Expectancy

A 1936 HOLC “residential security” map of Philadelphia, classifying various neighborhoods by estimated riskiness of mortgage loan. Credit: Wikipedia Research from Washington University in St. Louis exposes the deadly legacy of redlining, the 1930s-era New Deal practice that graded neighborhoods by financial risk and solidified the notion that an area's property value was proportional to its racial composition.…

Life expectancy in most countries took a hit during the COVID pandemic. But the U.S. has seen a sharper drop-off than most European countries and Chile—and it still hasn’t recovered. Worldwide life expectancy was dramatically extended during the past century by decades of progress in medical science and public policy, such as advances in cancer screening and treatment, better prevention and treatment for heart disease, tobacco regulation and safety improvements in the automobile industry. Yet even before the pandemic,…

The COVID pandemic triggered an unprecedented rise in deaths around the world, leading to falls in life expectancy. In research last year, we found that 2020 saw significant life expectancy losses, including more than two years in the US and one year in England and Wales.In a new study published in Nature Human Behavior, we have now shown that, in 2021, life expectancy rebounded somewhat in most western European countries while eastern Europe and the US witnessed additional losses. However, only Norway beat its…

According to new research, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a protracted shock to life expectancy levels, leading to global mortality changes unprecedented in the last 70 years.Most of Western Europe experienced life expectancy bouncebacks in 2021Scale of Eastern Europe losses akin to the mortality crisis at the break-up of the Soviet UnionCountries with higher proportions of fully vaccinated people generally experienced smaller life expectancy deficits<span class="glossaryLink"…

With a few notable exceptions—such as during the 1918 influenza pandemic, World War II and the HIV crisis—life expectancy in the U.S. has had gradual upward trajectory over the past century. But that progress has steeply reversed in the past two years as COVID and other tragedies have cut millions of lives short. U.S. life expectancy fell by a total of 2.7 years between 2019 and 2021 to 76.1 years—the lowest it has been since 1996, according to provisional data recently released by the Centers for Disease Control and…

Tanya Lewis: Hi, and welcome to COVID, Quickly, a Scientific American podcast series! Josh Fischman: This is your fast-track update on the COVID pandemic. We bring you up to speed on the science behind the most urgent questions about the virus and the disease. We demystify the research, and help you understand what it really means. Lewis: I’m Tanya Lewis. Fischman: I’m Josh Fischman. Lewis: And we’re Scientific American’s senior health editors. Today we’re going to talk about how COVID has driven a notable decline in…

Compared to a paired state, the protein CHIP can control the insulin receptor more effectively when acting alone.A single protein can control aging signals more effectively than in a group.According to recent research, the protein CHIP can control the insulin receptor more effectively while acting alone than when in a paired state. In cellular stress situations, CHIP often appears as a homodimer – an association of two identical proteins – and mainly functions to destroy misfolded and defective proteins. CHIP thus…

Life expectancy for Americans has suffered a historic drop in the last couple of years, according to new estimates from the CDC and a June preprint study. While every demographic’s life expectancy dropped in 2020 and 2021, Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous communities were hit the hardest. Life expectancy at birth — or how long a person is expected to live if nothing in the world changes — is usually calculated by using death rate data within each age group. So while life expectancy isn’t a prediction of how long a baby…

ASTRONOMY Webb telescope snaps its first exoplanet An exoplanet was imaged at various wavelengths (insets); the white pentagram marks the parent star.NASA/ESA/CSA; A. CARTER/UCSC; THE ERS 1386 TEAM; A. PAGAN/STSCI The James Webb Space Telescope has taken its first images of a planet beyond our Solar System, opening a new chapter in the discovery and study of exoplanets. The young gas giant, seven times the mass of Jupiter, is captured still glowing hot after its formation,…