Maximum life span is a measure of the maximum amount of time one or more members of a population have been observed to survive between birth and death. The term can also denote an estimate of the maximum amount of time that a member of a given species could survive between birth and death, provided circumstances that are optimal to that member's longevity.
Brown adipose tissue (BAT) or brown fat makes up the adipose organ together with white adipose tissue. Brown adipose tissue is found in almost all mammals.
The naked mole-rat, also known as the sand puppy, is a burrowing rodent native to the Horn of Africa and parts of Kenya, notably in Somali regions. It is closely related to the blesmols and is the only species in the genus Heterocephalus.
Biological immortality is a state in which the rate of mortality from senescence is stable or decreasing, thus decoupling it from chronological age. Various unicellular and multicellular species, including some vertebrates, achieve this state either throughout their existence or after living long enough. A biologically immortal living being can still die from means other than senescence, such as through injury, poison, disease, predation, lack of available resources, or changes to environment.
Spalax is a genus of rodent in the family Spalacidae, subfamily Spalacinae. It is one of two extant genera in the subfamily Spalacinae, alongside Nannospalax.
The blesmols, also known as mole-rats, or African mole-rats, are burrowing rodents of the family Bathyergidae. They represent a distinct evolution of a subterranean life among rodents much like the pocket gophers of North America, the tuco-tucos in South America, or the Spalacidae from Eurasia.
The rodent parvorder or infraorder Phiomorpha comprises several living and extinct families found wholly or largely in Africa. Along with Anomaluromorpha and perhaps the extinct Zegdoumyidae, it represents one of the few early colonizations of Africa by rodents.
The crested porcupine, also known as the African crested porcupine, is a species of rodent in the family Hystricidae native to Italy, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
Elizabeth Gould is an American neuroscientist and the Dorman T. Warren Professor of Psychology at Princeton University. She was an early investigator of adult neurogenesis in the hippocampus, a research area that continues to be controversial. In November 2002, Discover magazine listed her as one of the 50 most important women scientists.
Enquiry into the evolution of ageing, or aging, aims to explain why a detrimental process such as ageing would evolve, and why there is so much variability in the lifespans of organisms. The classical theories of evolution suggest that environmental factors, such as predation, accidents, disease, and/or starvation, ensure that most organisms living in natural settings will not live until old age, and so there will be very little pressure to conserve genetic changes that increase longevity. Natural selection will instead strongly favor genes which ensure early maturation and rapid reproduction, and the selection for genetic traits which promote molecular and cellular self-maintenance will decline with age for most organisms.
The Middle East blind mole-rat or Israel mole-rat is a species of rodent in the family Spalacidae.
The lesser blind mole-rat is a species of rodent in the family Spalacidae. It is found in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, North Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Turkey and Ukraine.
Paola S. Timiras, born Paola Silvestri, was an endocrinologist studying stress.
Rodents are mammals of the order Rodentia, which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are native to all major land masses except for New Zealand, Antarctica, and several oceanic islands, though they have subsequently been introduced to most of these land masses by human activity.
Negligible senescence is a term coined by biogerontologist Caleb Finch to denote organisms that do not exhibit evidence of biological aging (senescence), such as measurable reductions in their reproductive capability, measurable functional decline, or rising death rates with age. There are many species where scientists have seen no increase in mortality after maturity. This may mean that the lifespan of the organism is so long that researchers' subjects have not yet lived up to the time when a measure of the species' longevity can be made. Turtles, for example, were once thought to lack senescence, but more extensive observations have found evidence of decreasing fitness with age.
The disposable soma theory of aging states that organisms age due to an evolutionary trade-off between growth, reproduction, and DNA repair maintenance. Formulated by Thomas Kirkwood, the disposable soma theory explains that an organism only has a limited amount of resources that it can allocate to its various cellular processes. Therefore, a greater investment in growth and reproduction would result in reduced investment in DNA repair maintenance, leading to increased cellular damage, shortened telomeres, accumulation of mutations, compromised stem cells, and ultimately, senescence. Although many models, both animal and human, have appeared to support this theory, parts of it are still controversial. Specifically, while the evolutionary trade-off between growth and aging has been well established, the relationship between reproduction and aging is still without scientific consensus, and the cellular mechanisms largely undiscovered.
Vadim N. Gladyshev is a professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, who specializes in antioxidant biology. He is known for his characterization of the human selenoproteome. He is also known for his work on the effects of aging in humans. He has conducted studies on whether organisms can acquire cellular damage from their food; the role selenium plays as a micro-nutrient with significant health benefits; In 2013 he won the NIH Pioneer Award.
The mitochondrial theory of ageing has two varieties: free radical and non-free radical. The first is one of the variants of the free radical theory of ageing. It was formulated by J. Miquel and colleagues in 1980 and was developed in the works of Linnane and coworkers (1989). The second was proposed by A. N. Lobachev in 1978.
Vera Gorbunova is a biologist. As the Doris Johns Cherry Professor at the University of Rochester, Gorbunova identified high molecular weight hyaluronan as the key mediator of cancer resistance in the naked mole rat.
Longevity Quotient (LQ) is a simplified measure to enable normalized comparisons of various species' longevity. It shares some similarity with measures such as Intelligence Quotient. It originated with Steven N. Austad and Kathleen E Fischer's 1991 paper on mammalian aging.
