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Here's today's feel-good story:
A new study has busted the myth that each human year is seven for dogs.
For a long time, the belief was that dogs age seven times faster than humans and that a one-year-old dog is like a child that is seven years old.
Scientists are studying the genomes of 10,000 dogs in a study titled the Dog Aging Project.
“This is a very large, ambitious, wildly interdisciplinary project that has the potential to be a powerful resource for the broader scientific community," said Princeton University Professor Joshua Akey. “Personally, I find this project exciting because I think it will improve dog, and ultimately, human health."
“We are sequencing the genomes of 10,000 dogs. This will be one of the largest genetics data sets ever produced for dogs, and it will be a powerful resource not only to understand the role of genetics in aging, but also to answer more fundamental questions about the evolutionary history and domestication of dogs."
“One part of the project that I am super excited about is a ‘super-centenarian’ study, comparing the DNA of exceptionally long-lived dogs to dogs that live to the average age for their breed.”