Humans Could Live Up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

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May 26, 2021

Biology Humans Could Live Up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests A study counts blood cells and footsteps to predict a hard limit to our longevity By Emily Willingham

The Body Hormone Highs and Lows Follow a Seasonal Pattern A newly discovered internal body clock creates annual peaks and valleys By Mark Fischetti

Energy Deal Sets Stage for U.S. Floating Wind Turbine Boom Wind production in California waters could produce far more electricity than current East Coast projects By David Iaconangelo,Anne C. Mulkern,E&E News

Public Health How Dangerous Are New, Fast-Spreading Coronavirus Variants? Key questions remain about how quickly B.1.617 variants can spread, their potential to evade immunity and how they might affect the course of the pandemic By David Adam,Nature magazine

Natural Disasters The Longest Known Earthquake Lasted 32 Years The "slow slip" event preceded a devastating 1861 quake of at least magnitude 8.5 in Sumatra By Stephanie Pappas

Behavior & Society The Vaccine Rollout Is Changing How We Think about Prescription Meds A new survey reveals that, for the first time, many Americans see pharmaceutical companies as brand names, just like Nike or Amazon By Mark Westall

Biology The Dirty Secret behind Some of the World's Earliest Microscopes Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek made extraordinary observations of blood cells, sperm cells and bacteria with his microscopes. But it turns out the lens technology he used was quite ordinary. By Christopher Intagliata | 03:03

Climate A Better Way to Cool Ourselves A new technique doesn't deprive us of fresh air—and because it uses less energy, it's good for the climate as well By Forrest Meggers,Dorit Aviv,Adam Rysanek,Kian Wee Chen,Eric Teitelbaum

Policy & Ethics How COVID Changed Science What is unprecedented is not just the speed and focus with which the community responded to the pandemic but also the singular willingness of scientists all over the world to share new ideas and data immediately and transparently By William A. Haseltine

Neuroscience Injection of Light-Sensitive Proteins Restores Blind Man's Vision The first successful clinical test of optogenetics lets a person see for the first time in decades, with help from image-enhancing goggles By Sara Reardon,Nature Medicine

Space Decoded: What Are Black Holes? The mysteries packed inside these invisible space objects stretch our concepts of space and time By Michael Tabb,Andrea Gawrylewski,Jeffery DelViscio,Macarena Carrizosa

Cognition Our Memory Is Even Better Than Experts Thought In some respects, memory is poor. In others, it is astonishingly good By Nicole C. Rust

FROM THE STORE Mysteries of Life in the Universe How did life begin on Earth? Does it exist elsewhere? What would those life forms be like? These fundamental questions about the nature of life and our own cosmic significance are endlessly fascinating. In this eBook, we present several theories on the origin of life, some of its extreme and surprising forms and the ongoing search for signs – or sentience – on distant worlds.

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FROM THE ARCHIVE Humans May Have Already Reached Their Maximum Lifespan The odds of anybody in the world surviving to 125 in any given year is less than one in 10,000 By Linda Geddes,Nature magazine | October 2016

QUOTE OF THE DAY "The focus shouldn't be on living longer but on living healthier longer." S. Jay Olshansky, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago

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