Of Appointing Judges?
Maria Branyas Morera is world’s oldest person at 115; debate on human lifespan limit reignited; Comte de Buffon theorised 100-year limit; Jeanne Calment reached 120; UN estimates 593,000 centenarians; supercentenarians increasing; rate of death slows after 85; no definitive answer yet.
Of Appointing Supreme Court Judges?
The debate on the maximum human lifespan has divided scientists for centuries. French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, known as the Comte de Buffon, theorised that a person who had not suffered an accident or illness could live for a theoretical maximum of 100 years. This was pushed back by a couple of decades when Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment celebrated her 120th birthday in 1995 and subsequently died two years later at the age of 122.
The United Nations estimated 593,000 people aged 100 years or older in 2021, up from 353,000 a decade earlier. This number is expected to more than double over the next decade. There has also been an increase in the number of supercentenarians — people aged 110 or over — since the 1980s.
Geneticists writing in the journal Nature in 2016 said there had been no improvement in human longevity since the late 1990s. Analysing global demographic data, they found that the maximum human lifespan had declined since Calment’s death. They concluded that human lifespan has a natural limit and that longevity is limited to around 115 years. This hypothesis is partly disputed by many demographers.
Research in 2018 found that while the rate of death increases with age, it slows down after 85. Around the age of 107, the rate of death peaks at 50-60 percent every year. This theory suggests that if there are 12 people aged 110, six will survive to be 111, three to be 112, and so on.
Experts are still cautious about choosing a side on the debate. France Mesle, a demographer at the French institute of demographic studies (INED), said that “even if they are increasing, the number of people reaching very old age is still quite small and we still cannot make any significant statistical estimate”. It might be a matter of waiting for rising numbers of supercentenarians to test the “volume effect” and of course some future medical breakthroughs could soon upend everything we know about death.
The debate on the maximum human lifespan has been ongoing for centuries. Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment celebrated her 120th birthday in 1995 and died two years later at the age of 122, pushing the theoretical maximum lifespan back by a couple of decades. The number of centenarians and supercentenarians has been increasing but experts are still cautious about choosing a side on the debate. Research in 2018 found that while the rate of death increases with age, it slows down after 85. It might be a matter of waiting for rising numbers of supercentenarians to test the “volume effect” and of course some future medical breakthroughs could soon upend everything we know about death.
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