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Why People Don't Live Past 114

kkleiner writes "Average life expectancy has nearly doubled in developed countries over the 20th century. But a puzzling part to the equation has emerged. While humans are in fact living longer lives on average, the oldest age that the oldest people reach seems to be stubbornly and oddly precisely cemented right at 114. What will it take for humans to live beyond this limit?"

19 of 916 comments (clear)

  1. Genesis 6:3 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.

    1. Re:Genesis 6:3 by AJH16 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just fast forward to Song of Solomon. It has plenty of tits for you.

      --
      AJ Henderson
    2. Re:Genesis 6:3 by LordLimecat · · Score: 4, Informative

      Could have sworn the protestant reformation had something to say about that practice.

    3. Re:Genesis 6:3 by stating_the_obvious · · Score: 5, Informative

      Length of life (in years) dropped from 120 years to 114 years when the Romans added August to the Calendar...

    4. Re:Genesis 6:3 by Dzimas · · Score: 4, Informative

      And Psalms 90:10 cheerfully pegs the number at 70: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away." Doesn't seem like a very reliable scientific text to me. ;)

    5. Re:Genesis 6:3 by sglewis100 · · Score: 5, Informative

      And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.

      Which has nothing to do with how long a human may live, but was a prophecy about the coming flood.

    6. Re:Genesis 6:3 by voidphoenix · · Score: 5, Informative

      January and February were added to the calendar. July and August were just renamed, from Quintilis and Sextilis.

  2. The oldest person lived to 122. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, I didn't read the article. It really doesn't matter. 114 is not some magic barrier.

    1. Re:The oldest person lived to 122. by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

      The question is if there's a "knee" in the curve around 114. Maybe, but I don't think we've even got enough data to say for sure.

      More like a crunch where it all really collapses. I have some mortality data from Norway here, "Dødssannsynlighet for alder x" = "Death probability at age x" in parts of 1000, "Begge kjønn" = "Both sexes". Already around 98 years it's up to over 30% per year but it doesn't continue the collapse, it stays in the 30-40% range up until 105 in this table and as I understood it up to 114. Of course with only 60-70% surviving each year the chance of living from 98 to 114 is 0.65^16 = 0.1%, but right now 114 looks very close to a cutoff. That perhaps now it's an additional cause of death, not just the sum of everything that's affected "younger" hundred and something year olds.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  3. Additional information. by olsmeister · · Score: 5, Informative

    This has been noticed before. Here is another article on it.

  4. Tell that to Jeanne Calment by characterZer0 · · Score: 5, Informative
    --
    Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
    1. Re:Tell that to Jeanne Calment by dredwerker · · Score: 4, Informative

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_person

      You would have a job doing that as she is dead. :)

      --
      On a long enough timeline. The survival rate for everyone drops to zero. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1996
  5. Mod parent up by tigre · · Score: 5, Informative

    I for one love the Bible, and I found this hilarious, not trollish.

  6. Matthew 6:4 by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some Christian denominations have become more sane about this. Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, don't "pass the hat". Instead, people discreetly put their donations in a slot in a box outside the auditorium so that only the Father needs to see (Matthew 6:4).

  7. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by AJH16 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ok, my bad, the word is yom, it can mean day or afternoon or age or daily or eternity or entire or lifetime or long or perpetually... the word doesn't translate well to a term we have in English, but in short, it roughly translates as "when you eat from the tree you will die". Also, even if you assume the 24 hour day is the correct translation, in a very real sense, Adam did die at that point even if it took time for him to physically die. The Bible clearly refers to both spiritual death and physical death and the spiritual death was at the time of eating from the tree.

    --
    AJ Henderson
  8. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by operagost · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm not sure why someone gave this a "Funny" mod. Methuselah dies in chapter 5, God's proclamation is in chapter 6, following the flood. He didn't even have to be "grandfathered" in, if you'll excuse the pun.

    --

    Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
  9. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by hoggoth · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is like arguing if Superman can beat Spiderman.
    Yeah, accepting that superheros are real and superpowers are real and the Marvel universe is real and the D.C. universe is real... ok Superman can beat Spiderman.

    --
    - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
  10. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by DC2088 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Are you joking with me? Genesis 3:22. ""Lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever ..." therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden." As for the "Not a good/evil thing", if you had absolutely NO moral faculties, would you know whether to trust glowy beard guy versus snake and sexy rib woman? Just because someone tells you something is wrong, if you have no sense of morality whatsoever, you'll take their word for it? Don't answer that, actually. I think I know the answer. :(

  11. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Informative

    Maybe this is a different interpretation, given my Jewish and not Christian upbringing, but I learned that after Adam and Eve ate the apple, they realized they were naked and clothed themselves. God came walking by (metaphorically speaking) and they hid. He asked where they were not because He didn't know, but because it was a test. Adam and Eve revealed themselves and God asked why they ate the fruit of the tree. Here, He was giving them a chance to repent their sins, but they chose to blame each other. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the snake. (Not sure it's recorded who the snake blamed.) Only after they chose not to repent (especially having now learned good from evil), did they get their punishments.

    Like I said, though, this might be different interpretations from different religious perspectives. Christianity is big on the "Fall of Man" in Eden leading up to Jesus sacrificing himself to absolve that sin. Judaism, meanwhile, is big on repenting as a means of absolving sins. (See: Yom Kippur when Jews fast and repent in order to have our sins from the past year forgiven.)

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.