Longer Life Expectancy

MSI PI Craig Packer (professor, Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior; Director, Lion Research Center) and colleagues from several other institutions recently published research showing that increased lifespans are a result of better environments - public health and nutrition - and not a slowing of the aging process. The researchers show that there are strong constraints that resist changing the natural rate of aging. The paper was published in the journal Nature Communications and can be read on the journal website: The Long Lives of Primates and the “Invariant Rate of Aging” Hypothesis.

A story about this research appears on the Office of the Vice President for Research Inquiry blog: A Better Environment, Not Slower Aging, Increases Life Expectancy.  

Professor Packer uses MSI resources to process, store, and identify thousands of pictures of animals in African parks and reserves in a citizen-science project called Snapshot Safari. A story about Snapshot Safari appeared on the MSI website in February 2018: New Citizen-Science Project, Snapshot Safari, Launches.