New CRISPR-powered device detects genetic mutations in minutes

A team of engineers at the University of California, Berkeley and the Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) of The Claremont Colleges combined CRISPR with electronic transistors made from graphene to create a new hand-held device ...

Eradicating dangerous bacteria may cause permanent harm

In the zeal to eliminate dangerous bacteria, it is possible that we are also permanently killing off beneficial bacteria as well, posits Martin Blaser, MD, Frederick H. King Professor of Medicine, professor of Microbiology ...

Biologists discover how yeast cells reverse aging

Human cells have a finite lifespan: They can only divide a certain number of times before they die. However, that lifespan is reset when reproductive cells are formed, which is why the children of a 20-year-old man have the ...

Study: Life and death during the Great Depression

The Great Depression had a silver lining: During that hard time, U.S. life expectancy actually increased by 6.2 years, according to a University of Michigan study published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National ...

page 1 from 20

Life expectancy

Life expectancy is the average number of years of life remaining at a given age. The term is most often used in the human context, but used also in plant or animal ecology and the calculation is based on the analysis of life tables (also known as actuarial tables). The term may also be used in the context of manufactured objects although the related term shelf life is used for consumer products. Life expectancy is heavily dependent on the criteria used to select the group. For example, in countries with high infant mortality rates, the life expectancy at birth is highly sensitive to the rate of death in the first few years of life. In these cases, another measure such as life expectancy at age 5 (e5) can be used to exclude the effects of infant mortality to reveal the effects of causes of death other than early childhood causes.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA