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Accidental Age
A team of scientists at Stanford have discovered that, at least in some organisms, aging is driven by genetics, not by "rust". If it's a gene getting turned on that causes us to grow old, it's possible to figure out a way to turn it off.
I didn't see anything in there about the shortening of the telomeres, which IIRC was a primary component of aging in humans (and probably all higher order mammals). Of course, since C. elegans has it's entire genome sequenced and all genes identified, it should be fairly easy to isolate the gene that produces elt3, knock it out of the genome, and see what happens to the nematodes. Do they live longer or does something else happen?
Posted by: ronaprhys on October 10, 2008 08:30 AM