Providing biological theories to explain Gollum’s extension of life
Keywords:
Book, Biology, Genetics, The Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit, GollumAbstract
Gollum is a hobbit that is featured in The Lord of The Rings, where his story his primarily focused on his possessive love of the One Ring. The power of the ring causes an unusual extension of life and in Gollum’s case caused him to live to around 500 years old. However, how did the biology of Gollum change for him to be able to live this long? Explanations surrounding telomere length, protein translation and lifestyle are included in this article to try to explain this question.
References
Tolkien, J.R.R. (1954) The Lord of the Rings, Harper Collins.
Tolkien, J.R.R. (1937) The Hobbit. George Allen & Unwin (UK)
Fraser, S. (2021) The Complete Timeline of Smeagol’s Transformation to Gollum. Ranker. Imahe cutesy of New Line Cinema. Available at: https://www.ranker.com/list/lotr-smeagol-gollum-timeline/shane-fraser [Accessed: 8th February 2024]
Tolkien, J.R.R. (1954) The Lord of the Rings, Harper Collins, Prologue: Concerning Hobbits
Hansen, M., Taubert, S., Crawford, D., Libina, N., Lee, S.J., & Kenyon, C. (2007) Lifespan extension by conditions that inhibit translation in Caenorhabditis elegans, Aging Cell, Vol. 6 (1), pp 95-110. DOI: 10.1111/j.1474-9726.2006.00267.x [Accessed: 25th February 2024]
Wu, J.J., Liu, J. Chen, E.B., Wang, J.J., Cao, L., Narayan, N., Fergusson, M.M., Rovira, I.I., Allen, M., Springer, D.A., Lago, C.U., Zhang, S., DuBois, W., Ward, T., deCabo, R., Gavrilova, O., Mock, B. & Finkel, T. (2013) Increased mammalian lifespan and a segmental and tissue-specific slowing of aging after genetic reduction of mTOR expression, Cell Reports, 4(5), pp. 913–920. DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2013.07.030.
United Nations Population Fund (2023) World Population Dashboard. Available at: https://www.unfpa.org/data/world-population-dashboard [Accessed: 25th February 2024]
Edlothiad (2020) Reply to: What is the life expectancy of a hobbit? (30th August 2020), Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange. Available at: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/236471/what-is-the-life-expectancy-of-ahobbit/238607 [Accessed: 23rd February 2024]
LOTR Project (2014) Middle-earth in Numbers. Lotrproject.com. Available at: http://lotrproject.com/statistics/ [Accessed: 25th February 2024]
Brown, T.A. (2017) Genomes 4, CRC Press LLC, Milton. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central.
Canela, A., Vera E., Klatt P., & Blasco M.A. (2007) High-throughput telomere length quantification byFISH and its application to human population studies, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 104 (13), pp 5300-5305. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0609367104
Orakpoghenor, O., Avazi, D.O., Markus, T.P. & Olaolu, O.S. (2019) Lymphocytes: A Brief Review. Sci J Immunol Immunother. 3(1): 004-008.
Cong, Y-S., Wright, W.E., & Shay, J.W., (2002) Human Telomerase and Its Regulation, Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, Vol. 66 (3), pp 407-425. DOI: 10.1128/MMBR.66.3.407-425.2002
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. All content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC-BY 4.0).
