Earlier this month, an anonymous donor gave the Methuselah Mouse Prize a cool $1 million, bringing the total payout for the Methuselah Mouse Prize to more than $3 million.
The Methuselah Mouse Prize is modeled on the X Prize, which set a $10 million prize for the first private craft to make it into space. That prize was famously won by SpaceShipOne.
The Methuselah Mouse Prize is targeted at life extension technologies. There are two ongoing challenges. The first is for extending the life span of the Mus musculus species of mouse, and pays out on a sliding scale based on how many days the mouse in question lives beyond the current record life span.
The second challenge is for peer-reviewed research that extends the life of any species of mice through late onset intervention. According to the Methuselah Mouse Prize web site, “The intervention must have commenced at an age at least half of the eventual mean age at death of the longest-lived 10% of the control group.”
Source:
That’s a One with Six Zeros After It. Press Release, The Methuselah Mouse Prize, November 3, 2005.
SpaceShipOne: Soaring Toward Tomorrow . Space.Com, June 30, 2005.