Pushing Out the Frontiers of Yeast Longevity
As noted at Biosingularity, researchers are greatly improving the degree to which they can extend the life spans of simple organisms: "Biologists have created baker's yeast capable of living to 800 in yeast years without apparent side effects. The basic but important discovery, achieved through a combination of dietary and genetic changes, brings science closer to controlling the survival and health of the unit of all living systems: the cell. ... Longo's group put baker's yeast on a calorie-restricted diet and knocked out two genes, RAS2 and SCH9, that promote aging in yeast and cancer in humans. ... We got a 10-fold life span extension that is, I think, the longest one that has ever been achieved in any organism." It is interesting to see methods that are additive - this result in and of itself is going to spur a great deal of combinatory experimentation in mice over the decade ahead, I'll wager.