Here's one more reason to be obsessed with reproduction. A new study with aging mice suggests that the reproductive system plays a role in determining how long animals live.
James Carey and his colleagues at the University of California, Davis transplanted ovaries from 2-month-old mice into mice whose ovaries had been removed a few weeks after birth. The procedure extended some of the animals' lives. It proved equivalent to enabling a 50-year-old woman to live to age 92 instead of 80, her current life expectancy, Carey explains.
"The gonads are communicating with the body to stay young for reproduction," he says.