Forever young? Naked mole rats may know the secret

A new paper claims that there may be no such thing as a maximum life span for naked mole rats. As these burrowing, sausage-shaped rodents grow older, their risk of dying does not seem to increase, defying a mathematical equation called the Gompertz law that describes aging in all known mammalian species. The new finding comes from the lab of Rochelle Buffenstein at Google biotech spinoff Calico in San Francisco, California, who has studied the animals since 1980. Other researchers say it9s too early to say that naked mole rats don9t age, but they agree something very unusual happens in the animals and welcome the treasure trove of life history data revealed in the paper.