When it comes to health, some of our animal neighbors have extraordinary advantages. Ostriches, for example, are highly resistant to viruses, while sharks rarely develop cancer. And species like naked mole rats and bowhead whales live for astonishingly long periods of time, decades and centuries, respectively.

Researchers are now starting to understand why another species—the golden spiny mouse—seems to be unhindered by the negative health effects that typically accompany aging.

Reporting in Science Advances, researchers at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) have begun to uncover how this wild mouse, native to rocky deserts in the Middle East, resists physical, cognitive, and immunological decline while living six to seven times longer than other wild mice.