Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

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.jp. That's Y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.J-P. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacult.

This is Scientific American 60 Second Science. I'm Aline Ogenbrun.

How old is your four-legged best friend? Common Wisdom says that a dog ages seven years for every

human year. But Tina Wang, a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego, wanted a more

accurate assessment. Her quest started

five years ago when she rescued a dog from a shelter. I kind of just wanted to ask how old she was,

because I felt like they were giving me an age that was very sensible, but I wasn't sure if she

was actually that old. So that kind of started this whole project.

Wang worked in Trey Idaker's lab where they studied changing patterns of DNA methylation in humans.

Small chemical entities called methyl groups attached to stretches of DNA,

which affects what sequences are active.

As we age, some stretches of DNA get more methylated and others less.

The pattern is so consistent over the course of most people's lives that it can be used as an aging clock.

The same process happens in dogs, and published reports existed from other labs about methylation patterns in dogs changing over time.

So Wang compared the age-related patterns in 320 humans and 104 Labrador Retrievers.

We knew that DNA methylation can predict age in many mammals,

but we didn't know exactly how much of this was shared throughout the progression of life. And it was unclear if there was anything that was shared. And because of these similarities, we were able to identify a conserved

aging signature that allows you to estimate dog years from human years based on this molecular profile.

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