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Conventional wisdom has long been that one dog year was equal to seven human years. Now it appears that reality is not so simple.
[A] new equation developed to measure how a dog ages finds the family pup may be a lot older than we realize.
Researchers studying chemical changes to canine DNA found that dogs age very quickly during their first five years and much more slowly later on.
The findings, published recently in the journal Cell Systems, calculate that a 5-year-old dog would be pushing 60 in human years.
The new equation is far less intuitive than multiplying by seven: 16 ln(dog age in years) + 31 = human age in years, where "ln" is the natural logarithm function.
Using that equation:
- a 1-year-old dog is like a 31-year-old human;
- a 3-year-old dog is like a 49-year-old human;
- a 7-year-old dog is like a 62-year-old human.
By this time, dog aging has slowed down, so an 8-year-old dog is like a 64-year-old human.
Research was done by comparing methylation marks on dog and human DNA over time.
[M]ethylation marks, or as [Troy Ideker, senior author of the study] calls them 'wrinkles on the genome,' change in predictable ways as we and dogs age.
According Ideker
[The team was] able to quantify this at the molecular level and tell how fast someone is aging, and [...] align it across dogs and humans
The new formula will need additional adjustment for specific breeds as well, for example larger dogs such as Great Danes live shorter lives than smaller dogs.
Journal Reference:
Tina Wang, Jianzhu Ma, Andrew N. Hogan, et al. Quantitative Translation of Dog-to-Human Aging by Conserved Remodeling of the DNA Methylome, CellSystems (2020), doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2020.06.006
(Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday July 13 2020, @01:12AM (4 children)
Map the first 12-14 years for the humans to reach reproductive age to:
- Dogs: 1-2 year - depending on the breed.
- Cats: 1 year
After that, a good approximation is a proportional relation for the duration of the mature life.
The plot will show the same allure as their shifted ln function - quick increase up to the reproductive age, slow advance after. The advantage for this model is that you can plug the values that are knows for the specific species/breed without the expensive equipment to study methylation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by ze on Monday July 13 2020, @01:23AM (3 children)
This makes more sense to me. I mean, come on, someone still in, or just getting through, puberty is in their 30s? That scale sounds wack.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday July 13 2020, @01:41AM
May be a "gene-expression peak quality reproductive age" based on their findings (instead of the "onset of puberty").
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday July 13 2020, @07:30AM
That latter point makes me suspect this is possibly just evolution at work in the form of a mechanism that has evolved over time as a way to help keep the population in balance. Predators outbreeding their prey wouldn't work, so by delaying their ability to reproduce there is a measure of control over the numbers that avoids wholesale starvation due to lack of available prey. Their prey might have it a little quicker on the reporductive maturity front, but even then there's only so many creatures the available land would be able support so a similar natural tuning, albeit probably more subtle, seems likely to be present there too as a secondary control to the number of predators.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Opportunist on Monday July 13 2020, @08:48AM
Have you met people lately? It seems to me that more and more people act like teenagers that are well into their 30s.