What’s the meaning of the death?
Everyone, at least once, has wondered what it would be like to have more time. Living longer is one of the oldest human wishes, and today it is also a field of research.
A wish as old as we are
The thought comes to everyone sooner or later: what if life could simply go on? For most of history it stayed a thought. In the last century it became something we could measure.
In 1900 the average person on Earth could expect to live about 32 years. By 2023 that figure had more than doubled, to about 73.
Source: Our World in Data, from UN World Population Prospects 2024 and Riley 2005Living longer has always been a goal for many people. We have already stretched life a great deal, and the wish for more has not gone away. It has grown into a race.
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The race to stretch life
Science now describes aging as a set of processes inside our cells, and processes can be studied, measured and perhaps slowed. That idea is what turned a wish into laboratories and money.
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How far can it go?
The race dreams of no finish line. The data, so far, draw one.
An analysis of mortality data from more than 40 countries puts the average maximum human lifespan at about 115 years, with 122 as an outlier. In the longest-living populations, life expectancy at birth has risen by about 6.5 years since 1990, and the rate of increase has slowed considerably over the last three decades.
Source: Dong, Milholland, Vijg, Nature, 2016; Olshansky et al., Nature Aging, 2024The race promises a life without end. The numbers describe something else: a climb that is getting slower. This is where the real question begins.
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