Health & Science

So, what are the chances of living forever?

AT the age of 122 years and 164 days, French woman Jeanne Calment (pictured), when she died in 1997, set a record for oldest human. at record still stands.

But we can expect that record will be broken by 2100, according to a report on Big ink.com

Scientists study the maximum human life span using a datadriven approach. One study, published in June 2021, models and combines two key components: how the risk of dying attens after age 110, and growth in the number of people to reach age 110 this century.

An analysis of these two factors suggests it’s nearly inevitable that someone will break Calment’s record during the 21st century, with an 89% chance that someone will live to at least 126, but only a 3% chance that someone will reach age 132.

Scientists are debating whether there is a xed limit to our human life span, says the report.

Some biologists say the data shows that ageing is not a disease that can be treated, but instead an inevitable process that cannot be fully stopped, whether through medical breakthroughs or other means. at there is a natural limit to life expectancy, implying that maximum ages will level o as well.

But others think there’s good evidence that life spans will continue to lengthen, or at least for a lucky few, suggesting there is some hope for extending life spans dramatically via medical interventions. Ultrawealthy tech titans like Tesla’s Elon Musk and Google co-founder Sergey Brin are investing heavily in such research.

Data on ‘super-centenarians’ or those who reach age 110, are limited and often of poor quality. Since these individuals died before 2020, they were

40 winks is not the best sleep

IN one of the rst studies to measure the cognitive bene ts — or lack thereof — of short naps, research from Michigan State University nds that naps do not restore cognitive function if you are not getting six to eight hours of uninterrupted, slow-wave sleep (SWS). (SWS) is the most restorative sleep phase. It is the deepest type of non-REM sleep. It is a time when your muscles, heart rate, and respiratory rate are at their most relaxed, and it is characterised by high-amplitude delta brain waves. SWS is associated with memory consolidation, and this is the phase of sleep in which dreams and sleepwalking can occur.

“SWS is the most important stage of sleep,” says Kimberly Fenn, an author of the study. “When someone goes without sleep for a period of time, even just during the day, they build up a need for sleep; in particular, they build up a need for SWS. When individuals go to sleep each night, they will soon enter into SWS and spend a substantial amount of time in this stage.” all born no later than 1910. Because of record-keeping limitations throughout the world at that time, only records from 13 countries could be included in the database. For that reason, our study is limited to individuals from those 13 countries.

Mortality rates generally increase as people age. For example, individuals are more likely to die at age 80 than age 20.

But this changes for those who make it to 110 years old. e best available data suggests that mortality rates for these ‘supercentenarians’,”while high, do not increase as they continue to age. In a sense, this means that supercentenarians stop ageing.

Instead, supercentenarians as a group have a steady but very high mortality rate of about 50% per year. is means that for every 1,000 individuals who have reached age 110, we expect approximately 500 of them will have died before their 111th birthday, and 250 more by age 112. Taken to its logical end point, this pattern suggests only 1 of the 1,000 would reach age 120, and only 1 in a million ‘supercentenarians’ would reach age 130.

Hey Mammy,what time are the kids due?

WITH 5,400 mammal species roam the planet, running the gamut in size and appearance — that astonishing diversity is also on display in how mammal mothers undergo pregnancy and birth, from the domestic dog bearing pups from di erent fathers in one litter to the swamp wallaby carrying babies in two separate wombs.

Intelligent, long-lived species often have lengthy pregnancies, which allows ample time for foetal development. e African elephant has the longest pregnancy, at a whopping 22 months.

“ e baby elephant is born very complete, and it can walk long distances,” says omas Hildebrandt, a veterinarian at Germany’s Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research.

Similarly, the ve species of rhinoceros are pregnant an average of 16 months, resulting in a fully developed calf. Some marine mammals, such as the bottlenose dolphin, carry their young for between 10 to 12 months, which means that calves can keep up with their mother from the get-go.

On the other end of the spectrum, the animal with the shortest known gestational period is the Virginia opossum. North America’s only marsupial can give birth to an average of eight to nine infants just 11 to 13 days after mating; each of these ‘pinkies’ — so called for their ngerlike appearance — are the size of a dime. ey make their way from the birth canal to the pouch to continue their development.

Animals with shorter gestation periods have multiple babies, like your typical house mouse, a breeding machine that’s pregnant for just 19 days — yielding between 12 to 20 babies every two months. Because “their environment is very dangerous and constantly changing,” Hildebrandt says, the glut increases the chances that some will make it to adulthood.

Domestic dogs and cats, as well as their wild counterparts, also bear multiple babies in a short period of time: A typical domestic dog gestation is 63 days, resulting in an average of ve to six pups.

Pups in a litter can have multiple fathers, a phenomenon called superfecundation. Because female dogs release more than one egg when they ovulate, and their cycle can last a week, they can mate with di erent males to fertilise as many eggs as possible, says Alexander Travis, a reproductive biologist at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. at’s why some dogs can have mixed-breed litters: A poodle, for instance, can give birth to a poodle-beagle mix and a poodle-retriever mix at the same time.

More than 130 mammal species, such as bears, seals, sea lions, and several marsupials, can delay a pregnancy until conditions are just right. at could mean favourable weather, an abundance of food, or after older, competing siblings have set o on their own.