You might look on this in the context of work on selective breeding of flies at older ages by Michael Rose: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/04/the-work

You might look on this in the context of work on selective breeding of flies at older ages by Michael Rose: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/04/the-work-of-michael-rose.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/04/the-work-of-micha... Variability of longevity in response to changing circumstances persists across generations for calorie restriction and age of childbirth in a range of laboratory species, so we should not be completely surprised to see some signs of that in human populations. The trick has always been to be able to peel that away from the confounding factors. (And you can argue over whether this paper manages to do that sufficiently well). From an evolutionary perspective it makes perfect sense for organisms to adjust for longevity or a fast burn in response to environmental changes. Species that are able to do this should be more successful, and this is an old, old set of machinery - as shown by the fact that is shared with flies, yeast, and so forth.