Revisited: are the world’s oldest people really that old?

Science Weekly

The Guardian

Science

4.2 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 December 2024

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode from September, Madeleine Finlay speaks to Dr Saul Newman, an interdisciplinary researcher at University College London and the University of Oxford, who has recently won an Ig Nobel prize – given to scientific research that ‘first makes people laugh, and then makes them think’ – for his work showing that many claims of people living extraordinarily long lives come from places with short lifespans, no birth certificates, and where clerical errors and pension fraud abound. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Guardian.
0:07.4	Hi, Madeline here. The Science Weekly team are on a two-week break for the Christmas
0:13.2	holidays, so for the next four episodes, we're going to be bringing you some of our favourites
0:18.9	from 2024. This year, we've covered a lot on
0:23.4	ageing and if you haven't already heard it do go and check out our mini-series Secrets of Aging
0:29.8	but I think my favourite story has to be this one about some surprising research which won an
0:36.0	Nobel Award for science that makes you laugh and then think.
0:39.7	I hope you enjoy it too.
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1:05.8	To discover the best down coat for you, visit the guardian.com forward slash get down this winter. This message was
1:13.2	paid for by Uniclo. A glass of water. Some like it with ice. Some like it sparkling. But what we all
1:23.5	like is water that's clean. Every day Rachel walks for hours in Chinganggi, Malawi, to collect dirty water that could make her sick.
1:33.2	For just three pounds a month, WaterAid could help fund a water quality test to ensure water in Chinganggi is safe to drink.
1:41.0	Where there's clean water, there's a way.
1:43.9	Donate at wateraid.org.
1:50.9	It's a question humanity has been asking for millennia. In fact, we on Science Weekly
1:56.9	posed it just a few months ago in a special miniseries.
2:04.2	How can we live well for as long as possible?
2:09.4	Obvious places to look for clues are blue zones.
	...

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