Connery-esque 80-year-old sought

It's very unlikely but somewhere there might be a man of 80 as monumentally handsome as Sir Sean Connery who will this year become an octogenarian.

If such a remarkable specimen lives then the Royal Society of Chemistry is eager to know.

The reward for the individual  whose looks are judged to be the equal of Sir Sean's will be a collection of his films, a designer track suit, £300 cash and a 20-year free subscription to Chemistry World magazine.

Also the Royal Society of Chemistry will arrange for the taking of a photograph echoing the one currently published in a glossy advert worldwide, in which Sir Sean lounges on a Bahamian jetty, a Louis Vuitton shoulder bag resting at his feet. 

(A quayside somewhere other than the Bahamas will be used for the photo session, unless the winner conveniently happens, like Sir Sean, to be a resident of the Bahamas).

The Royal Society of Chemistry is, during 2010, demonstrating the role of chemistry in improving our health, and one aspect of its focus is the importance of British scientific research and development, currently threatened by December's £600 million science funding cuts.

People are aware that science has made an enormous contribution to our health in the last two centuries but now that most people in the developed world live longer, the incidence of age-related conditions such as Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease is rapidly increasing.

It is essential that research continues into many conditions that are part of the nation's health horizon so the cuts in research funding are potentially damaging to the UK's ability to address diseases of all kinds, including those that afflict the oldest in the community. 

By launching this search for a man who looks as great as Connery does in his eightieth year, the RSC will also be pointing to the leap in the general fitness of men and women in late life today, thanks to scientific advances, in which chemical science has played a leading role.

Sean Connery has amassed a fortune, international adulation and admiration for his undimmed appeal in old-age. But there may be other equally imposing gentlemen who should share the octogenarian limelight this year along with the Greatest Living Scot who will hit 80 on 25 August.