Methuselah’s Zoo

Long-lived animals, such as tortoises and whales, that may hold clues to human longevity.

Reporting recently on a workshop organized by the International Longevity Center, Shannon Proudfoot wrote:

Steven Austad, a professor in the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies at the University of Texas Health Science Center, said the secret to even longer and healthier human lives may lie in a few extraordinarily long-lived animals he’s dubbed “Methuselah’s zoo” after the biblical figure said to have lived almost 1,000 years.

With the mantra in mind that “nature is smarter than you are,” he says researchers may eventually be able to harness whatever it is that allows some tortoises to live 150 years, rockfish to last two centuries or bowhead whales to live more than 200 years.