Inverse - 💀 What is the maximum age for a human?

By Nick Lucchesi

If I live to be 130 years old — and based on the damage I did to my body in my twenties that seems highly unlikely — feel free to encourage me to take up rock climbing. 

I’m Nick Lucchesi, and this is Inverse Daily. 

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The maximum age for a human

Katilin Sullivan reports that while a new statistical analysis suggests that there is no limit to the human lifespan, the concept of infinite longevity is more complicated:

When Jeanne Calment died on August 4, 1997, she was 122 years and 165 days old. The supercentenarian — the name for the small group of people who live to be 110 — still holds the (still debated) record for the longest human life.

As the world’s human population swells, so do the odds that more people will live abnormally long lives. According to the Pew Research Center, the world’s centenarian population grew four-fold between 1990 and 2015. The number of people over 100 is expected to reach 3.7 million by 2050.

And while a new statistical analysis suggests that there is no limit to the human lifespan — and argues it’s theoretically possible a person could reach 130 years old — the concept of infinite longevity is more complicated than that.

Read the full story →

More on age:

• Early aging and more: 5 ways alcohol harms health
• Men feel better about aging than women, study shows
• A “mind-blowing” discovery: Age reversal in the brain may happen

Cosmic megastructures

Passant Rabie met with a team of researchers who are on the hunt for advanced alien civilizations in the Milky Way by searching for Dyson spheres:

Matías Suazo is looking for aliens in the Milky Way.

But the Ph.D. student at Uppsala University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy is not just searching for any alien life. He’s trying to find an alien civilization so advanced that they are able to harness the power of a star through a megastructure known as a Dyson sphere.

“That's the thing that my first project tried to answer, how likely is to find a Dyson sphere in the galaxy,” Suazo tells Inverse. “That’s complicated, but not impossible.”

Read the full story →

More on megastructures:

• Can aliens build a Dyson sphere around a black hole?
• How scientists will hunt for signs of alien civilizations
• Tabby's Star, aka the "Alien-Megastructures" star, is active again (2017)

Too many carrots

Sarah Wells writes about an enduring strange-but-true fact. Eating too many carrots or other beta-carotene containing foods really can turn your skin orange. Scientists explain what to look out for:

Our story begins with an iconic piece of television history: the day Arnold Perlstein turned orange.

It was October 18th, 1997 when The Magic Schoolbus episode “Goes Celluar” told wide-eyed millennial children that eating one too many orange snacks could make you look like a pumpkin. 

With a myriad of orange foods readily available at the grocery store — ranging from orange cheese puffs to baby carrots— this threat can seem ever-present. Perlstein, for his part, turns orange from a snack that doesn’t even exist: Sea Wheedies. 

If you thought turning orange from food was just a plot point in a fantastical children’s show, hold on to your seat. Scientists say it can actually happen. 

Read the full story →

More on food science:

• Ancient men and women in Italy had one key difference in their diets — study
• Are hot dogs bad for you? The truth behind the controversial report
• 7 best foods for improving immunity, backed by science

Elon Musk's big future: 8 bold predictions he's made

Elon Musk spoke with journalist Kara Swisher at the Code Conference on September 27, 2021, for a wide-ranging conversation. In typical style, Musk made a number of predictions about the future, many of them having to do with his own portfolio of technology companies:

See the predictions here →

More on Elon Musk:

• Subscribe to the Musk Reads newsletter
• Starlink update and more: 5 biggest takeaways from Elon Musk's Code chat
• Despite government concerns, Tesla has expanded Full Self-Driving

Meanwhile ...

• One of human biology’s biggest mysteries just had its breakthrough moment
  
• Apollo 17 rocks reveal a strange connection between the Moon and Earth
  
• How a South Korean dystopian drama became the most popular thing on Netflix
  
• 11 new games coming to Xbox Game Pass in October 2021
  
• 'Titane' review: The best sci-fi thriller of the year is here

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• Notable birthdays: Zach Galifianakis (52; pictured above), Michaela Coel (34), Randy Quaid (71), Jurnee Smollett-Bell (35), Jimmy Carter (97). (Source: AP.)

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