Slashdot Mirror
New Study Suggests There's a Limit To How Long People Can Live (go.com)
Life expectancies have risen in many countries around the world thanks to breakthroughs in medical treatment and sanitation in the last century. The maximum age of death has also increased. But as these numbers continue to rise, it raises the question as to how long can people live? ABC News reports: The record for the world's oldest person is 122 years and the odds of shattering that record are slim, according to an analysis published Wednesday in the journal Nature. In the new study, researchers [at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York] analyzed mortality data from a global database. They found that while there have been strides in reducing deaths among certain groups -- children, women during childbirth and the elderly -- the rate of improvement was slower for the very old, those over 100 years old. Next they examined how old centenarians were when they died. The record holder is Jeanne Calment, of France, who lived until 122 years old. Since her death in 1997, no one has broken her record. The researchers calculated the odds of someone reaching 125 years in a given year are less than 1 in 10,000. They think the human life span more likely maxes out at 115 years. Some aging specialists said the study doesn't take into account advances that have been made in extending the life span -- and health -- of certain laboratory animals including mice, worms and flies through genetic manipulation and other techniques. The goal is to eventually find treatments that might slow the aging process in humans and keep them healthier longer.
A similar study, performed with all available data in Portugal and Spain in 1490, would confirm zero percent chance of successful crossing of the Atlantic ocean to a western shore.
Religion itself is a product of human frailty inasmuch as, at the personal level, religion mostly acts as a salve to the reality of guaranteed mortality. It's not altogether surprising there are other ways in which humans are illogical in their responses to this reality of death.
In both cases, an illusion of control is maintained.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
The first time I read that, I thought the same thing...oh, people are only allowed to live to 120 years old now. But read the chapter again carefully, the phrase means that the flood was coming in 120 years. The 120 years is how long Noah had to build the ark.
Either that, or the whole thing was made up.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That's why I want to go peacefully and in my sleep like my grandfather, and not screaming and frightened like the other passengers in his car.
Noah was born pre-Flood. And if you follow the geneologies, they lifespans increasingly shorten with each successive generation; thus not an immediate effect but something that took a few generations to take in.
Also... the bible is not a trusted reference source. It was written by people who weren't there, repeatedly re-written by people with poor translation skills (not to mention political agendas to achieve). Each new interpretation of "The word of God" heralded as an unchanging, perfect holy text. Codswallop!
I prefer Ezekiel 23:20
There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch