A scientific breakthrough could mean humans live for hundreds of years

With a whole lot of help from science, humans may some day live for centuries, according to Michael Rose, PhD, author of The Long Tomorrow: How Advances in Evolutionary Biology Can Help Us Postpone Aging.

Currently, the adult body deteriorates rapidly until about age 90, at which point, surprisingly, the decline plateaus. That plateau is what intrigues Rose and his peers. They hope to find a way to hit that plateau at an earlier age, which would allow people to live long enough to know their great-great-grandkids' great-great-grandkids, and then some.

As amazing as that seems, Rose expects that we could, in a few centuries, achieve plateaus that correspond to the mortality levels and health of a present-day 30- to 40-year old. That would mean an average life expectancy of 500 to 800 years.