It would seem that the well-studied lobster has surprised scientists for a long time. It turned out that he does not age at all. Lobsters do not lose appetite and reproductive ability, they are constantly active, full of energy.
They can grow to gigantic sizes, like, for example, a specimen weighing 20 kilograms that got into the Guinness Book of Records. And if they die, it is mainly for an external cause. They die from predators or fall on the human table. And, of course, they get sick.
What is the secret of this "eternal vigor"? Maybe these animals are producing some kind of Makropulos remedy? Scientists got to the bottom of it. Nature has endowed lobsters with the ability to restore telomeres, which are associated, in particular, with the aging process.
Telomeres are located at the ends of chromosomes and protect them, and therefore the entire body, from wear and tear. For the discovery of this mechanism in 2009, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
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Alas, telomeres themselves are not eternal; their length shrinks with each cell division. Gradually they become too short to protect the chromosomes and, for example, in human cells after about 50 divisions, signs of aging appear. This is the so-called Hayflick limit.
True, nature has a way to preserve telomeres. We are talking about the miracle enzyme telomerase, which has an amazing ability to restore telomeres. So lobsters can constantly produce this enzyme. And then it is clear: it prevents telomeres from shrinking and provides lobsters with “eternal” life.
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Unfortunately, this path to immortality is useless for humans, as their cells that cross the Hayflick limit tend to become cancerous.
But the lobster is far from the only phenomenon that nature has created. Scientists pay special attention to an amazing mammal - the naked mole rat. He does not have cancer, and therefore lives much longer than his relatives, mice and rats.
And the excavator does not actually age. Pike and some sea fish do not age. The river pearl mussel has lived for more than 200 years, and it constantly grows and multiplies more and more with age. In the end, she dies, but not from old age and disease, but because the leg on which the shell stands cannot bear its weight. The shell falls and the clam dies of hunger.