The September 2026 issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC includes an article on research into the slowing or prevention of aging, including possible techniques such as reprogramming the DNA of cells or growing organs for transplant from a patient's cloned tissues. Another approach, not mentioned in that article, involves studying naked mole rats to discover the secret of their unnaturally long lives. They can survive over ten times longer than typical rodents such as mice. If we could duplicate that feat, we'd live for 1000 years. Their chance of dying doesn't increase with age, and they enjoy phenomenal resistance to cancer. They don't suffer the diseases of age common to older humans. Here's an article about some of their biological anomalies:
Naked Mole Rats Don't Die of Old AgeThus, the secret to near-immortality is to become a naked mole rat -- not really a viable strategy.
Why have they evolved to live so much longer than other rodents? One possible explanation I've come across is their underground environment. They live almost entirely in their burrows and have very few predators. Genes for longevity would be wasted on mice likely to get eaten after a year or two, so they live fast and reproduce prolifically while they have the chance. Naked mole rats don't have that constraint.
Wikipedia goes into detail about their weird physiological traits and unusual lifestyle:
Naked Mole-RatAside from one other species of mole rat, they're the only eusocial mammals. That is, their society has a structure similar to those of bees, ants, and termites, with a single reproductive queen in each mole rat colony, mating with one to three breeding males and served by a horde of nonreproductive workers.
In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, the six-inch-tall, blue-skinned Nac Mac Feegle have a similar social structure. Each Feegle mound includes only one female, the kelda (queen), who's married to the chief of the clan. All the other males in the group are her sons or brothers-in-law. She bears potentially hundreds of sons and only one daughter, who eventually departs to become kelda of a different clan.
Incidentally, T. Kingfisher has announced she's working on a science-fiction novel called THE NAKED STARS, about a spaceship crewed by a hive of sapient naked mole rats. I can hardly wait to read that!
Margaret L. Carter
Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.
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