How Long Can People Live?
人能活多久？
She took up skating at age 85, made her first movie appearance at age 114, and held a concert in the neighborhood on her 121st birthday.
她85岁时开始滑冰，114岁时首次出演电影，121岁生日时在附近举办了一场音乐会。
Whe n it comes to long life, Jeanne Calment is the world’s recordholder. She lived to the ripe old age of 122. So is 122 the upper limit to the human life span?If scientists come up with some sort of pill or diet that would slow aging, could we possibly make it to 150 - or beyond?
说到长寿，珍妮·卡尔门特是世界纪录保持者。她活到了122岁的高龄。122岁也是人类寿命的上限？如果科学家们发明了某种能延缓衰老的药丸或饮食，我们能不能使衰老达到150岁或更高？
Researchers don’t entirely agree on the answers. “Calment lived to 122, so it wouldn’t surprise me if someone alive today reaches 130 or 135,” says Jerry Shay at the University of Texas．
研究人员对答案并不完全一致。德克萨斯大学的杰里·谢伊说：“卡尔门特活到了122岁，所以如果今天有人活到130或135岁，我也不会感到惊讶”。
Steve Austad at the University of Texas agrees. “People can live much longer than we think,”he says. “Experts used to say that humans couldn’t live past 110. When Calment blew past that age, they raised the number to 120．So why can’t we go higher?”
德克萨斯大学的史蒂夫·奥斯塔德对此表示赞同。他说：“人们的寿命比我们想象的要长得多。专家们过去常说，人类无法活过110岁。当卡尔门特超过这个年龄时，他们把这个数字提高到120岁。那么，我们为什么不能更高一些呢？”
The trouble with guessing how old people can live to be is that it’s all just guessing．“Anyone can make up a number,” says Rich Miller at the University of Michigan．“Usually the scientist who picks the highest number gets his name in Time magazine．”
密歇根大学的里奇·米勒说，猜测老年人能活多久的问题在于，这一切都只是猜测。“任何人都可以编一个数字。通常，选择最高数字的科学家会出现在《时代》杂志上。”
Won’t new anti-aging techniques keep us alive for centuries? Any cure, says Miller, for aging would probably keep most of us kicking until about 120．Researchers are working on treatments that lengthen the life span of mice by 50 percent at most．So, if the average human life span is about 80 years, says Miller, “adding another 50 percent would get you to 120.”
新的抗衰老技术不会让我们活几个世纪吗？米勒说，任何治疗衰老的方法都可能让我们中的大多数人活到120岁左右。研究人员正在研究的治疗方法最多可以将老鼠的寿命延长50%。因此，如果人类的平均寿命是80岁左右，米勒说，“再增加50%就可以达到120岁。”
So what can we conclude from this little disagreement among the researchers? That life span is flexible, but there is a limit, says George Martin of the University of Washington. “We can get flies to live 50 percent longer,” he says．“But a fly’s never going to live 150 years.”
那么，从研究人员之间的这一小小分歧中，我们能得出什么结论呢？这种寿命是有弹性的，但华盛顿大学的乔治·马丁说，这是有限度的。“我们可以让苍蝇多活50%，”他说，“但苍蝇永远活不了150年。”
“Of course, if you became a new species, one that ages at a slower speed, that would be a different story,” he adds.
“当然，如果你成为一个新物种，一个以较慢的速度衰老的人，那将是另一回事，”他补充说。
Does Martin really believe that humans could evolve their way to longer life? “It’s pretty cool to think about it,”he says with a smile.
马丁真的相信人类可以进化出延长寿命的方式吗？“想起来很酷，”他笑着说。
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