Re:What's the Longest Humans Can Live?
by imgabe on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @02:58PM
(#12646703)
Do they mean that the average life expectancy at birth will not exceed 115? Because the article opens by noting that the current record is 122, so obviously some individuals will exceed 115, seeing as several already have.
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Re:What's the Longest Humans Can Live?
by bharath28 on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @03:16PM
(#12646862)
That article was incredibly hard to read and poorly written. The message was so confusing, i didn't know what to make of it - i came away with the same conclusion as you did.
The paper seems to essentially say the peak will remain near 115, and the average will never exceed. Obviously, some people will live longer than 115 years, but we'll never expect to regular see our oldest exceed that.
Re:What's the Longest Humans Can Live?
by Shendare on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @05:05PM
(#12647876)
That article could not keep straight whether it was talking about average lifespans or maximum expected lifespans, or maybe average maximum expected lifespans?
The only claim it managed to get across to me was that we can expect the end of the lifespan bell curve to get steeper and steeper as average lifespans continue to increase from better longevity, while maximum lifespans (and the number of people who reach them) increase at a much slower rate.
Here's how I'd state my interpretation:
"Statistical analysis suggests that supercentenarians are becoming more common. However, even as their numbers increase overall, the number of people aged beyond 115 is negligible."
The abstract for the paper itself ( http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu... ), seems to only discuss the statistical existence of an aging limit, not the biological mechanism(s) causing it.