The Atlantic

Human Lives Might Be Long Enough Already

Humanity has added three decades to people’s life spans in the past 150 years. Science is only beginning to catch up.
Source: Xinzheng / Getty

Updated on June 26 at 12:06 p.m. ET.

In the mid-19th century, people in the developed world entered into a Faustian bargain with the aging process. In exchange for life expectancies gaining an additional 30 years in the space of only a few generations, billions of people had to find out what it was like to be elderly.

In 2019, more people than ever before get to see their grandkids grow

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