A link has been established between aging and cell division by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, California. Earlier tests had shown that cells growing in culture medium stopped dividing after a certain number of divisions. Research has shown the presence of an unusual form of enzyme -betagalactosidase -in senescent skin cells. The enzyme, which is a good senescent cell marker, was found to increase in amount with the age of the person the cell came from (New Scientist,Vol 148, No 1998).