As Dr. Bruce Williams is prone to joking, "Oh, oh! Sukie's thinking again!" Boulder of salt time since I am throwing out some speculations. The enclosed quotes are from a Sci News article which will be in in your library, or available now at <http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20061104/bob9.asp> for subscribers, and non-subscribers should be able to get it in a week. A possibly weird question arises: there are already "Star Gene" (not the adrenal steroid work StAR Gene) studies derived first from fox domestication which show a suite of characteristics that rapidly arise with domestication: neotany, neural crest genetic variant types of markings, gentle behavior, reduced tendency to startle, etc. It has been postulated that the basic mutation(s) for domestication involve reduced amounts of more slowly generated epinephrin. (So, already, domestication may involve adrenal changes, and since some neural crest variations increase malignancies perhaps an increased vulnerability on that score ultimately, perhaps even an increased vulnerability to mutation of involved genetic loci). (BTW, there are also indications that humans have perhaps been domesticating themselves.) <http://www.floridalupine.org/publications/PDF/trut-fox-study.pdf> <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/health/25rats.html?=_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin> <http://ferrethealth.org/archive/SG17988> <http://www.floridalupine.org/publications/PDF/trut-fox-study.pdf> <http://reactor-core.org/taming-foxes.html> <http://7e.devbio.com/article.php?id=223> HERE IS THE FURTHER QUESTION: Is it also possible that the neotany that arises with domestication CHANGES THE ***RATE*** OF AGING compared with wild relatives? If so, could an increased rate of malignancies beyond those which can be associated with some neural crest variations be a side effect in that way of domestication itself? Now remember that these are not wild mice modified for youthful characteristics (neotany), but instead are domestic mice modified to have great reductions in the effects of aging: >Dorian Gray, the everlasting dandy of Oscar Wilde's novel, halted >aging. Rather than his body growing old, his portrait suffered the >insults of time. In recent years, biologists have created real-life >Dorian Grays: mice that don't show certain signs of age. But in both >the story and the lab, there were trade-offs. By remaining young, the >fictional Dorian Gray became self-destructive. In the scientific >plotline, the specially bred mice develop cancer and die young. ... >Scientists create such mice by inserting mutations in one of two >important tumor-suppressing genes that mice and people share. The >result has revealed a deep link between cancer and aging. Cancer >depends on over-enthusiastic cell replication, whereas replication >typically dwindles during aging. In a sense, according to the new >findings, growing old is the flip side of fending off cancer. > >"Aging itself may be part of the body's anticancer machinery," says >Viktor Janzen, a hematologist-oncologist at the University of Tobingen >in Germany. ... >Sharpless and his team created two strains of mice for use in >several experiments. The strains differ in their production of >the protein p16, also called p16INK4a. The substance suppresses >replication of cancerous cells. ... >Scientists had previously noted that p16 becomes more abundant with age >in some types of mammalian tissue. The new experiments, reported in three >papers in the Sept. 28 Nature, establish that p16 contributes directly to >the age-related process called regenerative senescence, which gradually >erodes cells' capacity to replicate. > >Mammals and other long-lived organisms must continually replace cells in >their tissues as existing ones wear out. "Declining proliferation is a >cause of mammalian aging," says Sharpless. I can't recall ever encountering any studies comparing rates of aging between wild and domesticated animals, and am not entirely sure how it would be accurately measured, though the study mentioned may provide the start of being able to do so. -- Sukie (not a vet, and not speaking for any of the below in my private posts) Recommended health resources to help ferrets and the people who love them: Ferret Health List http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth FHL Archives http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ AFIP Ferret Pathology http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html Miamiferrets http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/ International Ferret Congress Critical References http://www.ferretcongress.org [Posted in FML 5417]