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IT SEEMS like the ultimate elixir—a drug that extends your lifespan
while maintaining your youthful health and vigour. What’s more, in the US it’s
already approved for human use. There is just one snag: to reap the benefits,
you have to be a fruit fly.

Even so, the discovery promises to open up new leads in the quest to
understand longevity and ageing, says Tom Kirkwood, an expert on ageing at the
University of Newcastle upon Tyne. “What we are looking at here is a pretty
fundamental mechanism.”

This is the first time that simply feeding a drug to…

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