Can we be a little more responsible about the life expectancy figures we're quoting? "The current life expectancy is 77 for men and 81 for women" it says on the BBC website. So this means that a retirement age of 66 would mean men working for over 40 years...
By acting on a patient's own cells rather than an infectious agent, the successful trials of a new breast cancer vaccine in mice offer an important possible development in cancer treatment. Vaccines are usually used to prevent infectious diseases. They do...
Research published recently suggests that the cost of treating cancer in the US has doubled over the last 20 years. This surprised me - I would have expected a much greater increase. The research finds that the increased costs arise mainly from an increase...
There has been some discussion in the FT over the last week regarding the issue of longevity bonds. David Blake proposed that the Government could raise capital by issuing longevity bonds whilst Paul Dare proposed that these bonds could be sold direct to...
I'm currently at the International Congress of Actuaries in Cape Town, and it's amazing what you learn. For example, today I learnt that whilst mammals have X and Y chromosomes, with women having two X's and men having an X and a Y, birds have W and Z...
New research has found a possible genetic explanation for why women live longer than men on average. It seems that the gene that makes male mice stronger than female mice also weakens their immune system. Researchers discovered this by creating mice with...
