Naked mole-rats age so slowly, resist cancer so well and survive oxygen loss so strangely that researchers now study them as one of nature’s best clues to human ageing.

The naked mole-rat is a small, hairless, more or less blind rodent that lives in colonies under the deserts of East Africa. It is about the size of a mouse, and a mouse lives around four years. The naked mole-rat lives more than thirty, with the oldest on record approaching forty. For its size, it […]