Photo: Courtesy of Science Insider

Jennifer Couzin-Frankel (July 8, 2010  Science Insider) interviews Paola Sebastiani and Thomas Perls about the "furor" raised by their "provocative" paper "Genetic Signatures of Exceptional Longevity in Humans," published in Science.  In a Newsweek article and in a number of blogposts in the internet, researchers criticized  the paper's statistical power and technical accuracy.  Though surprised by the focus of criticism -- "issues with the data,"  rather than  the innovative idea of "looking at patterns rather than individual variants,"  which  Sebastiani expected would "generate discussion" -- the authors are taking seriously the concerns that have been raised, and "re-checking" the paper's analysis.

It won't take months nor weeks, says Thomas Perls, but "rigorous science" takes time and people need to wait for the required "ultimate test of accuracy." Interestingly, the Longevity Study may become  a case study on the self-correcting process of science; as Sebastiani pointed out, "there are errors in every paper. This is part of the scientific debate -- from errors, sometimes you can come up with very good ideas."

More later, as they say!

• Authors of Controversial Longevity Study Discuss the Furor, Science
• Genetic Signatures of Exceptional Longevity in Humans, Science
• The Little Flaw in the Longevity-Gene Study That Could Be a Big Problem, Newsweek
• Longevity paper sparks debate, Nature
• New genetic test can predict your chances of living to 100, claim scientists, Guardian
• The inside workings of science: More on the genetic study of extreme longevity, 
• Genetic Finding May Provide a Test for Longevity, NYT
• Serious flaws revealed in "longevity genes" study, Scienceblog
• Calling GWAS Longevity Calls into Question, Genomeweb

• Paola Sebastiani and Thomas Perls discussed the study's findings in a live chat about the Longevity Study on Wednesday, July 7. Here