Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of I Heart Radio.

Hey Brain Stuff, Lauren Bulgalbaum here. They may not have their own cult classic movie like the infamous Great White Shark, but the equally

massive Greenland shark taxonomic name Somniosis microcephalus holds a pretty impressive record.

They're the longest living vertebrate known to science.

It's estimated they can live up to about 400 years, beating out the former record holder,

a species of bowhead whale that can live a little over 200 years.

A Greenland shark alive today could have been swimming in the deep during the 1600s.

Despite having been around for, well well what seems like forever.

The Greenland shark was only recently recognized as the longest living vertebrate

because scientists have been stumped for centuries

about how to determine their age.

Other sharks, and most other vertebrates, have hardened spines that form growth rings, and

similar to what occurs inside a tree, and those can be counted to determine how long any given sharp-tooth beast has been roaming the seas.

But the Greenland shark lacks hard tissue, making age measurement nearly impossible.

That is, until the recent intersection of Danish scientists' human cadavers and a dash of

murder mystery.

The story starts with one Jan Heinemire. of Murder

Hainamieur, an expert in radiocarbon dating at Aarhus University in Denmark.

He didn't specifically have the Greenland shark on his radar, but he proved that you really can tell

a lot about a person by their eyes. His team was studying the crystallines, which are a type of protein

that remains stable over time,

and the carbon 14 levels in the eyes of human cadavers.

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