Could We Soon Find Out Exactly How Long We’ll Live? Scientists Accurately Work Out Lifespan of Worms by Analysing Their Cells

Photo Credit: Science Picture Co./CorbisFortune tellers may soon be out of the job.

Scientists have found a way to accurately predict lifespan in worms – a breakthrough that could one day be used to predict how long a human would live.

The secret, they claim, is in looking at the bursts of activity in mitochondria, a part of the cell which generates its energy.

The findings, reported by in Nature, suggest that an organism’s lifespan is largely predictable in early adulthood.

Meng-Qiu Dong at the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing, China, added proteins to nematode worms that light up when they detect damaging in their mitochondria.