We detest to be the single to break it to you , but you ca n’t calculate how old your dog is in human age by multiply their years by seven .
It ’s not really exonerated where the idea came from , but it ’s one you ’d probably heard quite a bit of by the time you run into the click age of 49 in your first few age of elementary school . It ’s also a complete myth , and does n’t really give a proficient equivalent weight of what level of life dogs and humans are at in relation to each other . For instance , a 1 - year - old dog is mostly fully grow , in a way that would be incredibly freaky for a 7 - year - old human kid . Dog life also vary wildly , with smaller wiener ( generally ) live longer than their large friend .
fortuitously , scientists have been difficult at work to produce a more exact measure , to assist you rule out whether your dog is a cheeky toddler or having a mid - life crisis . A squad has publish a pre - print paper onbioRxivthat attempts to come up with a better compare of dog and human ages by face at the DNA of both species .
As world and other animals historic period , methyl group are added to our DNA molecules , which can interchange the activity of a DNA segmentwithout deepen the sequence . This gives us a way of measuring historic period in humans , calledthe epigenetic clock . The squad , led by researchers from the University of California , looked at the epigenetic clock of wienerwurst and humans .
They look at the methylomes of 104 Labrador retrievers spanning a 16 - class age compass so as to install their " cross - species translator of physiologic aging milepost " .
" Comparison with human methylomes reveals a nonlinear relationship which transform dog to human years , aligns the timing of major physiologic milestones between the two species , and stretch out to mouse , " the team writes .
The result is the watch over equating which – while not quite as tricky as the seven year myth – is a much better transformation of ages between the two species :
human_age= 16ln(dog_age ) + 31
To get it you need to take your hound ’s age and find its raw logarithm ( use this estimator for easiness ) and multiply it by 16 , before adding 31 . Voila , a dog - to - human eld translator .
At the moment , of row , this is much more precise if you have a Labrador retriever , and the research worker observe that it works best for younger and former humans and dogs than it does for the middle chain of mountains . Nevertheless , it ’s much more accurate than the way you ’ve been teach so far .
[ H / T : ScienceAlert ]
