20th Century Causes of Death

Information is Beautiful has a post with an infographic showing the total numbers of people killed by various causes during the 20th century.

How Long Will You Live

Wolfram Alpha will show you how long you have to live and what the chances are of you living to various ages. For example, I have a 98.7% chance of living past age 50 but a 98.8% chance of dieing before age 100.

Lessons from mortality rates

According to this blog post your chances of dieing in a given year double every 8 years.

This startling fact was first noticed by the British actuary Benjamin Gompertz in 1825 and is now called the “Gompertz Law of human mortality.” Your probability of dying during a given year doubles every 8 years.

The author goes on to see what the implications of that law is.

via kottke.org

Aubrey de Grey on life extension

An interesting TED talk by Aubrey de Grey about life extension and why he feels it is necessary. He goes through the 7 ways in which people age - all of which he feels can be prevented.