May your liver live on

Imagine a world where you could drink all you want and do no harm to your body (better known as the dreamland of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.). Hangovers may never be fully extinct, but distillers are making their products purer and purer all the time. Long term effects (liver damage, wet brain, red face, accidental marriage, whiskey-related impotence) are still a threat.

That is until now. Scientists have successfully stopped the aging process in a mouse’s liver (they know this by counting the rings). Do you know what this means? If we all get mouse liver transplants, we will never have to worry about sclerosis! Perhaps scientists can learn to stop the aging process in other organs, too. That way our hearts would not suffer from pumping so much alcohol through it and our lungs would not suffer from inhaling all that musting, smoky bar air.

We could drink on forever!