Revision History

A landmark Nature study analyzing over 11,000 transcriptomes across four mammalian species has identified conserved gene expression signatures tied to aging and mortality, including CDKN1A and LGALS3, validated against UK Biobank data. While the findings open new avenues for diagnostics and longevity interventions, the study's limited species range, observational design, and unresolved questions about longevity outliers like naked mole rats have drawn scrutiny from evolutionary biologists who question whether truly "universal" aging mechanisms exist.