Three UG researchers involved in two Nature studies

This week Nature has published five research reports that contradict research previously published in 2016. Three UG researchers were involved in two of the five projects: Fanny Janssen, associate professor of demographics at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences, Nick Brown, PhD student at the UMCG and researcher Casper Albers of the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences.

Maximum lifespan may increase to 125 years of age

Prof. Fanny Janssen conducted research with the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) on the maximum human lifespan. The oldest person to have ever lived so far is the Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122. According to Janssen and NIDI, her record will be broken this century. They expect a Japanese woman to reach the age of 125 within fifty years. This disputes the conclusions of the American researchers who stated in Nature last year that the maximum human lifespan is around 115 years. Read news release Janssen

One 122-year-old woman affects statistics

Nick Brown and Casper Albers, together with Stuart Ritchie of the University of Edinburgh, have described four serious flaws in the research previously published in Nature. They evaluated the peer review process for the research and their criticism is also published in Nature. The most important point of criticism is that one 122-year-old woman is one of the main supporting features of their theory that humans cannot grow older than 115 years. Read news release Albers