clinical researchers”:
In an unrelated note, I will be calling all of my torts students to my house for an evening bite. Below is one recent evening session to discuss the elements of battery:
Source: Guardian
I think lance Armstrong was doing this…..
LOL Professor, the visual aids were excellent.
P Smith, Those college kids have to pay off their college loans some way.
(But yea, my head kind of went to the same place when I first read the article; good comment.)
The next question, seriously, is what component(s) in the transferred blood result in rejuvenation.
This year’s Nobel prize in medicine concerns taking fully differentiated cells and causing them to revert to pluripotentiary stem cells; and then guiding them to production of cells of the desired type to repair organs, etc.
Alzheiners is one they are aiming at reportedly.
What will be the next brain patch they develop?
In-fact I heard that certain Supreme Court members just back from travel to a certain country is already consuming young blood: Me wonder if it’s to stave off Alzheimer’s!
But Kim Jong Il is dead, right?
I would like to see the youngster’s SAT scores before I tie off a vein.
So what are the ramifications of this? Is blood transfusion going to become like the organ transplants?
The rich view the poor in third world countries as a “resource” for organs, not as human beings with lives. The poor are being fooled into selling organs and dying sooner so that the wealthy can live longer. In China, innocent people and political prisoners are murdered on spec for transplant tourists, while in India poor children have been kidnapped off the street and murdered by at least one “doctor” who sold their organs for profit.
No doubt the same could happen with blood, the rich trying to improve their own lives at the expense of the poor and desperate who sell their blood or the blood gets taken by force, possibly dying because of it. Forget Kim Jong-Il, think Elizabeth Báthory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Báthory
The poor exist for the benefit of their own lives, not the lives of the rich.
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Frankly, you’re talking about a guy that imported McDonald’s food to gorge himself on. So dead at 70 is pretty good!
The should have tried hooking the mice up to Lance Armstrong
Professor,
This article will get the “attention” of your students for sure!!
Reminds me that “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is not something normal folks should say to a sadomasochist.
Don’t let blood beguile you. When Eve, and Adam fell blood was obtained, but death came with it.
A variation of Humans vs. Zombies should work nicely on campus.
And how did that work out of ‘ol Il? Dead at 70 I believe.
I’d consider taking the blood of budding young conservatives…. but I worry that their blood might depleat the brain cells I still posess…
Well, I was considering having children simply for emergency organ donation, but this sealed the deal.