While the average human lifespan has increased markedly over the past one hundred years, the ceiling has hardly been reached. An interesting contest, The Methuselah Mouse Prize -- presumably named after the biblical character who was said to have lived 969 years -- seeks to "promote public interest and involvement in research on mammalian life extension and encourage more such research on mice and other higher animals." Basically, research teams compete to prolong the life of a mouse, _Mus musculus_. The prize money, which comes from donations, currently sits at over $30,000. The contest is actually broken into two sub-prizes. The Postponement Prize honors the oldest-ever mouse, and the Reversal Prize honors the best "late-onset" intervention. The site has links which list the donors for the prize as well as the press that has been given to it.