=+5.44 ● The paper “Accelerated Telomere Shortening in Response to Life Stress” (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [2004]: 17312–17315) described a study that examined whether stress accelerates aging at a cellular level. The accompanying data on a measure of perceived stress (x) and telomere length (y) were read from a scatterplot that appeared in the paper. Telomere length is a measure of cell longevity.

Perceived Telomere Perceived Telomere Stress Length Stress Length 5 1.25 20 1.22 6 1.32 20 1.3 6 1.5 20 1.32 7 1.35 21 1.24 10 1.3 21 1.26 11 1 21 1.3 12 1.18 22 1.18 13 1.1 22 1.22 14 1.08 22 1.24 14 1.3 23 1.18 15 0.92 24 1.12 15 1.22 24 1.5 15 1.24 25 0.94 17 1.12 26 0.84 17 1.32 27 1.02 17 1.4 27 1.12 18 1.12 28 1.22 18 1.46 29 1.3 19 0.84 33 0.94