In today's edition of far-out science, researchers have found evidence that the wafting aroma of food has an effect on an organism's lifespan--and they've demonstrated that interfering with a fruit fly's sense of smell causes it to live a longer, healthier life. While there's no guarantee that the trick would work for humans, optimistic researchers
suggest that certain odors—or drugs that block us from sensing them—might one day help prevent disease and extend lives [ScienceNOW].
In the past decade, scientists have established a clear connection between extremely low-calorie diets and extended lifespans; studies have demonstrated that yeast, fruit flies, mice, and monkeys on these diets live longer than their peers. While the exact mechanism at work isn't yet clear, researchers suspect that a near-starvation diet causes an organism's metabolism to slow down, and triggers other changes that evolved to help organisms survive in times when food was scarce. Now scientists ...
