Aging is an important biological process that affects all creatures. For humans, age-related diseases and the question of why we age and die also have tremendous social and philosophical impact. We can therefore expect that models to study mechanisms of the aging process will always attract much interest. Until recently, the mutant model approach to study molecular mechanisms of aging has been ...

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In Namibia of southwestern Africa, the sparse grasslands that develop on deep sandy soils under rainfall between 50 and 100 mm per annum are punctuated by thousands of quasi-circular bare spots, usually surrounded by a ring of taller grass. The causes of these so-called "fairy circles" are unknown, although a number of hypotheses have been proposed. This paper provides a more complete descripti...

To lay the foundation for our model, we first describe existing conceptions of successful aging, underlying assumptions of development, and criteria for success. The model presented extends the discourse on this topic in three directions: (a) It frames the discussion of successful aging in the broader context of life course development; (b) it accounts for both normative and nonnormative (i.e.,...

In our daily lives, we often have to quickly estimate the emotions of our conspecifics in order to have successful social interactions. While this estimation process seems quite easy when we are ourselves in a neutral or equivalent emotional state, it has recently been shown that in case of incongruent emotional states between ourselves and the others, our judgments can be biased. This phenomen...

Several possible and potentially overlapping genetic mechanisms have been suggested to explain differences in life span between males and females. Two recent papers in BMC Evolutionary Biology on the effects of inbreeding provide additional insight into the genetic architecture underlying life span differences between genders in two different insects.

We have studied neutrophil intravascular life span in six patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH); four had normal neutrophil counts when studied and two were neutropenic. Five patients had enough circulating neutrophils to isolate for tests in vitro. Lysis of labeled neutrophils was greatly increased, compared to that of normal volunteers, when these neutrophils were incubated ...

BACKGROUND To compare life span of persons with and without ocular pseudoexfoliation syndrome (PES). METHODS The study is based on an epidemiological survey conducted in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway, in 1985-86. All inhabitants over 64 years of age (2109 individuals) were invited. Mortality information was obtained from The Norwegian Institute of Public Health in 2014, by which time 99% of th...

A new study reports that high rates of extrinsic mortality can lead to the evolution of a longer life - a pattern opposite to that expected under the classic predictions of the evolutionary theory of aging.

In butterflies, life span often increases only at the expense of fecundity. Prolonged life span, on the other hand, provides more opportunities for oviposition. Here, we studied the association between life span and summer dormancy in two closely related species of Palearctic Meadow Brown butterflies, the endemic Maniola nurag and the widespread M. jurtina, from two climatic provenances, a Medi...