More on a Methuselah Fly Prize

Fight Aging!

Do you want to live a longer life in good health? Simple practices can make some difference, such as exercise or calorie restriction. But over the long haul all that really matters is progress in medicine: building new classes of therapy to repair and reverse the known root causes of aging. The sooner these treatments arrive, the more lives will be saved. Find out how to help »

You might recall that I mentioned discussion of a Methuselah Fly prize at the start of the month. It turns out that people have a lot to say on the matter, so the Immortality Institute has devoted a section of their forum to longevity research prizes.

A fair amount of the technical discussion focuses on the suitability of flies for this particular form of research. Other subjects have been nominated - the idea being to find animals that are less costly to maintain and have shorter life spans than mice. Some aspects of fly physiology - such as diapause - have been held up as a bad thing in the context of a competition for the longest-lived flies. Small African fish were one suggestion when the discussion spilled over into usenet.

All in all, it looks like preparation for a new volunteer-run prize for aging science may get underway in the near future.