In 2000, two scientists — Steve Austed, a biologist and Jay Olshanksy, a biostatistician — made a bet. Would a  person live to the age of 150 by the year 2150? Austad bet yes and Olshansky bet no. The wager? $150, which will grow to more than one billion by the time it’s settled.   In this episode, we revisit this twenty-five year old bet  to find both men sticking to their guns. We also  speak to  Nobel Prize winner, Venki Ramakrishnan, about new insights into what causes us to age. The episode explores the latest science around aging to expose two competing ways of understanding the human lifespan. Are we locked into a hard age limit established by centuries of data? Or could a scientific breakthrough push us far beyond it so that many of us will live decades longer?  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: <a href="https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy">https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy</a> Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a>

In 2000, two scientists — Steve Austed, a biologist and Jay Olshanksy, a biostatistician — made a bet. Would a person live to the age of 150 by the year 2150? Austad bet yes and Olshansky bet no. The wager? $150, which will grow to more than one billion by the time it’s settled. In this episode, we revisit this twenty-five year old bet to find both men sticking to their guns. We also speak to Nobel Prize winner, Venki Ramakrishnan, about new insights into what causes us to age. The episode explores the latest science around aging to expose two competing ways of understanding the human lifespan. Are we locked into a hard age limit established by centuries of data? Or could a scientific breakthrough push us far beyond it so that many of us will live decades longer? To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2000, two scientists — Steve Austed, a biologist and Jay Olshanksy, a biostatistician — made a bet. Would a&nbsp; person live to the age of 150 by the year 2150? Austad bet yes and Olshansky bet no. The wager? $150, which will grow to more than one billion by the time it’s settled. &nbsp; In this episode, we revisit this twenty-five year old bet&nbsp; to find both men sticking to their guns. We also&nbsp; speak to&nbsp; Nobel Prize winner, Venki Ramakrishnan, about new insights into what causes us to age. The episode explores the latest science around aging to expose two competing ways of understanding the human lifespan. Are we locked into a hard age limit established by centuries of data? Or could a scientific breakthrough push us far beyond it so that many of us will live decades longer?&nbsp; To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: <a href="https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy</a> Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a>

The Billion Dollar Bet: Will Humans Live to 150?

Human beings are living longer than ever. Thanks to advances like vaccines, antibiotics, pasteurized milk and clean water, we’ve added more than 30 years to the average lifespan over the last 120 years. That’s more than was added in the previous 10,000 years combined. More recently, enormous progress has been made in our treatment of deadly conditions like heart disease and cancer, with mortality rates for each dropping by double digits. Now science is tackling a new challenge: Can we cure aging itself? In pursuit of this holy grail, longevity research has gone from a sleepy backwater to a multi billion dollar field, populated — yes — by plenty of hucksters, but also by Nobel laureates. The goal is to find out what causes us to age and what we can do to slow it down, or maybe even reverse it altogether. Could tweaking the right molecule buy us 20 more years, or are we maxed out? Can older brains be re-wired to function like younger brains? Do any so-called biohacks actually work? 
These are some of the questions we are tackling in this season of The World as You’ll Know It: The Future of Aging. With leading scientists in the fields of biology, neuroscience and medicine, we’ll look at the cutting-edge of aging research and what living longer could mean for all of us.

Technology

Human beings are living longer than ever. Thanks to advances like vaccines, antibiotics, pasteurized milk and clean water, we’ve added more than 30 years to the average lifespan over the last 120 years. That’s more than was added in the previous 10,000 years combined. More recently, enormous progress has been made in our treatment of deadly conditions like heart disease and cancer, with mortality rates for each dropping by double digits. Now science is tackling a new challenge: Can we cure aging itself? In pursuit of this holy grail, longevity research has gone from a sleepy backwater to a multi billion dollar field, populated — yes — by plenty of hucksters, but also by Nobel laureates. The goal is to find out what causes us to age and what we can do to slow it down, or maybe even reverse it altogether. Could tweaking the right molecule buy us 20 more years, or are we maxed out? Can older brains be re-wired to function like younger brains? Do any so-called biohacks actually work? These are some of the questions we are tackling in this season of The World as You’ll Know It: The Future of Aging. With leading scientists in the fields of biology, neuroscience and medicine, we’ll look at the cutting-edge of aging research and what living longer could mean for all of us.

Human beings are living longer than ever. Thanks to advances like vaccines, antibiotics, pasteurized milk and clean water, we’ve added more than 30 years to the average lifespan over the last 120 years. That’s more than was added in the previous 10,000 years combined. More recently, enormous progress has been made in our treatment of deadly conditions like heart disease and cancer, with mortality rates for each dropping by double digits. Now science is tackling a new challenge: Can we cure aging itself? In pursuit of this holy grail, longevity research has gone from a sleepy backwater to a multi billion dollar field, populated — yes — by plenty of hucksters, but also by Nobel laureates. The goal is to find out what causes us to age and what we can do to slow it down, or maybe even reverse it altogether. Could tweaking the right molecule buy us 20 more years, or are we maxed out? Can older brains be re-wired to function like younger brains? Do any so-called biohacks actually work?&nbsp;
These are some of the questions we are tackling in this season of The World as You’ll Know It: The Future of Aging. With leading scientists in the fields of biology, neuroscience and medicine, we’ll look at the cutting-edge of aging research and what living longer could mean for all of us.

Share The Billion Dollar Bet: Will Humans Live to 150?

Sign up to save your podcasts

The Billion Dollar Bet: Will Humans Live to 150?

The Billion Dollar Bet: Will Humans Live to 150?

More shows like The World as You’ll Know It: The Future Of Aging

Energy Gang

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Hidden Brain

Pivot

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Interchange Recharged

Your Undivided Attention

MIT Technology Review Narrated

Hard Fork

Volts

The Ezra Klein Show

The Green Blueprint

Catalyst with Shayle Kann

Zero: The Climate Race

On with Kara Swisher