Dinosaurs and the Lifespan Limit: The Longevity Bottleneck Hypothesis

A Birmingham microbiologist proposes the longevity bottleneck hypothesis: during the age of dinosaurs, early mammals faced intense predation pressure and were selected for rapid reproduction, which may have led to the loss or inactivation of genes linked to long life. This long evolutionary pressure could help explain why mammals, including humans, age more quickly and have limited regenerative abilities compared with some other species.