'Jonathan' is the oldest land animal on Earth

(404media.co)

84 points | by gumby 7 hours ago

11 comments

  • scun 3 hours ago
    > The results revealed that Jonathan has “unique gene variants in most aging pathways” including DNA repair, insulin regulation, mitochondrial function, and “low entropy” methylation, reports the study.

    min-maxing longevity vs speed and charisma

    • luipugs 3 hours ago
      I dunno, I think he's pretty charismatic. He has all these researchers wanting to spend time with him.
      • PalmPilotProMax 1 minute ago
        Yeah, but is he more charismatic than Bryan Johnson?

        Wait till he gets his hands on turtle semen and peptides

      • scun 2 hours ago
        Sure but biologists will talk to anything. You know what happened to the other tortoises? Bored to death.
    • kspacewalk2 26 minutes ago
      The hare really ought to take notes
  • Ancalagon 3 hours ago
    He doesn't look a day over 90!
    • F3nd0 1 hour ago
      > He doesn't look a day over 90!

      He still has quite a ways to go to 1485715964481761497309522733620825737885569961284688766942216863704985393094065876545992131370884059645617234469978112000000000000000000000. :-)

  • throwaway2046 1 hour ago
  • totetsu 1 hour ago
    Why was the us space force involved?
    • gumby 1 hour ago
      He has a pm unusually large volume and has been around an unusually long time and they are the group responsible for anomalies in space-time.
  • calacatta 2 hours ago
    Every couple Summers

    Me and a couple hunters

    Like to row in from the Isle of

    Astonishing M*erf*ers

  • samudrijan 3 hours ago
    In the Leftovers people think living in Jarden is why they were left. Maybe St Helena is the new Jarden.
  • dyauspitr 3 hours ago
    Interesting so the oldest land animal hasn’t cracked 200 but stuff that lives in the sea can go for five or 600 years or more.
    • mrheosuper 1 hour ago
      Maybe leaving the water is a mistake...
      • bmitc 45 minutes ago
        Whales seemed to have figured that out.
    • epolanski 3 hours ago
      There's sharks out there that are much older than the United States.

      And sponges older than pyramids.

      • loloquwowndueo 2 hours ago
        Older than the United States hahaha.

        Remember the saying : in the US, 100 years is a long time; in Europe, 100km is a long distance.

        • tick_tock_tick 58 minutes ago
          Isn't the USA older then pretty much every country in Europe? Maybe the UK could be considered older depending on how you count it and San Marino is there but all the other major ones like Germany, Italy, France, Spain, etc aren't even 100.
          • Scandiravian 32 minutes ago
            How in the world can you claim that France is not even 100? The German empire was established in 1857, which is definitely more than 100 years ago; it's also not unreasonable to say that the HRE could be equated to the German state, that Spain is the continuation of Castille, and that the Roman empire can be considered the direct precursor to Italy

            There's a cultural through line for all these countries, often stretching back thousands of years, which means that they reach further back than the definition of the modern state

          • bmitc 43 minutes ago
            It's interesting how arrogant Europeans can be towards the U.S. when they themselves seeded the U.S.!
          • bdangubic 42 minutes ago
            My Dad has a vacuum cleaner that is older than USA
        • autoexec 1 hour ago
          It's still pretty long in the US. Over an hour by car, and even for people who bicycle regularly riding a century is no joke.
          • rootusrootus 1 hour ago
            By that same sort of metric, 100 years is a long time in Europe, too. Not too many people live that long.
        • rootusrootus 1 hour ago
          How pedantic can we be? There are a number of countries in Europe younger than the United States...
  • antonvs 2 hours ago
    > Stephen Clark, an aging researcher

    Shouldn’t they find a younger researcher?

  • repeekad 3 hours ago
    > the samples were delivered from Saint Helena to Florida by the U.S. Space Force.

    ...why space force?

    • sublinear 3 hours ago
      It's a remote area and USSF has operations in nearby Ascension Island.
    • fnordpiglet 2 hours ago
      Because Trump, Musk, et al are hoping to live forever but their lifestyle is not very forgiving - hence all haste.
      • kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 1 hour ago
        Y'all see Trump and Elon in everything.
        • Mistletoe 38 minutes ago
          Well considering the cringe Space Force was created by them…
  • verdverm 2 hours ago
    he's so old, he's completely lost the hare /j
  • pil0u 3 hours ago
    Can't we just appreciate that exceptionality as it is?

    Somehow, I wish we would leave that creature alone. For once.

    • fnordpiglet 2 hours ago
      They did opt to swab his mouth rather than draw blood to minimize his discomfort. That seems like a pretty reasonable compromise for the value of learning and science
    • KylerAce 2 hours ago
      Because a spit swab is so invasive?