I received this from another list server and thought it would be of interest to those suggesting that studies of low-level radiation may be improve your health and life span. Maybe being born with good genes is really what you need to do, i.e., pick your parents wisely.
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-----Original Message-----
From: e-alert@physicsweb.org [mailto:e-alert@physicsweb.org]
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 10:01 PM
News
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Life, death and physics (Jan 14)
http://physicsweb.org/article/news/7/1/5
Intuition might suggest that people are more likely to die the older
they become, but in fact the death rate stabilizes above a certain age
leading to a "mortality plateau". Now, Jonathan Coe and Yong Mao at the
University of Cambridge and Mike Cates at the University of Edinburgh
have developed a computer model that reveals this levelling-off in the
rate of death with increasing age. This result, which previous models
have been unable to achieve, may help to explain mortality rates better
than ever before. (J.B. Coe et al. 2002 Phys.Rev.Lett. 89 28).