Hello everybody !
Just to get the numbers right. Assuming the current knowledge of medicine and an
environment as you find it in Europe or the States it is fairly straightforward
to calculate the life expectancy using life tables.
The life expectancy is around 1200 years, not 300 and not 100000.
That means you have a 50% chance to life for 1200 years. The important thing is
that if you are lucky and you managed to survive for those 1200 years you have
another 50% chance to live for the next 1200 years !!!
That means that you have a chance of 25% to live for 2400 years. This is totally
different from today. If you survive for 75 years you have NOT another 50% chance
to survive the next 75 years. The reason is that the ageing process increases
your mortality in an exponential way (doubling it every 8 years) while you have a
constant mortality if you could switch off ageing.
I just wanted to mention that, because one normally doesn't think about it.
Axel Kowald (a_kowald at chemie.fu-berlin.de)
