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Future Human: Males Closing in on Life Expectancy Gap

popsci.com — Surprisingly, the answer has little to do with eating fewer Big Macs. Since the 1970s, more baby boys are surviving birth in the first place.

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lekahe 50 days ago, made popular 50 days ago

383 diggs
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Celeron, on 03/27/2008, -2/+12I plan on living forever by cloning my body and interchanging my brain back and forth to retain my memory.
- AlexBellisBrown, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3My wife is going to kill me anyway....
- talonstriker, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3You'd last until you get Alzeihmer's.
  I'm planning to injecting myself with stem cells once I hit my 30s....Hopefully I can figure out a way to put some of them into my brain without harming myself...
- snoogit, on 03/27/2008, -0/+0Would transplanting someone's brain and hoping the memories stay intact actually work? I would think the easier way to do it would be to fully clone yourself with an intact but essentially "empty" brain, then transfer your thoughts and ideas to the new body.
  - Charlotte_Web, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Would that really be him, though, or just a perfect copy?
    
    If you can transfer your brain to a new body in order to continue your existence, then how much of the brain needs to be transferred? And which parts?
graemee, on 03/27/2008, -0/+9I thought it was stupidity that kept male life expectancy lower. More twenty-stupid accidentally self terminating.
- raidfibre, on 03/27/2008, -0/+11Surely some of it is due to men being the gender who likes to kill each other for various and sundry reasons, including joining the military. Men are also much more likely to have dangerous careers such as firefighter or roofer.
Shadowgamers, on 03/27/2008, -3/+2"Why? First off, males draw the short straw at the start"
That made me laugh
- talonstriker, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1Take that feminists!
Lochie, on 03/27/2008, -1/+19So basically this means males are starting to put up with women for longer.
quamis, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1more men = fewer women for me :(
- talonstriker, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Go to brazil....(seriously..the female:male ratio is wacked out there because of the males getting killed in drug wars)
  Best of luck in Portuguese class
addiktion, on 03/27/2008, -3/+2The problem is you'll see more shemales popping up on the radar so watch out.
- dotvexed, on 03/27/2008, -1/+2It's a trap!
4to15characters, on 03/27/2008, -7/+1I'm also making a semi-witty comment in an attempt to become diggpopular.
- o0joshua0o, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2You forgot to make it witty.
zpeed, on 03/27/2008, -1/+0wont the fact that more baby boys are surviving at birth affect the statistics of the average life expectancy? if that were the case, I fear that this "closing gap" is nothing more than a mathematical anomaly. =/
- Dominicc2003, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Or maybe women "having longer life expectancies" was an "anomaly" because they were more likely to survive birth than men and now that males are more likely to survive early on, the statistics are becoming MORE accurate, not LESS.
  
  What should be done is "life expectancy for males and females over 8" or something like that so as to ignore early deaths affecting overall statistics...
  - zpeed, on 04/02/2008, -0/+0How can you say "ignore early deaths" and then say that it won't "affect overall statistics"? Are we talking about "overall statistics" or not? The fact that there are more boys in the world to begin with affects the "overall statistics", however your solution to ignore early deaths cuts this new information out.
    
    "The statistics are becoming MORE accurate, not LESS" -- I DO agree with this because... well, we don't use pebbles to take a census anymore! ha ha =)
BigGrayBeast, on 03/27/2008, -2/+1The odd factoid is that married men outlive single men. It is just that married men are a lot more willing to die.
mazdagirluk, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Viagra manufacturers are taking note now. I can't wait to see what commercials are like years from now...
yingjai, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3article doesnt explain why male life expectancy is closing in on females. it only explains why male birth mortality is decreasing.
chesscat, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Why do married men die sooner than married women? Because they want to.
FloorModel, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1this'll make it easier to find a few good men
robthom, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Sounds fair, equal opportunity and all. Now if we can just get our balls back.
Tasach, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Dying at birth for males is a factor for the life expectancy gap but not the major one. If you look at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/tables/2003/03hus ... it shows that at birth the difference between men and women's life expectancy is 4.4 years, while if they reach the age of 65 it is still at 3 years (using 2001 as a base year), rather than closer to 0 which is what you would expect if the problem was mainly dying at birth.

As an aside, I created my own life expectancy calculator at http://www.fixaging.com/life-expectancy-calculator ... its a bit crude though, if someone has a more rigorous methodology to do it I'd love to here it.
- VisionTrail, on 03/28/2008, -0/+0I used your calculator and added the target year to my calendar.
  Can it be more accurate so I can create a meeting (with him) at a certain date and time?
  This is a great tool! People that are smoking or overweight can see how quitting smoking or loosing weight can affect their LE.
  - Tasach, on 04/04/2008, -0/+1sounds good:) if you put your details into deathclock.com that gives you an 'exact' date.
jonolan, on 03/28/2008, -1/+1As divorce rates climb so do men's life expectancies. LOL!
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Future Human: Males Closing in on Life Expectancy Gap

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