Briefing Chat: Is DNA repair the secret to a long life? Whales and mole rats offer tantalizing hints

TL;DR - A Nature "Briefing Chat" news segment in which Nature staff discuss emerging animal research suggesting DNA repair capacity may underlie exceptional lifespan, plus evidence that COVID-19 can reawaken dormant viruses. It is science journalism rather than a primary paper, and contains no AI/ML content.

• Framed around comparative-biology animal studies — whales and naked mole rats — as models for why some species resist aging and cancer, with DNA repair proposed as a shared mechanism.
• Presented as "tantalizing hints," i.e. correlational/mechanistic leads rather than established causal proof of lifespan extension.
• Second segment covers COVID-19 as a trigger for reactivating latent/dormant viruses, a distinct infection-biology thread.
• Content provided is thin (abstract-level blurb only, doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02488-3); no datasets, effect sizes, or methods are given, so specifics above are inferred from the framing.