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LIFE-HISTORY EVOLUTION

The mystery of life beyond menopause

The quantitative genetics of reproduction and lifespan in a Utah population from the 1800s reveal no support for any of the three most prominent hypotheses invoked for why women live so long past menopause.

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Fig. 1: A simplified version of the conceptual model developed by Moorad and Walling5 to examine the evolution of human post-reproductive lifespan.

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Correspondence to Alan A. Cohen.

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Cohen, A.A. The mystery of life beyond menopause. Nat Ecol Evol 1, 1604–1605 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0356-7

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