Sex and lifespan linked in worms

A family of sugar-like molecules controls both A group of scientists who set out to study sex pheromones in a tiny worm found that the same family of pheromones also controls a stage in the worms' life cycle, the long-lived dauer larva. The findings, published in Nature online on July 23, represent the first time that reproduction and lifespan have been linked through so-called small molecules. Where scientists once focused on DNA and proteins as the major players in an organism's biology, they are now realizing that smaller, but more structurally diverse chemicals - simply called "small molecules" - are a significant part of a living thing's biology. "They're as important to biology as the genes are," says Frank Schroeder, last author of the paper and a scientist at the Boyce Thompson Institute. The researchers set out to... [read full story]