Klotho Revisited
MSNBC has one of the better popular articles on the latest study of the Klotho gene in mice. Those of you with longer memories may recall that Klotho was first associated with longevity and the aging process - in both humans and mice - a few years ago. Now scientists have established that overexpression of Klotho in mice extends life span by a good 20-30%. "You have lots of ways to shorten the life of an animal, but it's hard to get an animal to live longer. You can kick a radio to make it not work so well, but it's hard to make it work better. It's quite a wonderful discovery." A curmudgeonly caution: this, like calorie restriction research, is basically a way of tuning our complex metabolic machinery for better performance over time. It's not anti-aging medicine to the level of SENS or similar proposals.