People were saying that one simple mutation could not lead to greatly extended
life span because if it were that easy evolution would have already have done it.
However I note that besides extending both the average and maximum life span by
about 50% the INDY (I'm Not Dead Yet) gene also produces a metabolism that is
slightly less efficient in converting food into calories. In the wild where food is in
short supply and something will probably eat you before you get very old anyway
it would probably be a disadvantage to have this mutation and might explain why it
never caught on.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:37 MDT