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"We found that the small relationship between intelligence and life span was almost all genetic," said study researcher Rosalind Arden, a research associate at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
...
Arden and her colleagues analyzed data from three long-running twin studies that all looked at sets of twins in which at least one twin had already died. One study looked at 377 pairs of male World War II-veteran twins from the United States. Another was a study of 246 pairs of twins from Sweden, and the third looked at 784 pairs of Danish twins.In general, the researchers found, the more intelligent twin of each pair lived longer, whether the twins were fraternal or identical. But there was a much larger difference in longevity between fraternal twins, pointing to genes as the major driver of the life-span differences.
Statistically, the researchers found, lifestyle choices could explain only 5 percent of the link between intelligence and life span. The rest was genetic.
Another interesting inference to draw from the identical twins in their study is that intelligence is not purely a question of genes. If one half of the pair can be more intelligent than the other, despite sharing identical genes, then that must come down to lifestyle choices, work, and will.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @03:18PM
All the know-it-alls around here ought to live to 150.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @03:22PM
"touch wood"
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @03:34PM
Our superior intelligent lifespans are downmodded by cheetos lung
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday August 14 2015, @04:56PM
It seems that all the people investing in research to directly target aging itself (rather than prolonging life through health) are funded by vain assholes who believe that they deserve to live forever just because they got rich being in the right place at the right time. May Satan strike them all dead as punishment for their vain-glory.
But even putting all that aside, that rule doesn't apply to the literary world, where people are too smart for their own good and know too much to justify that life is worth living. Ask Ernest Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack London(disputed), and a few others*.
* David Foster Wallace was left out because his writing sucks. Some dipshits actually think twits like Wallace and David Sedaris are funny. Funny as a kick in the pants.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @10:34PM
May Satan strike them all dead as punishment
Another (better?) curse:
May each of the obnoxious rich develop an ailment that is always fatal within 2 years because it currently has no cure.
All of the rich dude's wealth is immediately channeled into researching a cure.
If a cure is found before he dies, that's a win and his life will have counted for something.
If not and he dies first, that's a win too.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 16 2015, @12:48AM
All of "aging" = diseases. You don't die of old age, you die of organ failure, cancer, etc. Arthritis, loss of muscle mass, and age wrinkling are diseases/disorders. People age at different rates and are being bombarded by solar radiation at various rates (other factors include smoking and drinking). Think progeria [wikipedia.org] is natural? Because if you don't have progeria you have the "slow progeria".
The idea that aging is a good death and mortality is necessary is a social construct. Another set of elites would like to keep death in play and science at bay: religious elites. The Catholic Church et al. would wecome gay people into heaven any day rather than deal with biological immortality.
If humanity can't solve overpopulation, resource consumption, inequality, and environmental problems before or after curing aging, then tough shit, humanity "deserves" to destroy itself. If anti-aging therapies work, attempts to regulate them back into Pandora's box will be resisted by the vain-glory rich. They will just go to the Bahamas, China, or wherever to get their treatments. If rich celebrities become forever youthful with anti-aging cocktails and don't make them accessible to the commoner, that's when you break out the Molotov cocktails.
If you are skeptical that significant lifespan extension can be achieved by biological means, then the rich are funding a non-threat and doing good by voluntarily giving up their money and supporting the life sciences and "healthspan extension".
Finally, if you have concluded that life is not worth living, there are numerous cures available. Just ask Ernest Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack London, and many others.
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