February 03, 2012 | News | In the Press

MaxNetAging in the Irish Times

The geriatrician Desmond O´Neill was invited to speak at the annual MaxNetAging Conference, which took place in mid-January in the Bavarian town of  Bad Kohlgrub. In the Irish Times he summed up his impressions of the meeting. He was impressed by the diversity of the research areas presented and the international nature of the conference. „The presentations covered a jaw-dropping amount of ground“, he writes.

Desmond O´Neill is a specialist physician in geriatrics and general medicine. He does  research and teaches at Trinity College in Dublin, with his main research interest being the so called „longevity dividend“, with the dividend being those things that we do better when getting on in age. He was surprised that at the conference he could learn something new from  an anthropologist, of all things: Said anthropologist talked about a study on an indigenous tribe, where it was the elderly hunters that returned with the biggest prey, and this despite not being able to run as fast and having less muscle power to shoot off an arrow than their younger hunter fellows. 

Read the full article on the website of the Irish Times.

About MaxNetAging

MaxNetAging is a virtual institute for the advancement of research on the causes, patterns, processes, and consequences of aging. It was founded by Paul B. Baltes, formerly co-director of the Max Planck Institute of Human Development and Education. Today, the network is led by MPIDR director James W. Vaupel.