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Recently there has been a bit of clamour about the world’s most ancient creature: a shrimp (Triops cancriformis) found in Scotland. However this is perhaps a bit misguided as its quite frankly impossible for this population to be identical or even similar to those that existed 300 million years ago. Whilst it may still be referred to as the same species it is in name only. In 300 million years there is more than enough time for genetic drift to create genetic incompatibilites between the genomes of the (somewhat hypothetical) populations.

Likewise another article that caught my eye a couple of months ago claimed that scientists could now predict whether an individual was likely to live beyond 100 or not using a 150 loci (link).  The claim is backed up by an impressive dataset with over 1000 participants.  Its certainly something that will catch the public’s eye and if independently replicated may have implications if life insurance companies are allowed to use genetic testing.  I’m not sure if this is a real possibility in the near future as its not really my area, hopefully it isn’t.

However our environment still has massive implications for our longevity and whilst these 150 or so genes may increase the likelihood of living a longer life it doesn’t guarantee that an individual will definitely live to 100.  The accuracy rate of the study was only 77% which whilst being impressive still leaves a significant environmental component.  The genes involved are thought to be linked to the susceptibility (or lack thereof) of conditions involved in aging unsurprisingly with hypertension and dementia specifically mentioned.  But public be warned there is still the possibility of the accuracy rate coming down as the size of some of these loci are much larger than previous studies on age related traits such as cancer and diabetes.

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