*Sharks Are Getting Older and We Don't Know Why*

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There is a shark in the Arctic Ocean right now that was alive before your country existed.

Before your language sounded the way it sounds. Before the oldest building in your city was built. Before anyone you've ever read about in a history book was even born.

It was there. Swimming. Slowly. Unbothered.

And it's still there now.

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Meet the Greenland shark — the oldest living animal with a backbone on the entire planet. Five hundred years old. Maybe more. A creature so ancient, so quietly extraordinary, that scientists had to invent new ways just to measure how long it had been alive. Our usual tools didn't go back far enough.

It doesn't mov ...