From: <levy@Oswego.EDU>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 22:42:54 -0400 (EDT)
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: sex and death
In-Reply-To: <199804220802.JAA19425@alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk>
Houston Chronicle 5-23-97
NY Times News Services
ENDLESS PURSUIT OF SEX SENDS MEN TO THEIR GRAVES BEFORE WOMEN
Although being female has never been easy, there has always been one clear
advantage : longer life. But now a British geneticist is claiming that
males, not females are programmed to live longer. It is the relentless
pursuit of sex that sends them to an early grave he says.
In almost every species where one sex lives longer, from worms to cats and
humans, females enjoy the longer life span. SWcientists have often assumed
that this is due to a superior "constitutional endowment" - females are
simply designed to live longer. But work with worms has persuaded David
Gems of University College in London that scientists may be wrong: Males
have the greater underlying longevity.
He reached this conclusion while studying the nematode worm
Caenorhabditis elegans.
- - -
-ROBERT P. LEVY- -
- - -
- - -
- Computer Science and Linguistics-
- Oswego State University -
- - -
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