WASHINGTON (AP) - Mutation of a gene whimsically named "I'm not dead
   yet" can double the life span of fruit flies, a laboratory discovery
   that researchers said may lead to drugs to help people live longer
   and, perhaps, even lose weight.

   Researchers at the University of Connecticut Health Center have 
   found that the life span of fruit flies was extended from an average
   of 37 days to 70 days when a gene was modified on a single
   chromosome. Some flies in the study lived 110 days. 

   The same long-life gene exists in humans, said Dr. Stephen
   L. Helfand, senior author of the study, and "offers a target for
   future drug therapies aimed at extending life." In human terms, a
   doubled life span would be about 150 years. Helfand said the gene
   mutation appears to work by restricting calorie absorption on a
   cellular level - in effect, putting the cells on a diet. This raises
   the possibility, he said, of one day developing a pill that would
   both extend life and control weight.

   Extract from "InfoBeat" - 15 December 2000
   
   Charles Arthur, Technology Editor 

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   "Perceptions" note:

   Interesting bits?

  1) Low caloric intake can lengthen life! - So all those vague and
  misty tales - maybe handed down verbally from remnants of pre-Flood
 (or pre-Ice Age) civilizations - of ascetics, wizards and adepts
 living to a great age could just be right!

  2) We share 80% of our genes with fruit-flies - check
  www.perceptions.couk.com/thefly.txt for weird kinships  betwen humans,
  flies and squids; and www.perceptions.couk.com/genes8.html#after for
  more lurid details.

  Also www.perceptions.couk.com/equal2.txt sums up recent findings which
  have surprised science.

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              FURTHER REFERENCES

  GO - "search perceptions" - in SEARCH-ENGINE


file-ID www.perceptions.couk.com/ageing.txt