{"id":178694,"date":"2023-12-19T21:25:35","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T03:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/growing-old-could-have-played-a-critical-role-in-our-evolution"},"modified":"2023-12-19T21:25:35","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T03:25:35","slug":"growing-old-could-have-played-a-critical-role-in-our-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/growing-old-could-have-played-a-critical-role-in-our-evolution","title":{"rendered":"Growing Old Could Have Played a Critical Role in Our Evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/growing-old-could-have-played-a-critical-role-in-our-evolution3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Growing old may come with more aches and pains attached, but new research suggests there\u2019s a bigger picture to look at: by reaching our dotage, we might actually be helping <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/a-chance-event-1-million-years-ago-changed-human-brains-forever\">the evolution of our species<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Once assumed to be an inevitable consequence of living in a rough-and-tumble world, aging is now considered something of a mystery. Some species <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/the-immortal-jellyfish-can-age-in-reverse-and-possibly-live-forever\">barely age at all<\/a>, for example. One of the big questions is whether aging is simply a by-product of biology, or something that comes with an evolutionary advantage.<\/p>\n<p>The new research is based on a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Computer_simulation\">computer model<\/a> developed by a team from the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research in Hungary which suggests old age can be positively selected for in the same way as other traits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Growing old may come with more aches and pains attached, but new research suggests there\u2019s a bigger picture to look at: by reaching our dotage, we might actually be helping the evolution of our species. Once assumed to be an inevitable consequence of living in a rough-and-tumble world, aging is now considered something of a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1523,269],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological","category-computing","category-life-extension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}