How Long Can We Live? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/magazine/human-lifespan.html Credit...Photo illustration by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari Sections How Long Can We Live? New research is intensifying the debate — with profound implications for the future of the planet. Credit...Photo illustration by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari Listen to This ArticleAudio Recording by Audm To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, . In 1990, not long after Jean-Marie Robine and Michel Allard began conducting a nationwide study of French centenarians, one of their software programs spat out an error message. An individual in the study was marked as 115 years old, a number outside the program’s range of acceptable age values. They called their collaborators in Arles, where the subject lived, and asked them to double-check the information they had provided, recalls Allard, who was then the director of the IPSEN Foundation, a nonprofit research organization. Perhaps they made a mistake when transcribing her birth date? Maybe this Jeanne Calment was actually born in 1885, not 1875? No, the collaborators said. We’ve seen her birth certificate. The data is correct.