longevity (Page 2)

Or is it Grays face? – Got a baby face? Look younger than you really are? You are also going to LIVE longer than other people!

Researchers asked professionals to guess the ages of unidentical twins who were in their 70s, 80s or 90s by looking at their photos. The twin whom people thought was younger lived longer.

There’s a scientific reason for this: Pieces of DNA called telomeres, which control how well cells replicate, are also linked to how young a person looks. A telomere of shorter length is thought to mean a person will age more quickly and has been linked with diseases such as cancer. All the people who looked younger had longer telomeres.
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First scientists figured out how to turn worms into homosexuals. Now they’ve learned how to make them live almost forever. Can they do the same for us?

An antidepressant drug called mianserin extended the lifespan of nematode worms by almost a third. According to BBC News, “the drug seems to mimic the effects on the body of the only known animal long-life regime?virtual starvation.”

Researcher Linda Buck says, “We don’t have any explanation for this. All we can say is that if we give the drug to calorific-restricted animals, it doesn’t increase their lifespan any further.” So at least we won’t have to starve too!

Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
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