‘Jonathan’ Is the Oldest Land Animal on Earth. He Could Hold the Secrets to Defying Death
Scientists sequenced Jonathan, a roughly 194-year-old Aldabra tortoise, to study extreme longevity.
A Science Advances study reports the first genome sequence of Jonathan, an Aldabra giant tortoise thought to be about 194 years old. Researchers compared cheek swabs with other tortoises and found variants in DNA repair, insulin regulation, mitochondrial function, telomeres, and autophagy, plus an unusually low-entropy mitochondrial methylome. The work is longevity biology, not cybersecurity or AI.
2