[D-Roc]

Currently rewatching the epispde - and something just sparked.

The crackers that Hurley ate in the previous episode are possibly a clue as to why/how Alpert doesn't age.

In the scene where Sawyer asks Hurley where he got the crackers, Garcia (Hurley) seems to add weight to the fact that "They came from the box that Ben dug up from the ground..they're good!"

We have a couple of aspects here - another mention of a 'box', and the fact that they came from the 'ground'. In this episode we see Ben, Locke and Keamy go 'underground' into the Orchid Station. With the notion that the ground (properties) of the island helps preserve things, we may now have a tanglible link in the crackers somehow remaining fresh.

Perhaps the "natives" (Alpert and co) spend alot of time underground..i mean, where's this temple for instance..perhaps that is underground, or inside a mountain range containing pure properties?

The fly in the ointment is Ben's 4.12 remark to Hugo about the crackers being 15 years old - but perhaps he wasn't implying that they're gone off, rather that on principle one shouldn't indulge in something so old?

Of course there are other credible suggestions with the whole Alpert/age stuff (such as tim-travel etc), but worth mentioning this one now that we have another potential lead.

Oh and crackers = Jacob crackers..Hugo ate Jacob.