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New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

(lafollette.wisc.edu)
215 points XzetaU8 | 2 comments | 30 Aug 25 16:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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simianparrot ◴[31 Aug 25 06:34 UTC] No.45080875[source]▶
The assumption that everything can be “fixed” is one I will never understand. It’s so obvious when studying organisms in all their shapes and forms how everything is a tradeoff, and nothing can be stable. The fundamental truth of the universe is change.

Senescence is a tradeoff to ward against cancer earlier in life. Eventually it will lead to cancer as a side effect, but optimally something else has failed before then. You can’t patch it out completely without breaking something else.

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1. djrj477dhsnv ◴[31 Aug 25 07:45 UTC] No.45081247[source]▶
Aren't there already large long-living animals like elephants that basically don't get cancer?
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2. simianparrot ◴[31 Aug 25 08:22 UTC] No.45081453[source]▶
Their average life expectancy is around 70 years, and yes, cancer is rarer in elephants, potentially due to the species having extra copies of the TP53 gene.

Cancer is also a result of many other factors of which humans are more exposed to than elephants typically are, environmental and pollution being a major one, and food ingredients being another. A life expectancy of 70 years for a human isn't that great; in 2024 in Europe it was 79 years for males and 84 years for women, and that's with all the contributing cancer risk factors in society as mentioned earlier.

A more interesting species might be immortal jellyfish, but the simplicity of the organism might be a contributing factor in why it works the way it does.