Comment on 'Naked mole-rat mortality rates defy Gompertzian laws by not increasing with age'

Ruby et al. recently analyzed historical lifespan data on more than 3200 naked mole-rats, collected over a total observation period of about 38 years (Ruby et al., 2018). They report that mortality hazards do not seem to increase across the full range of their so-far-observed lifespan, and conclude...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	eLife Vol. 8
Main Authors:	Dammann, Philip, Scherag, André, Zak, Nikolay, Szafranski, Karol, Holtze, Susanne, Begall, Sabine, Burda, Hynek, Kestler, Hans A, Hildebrandt, Thomas, Platzer, Matthias
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	England eLife Sciences Publications Ltd 09-07-2019 eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Subjects:	Age groups Aging Animals Bathyergidae Bias Biology Datasets Ecology Estimates Gompertz Life span Longevity Mammals Mole Rats Mortality naked mole-rat Scientific Correspondence United States > US Jena Germany Essen Germany Bathyergidae ecology naked mole-rat mammals longevity aging Gompertz
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Summary:	Ruby et al. recently analyzed historical lifespan data on more than 3200 naked mole-rats, collected over a total observation period of about 38 years (Ruby et al., 2018). They report that mortality hazards do not seem to increase across the full range of their so-far-observed lifespan, and conclude that this defiance of Gompertz's law 'uniquely identifies the naked mole-rat as a non-aging mammal'. Here, we explain why we believe this conclusion is premature.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-3 content type line 23 ObjectType-Commentary-1 These authors contributed equally to this work.
ISSN:	2050-084X 2050-084X
DOI:	10.7554/eLife.45415