Unless I missed something, the word “telomeres” doesn’t occur in the article or its source paper—rather, it discusses the rate of DNA methylation.
IMO, the key passage in the paper is this:
However, any genetic regulation for a species may potentially be a secondary factor as there may be other environmental selective pressures. This may be the case with species which have lifespans post reproductive age and therefore, there may be non-genetic factors that may be more predictive of their maximum lifespan.
I suspect that the methylation rate is actually tracking the end of the reproductive stage of the lifecycle, rather than the length of the lifecycle as a whole.
Talonflame@lemmy.cafe 1 day ago
It’s saying 38 is basically the maximum lifespan of a human and the only reason we live past 38 is due to unnatural interventions ie medicines
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s saying 38 is the maximum lifespan predicted by their model—but it also says their model has an R^2 of 0.76, meaning their model only accounts for about 76% of the actual measured variation. And then they mention other factors that could account for the remaining 24% of the variation, including post-reproductive-age lifespan.