many more things, notably infant mortality, than just the survival of more people beyond 85. There may be a natural limit to life, but it is not necessarily 85.
Indeed, University of Minnesota demog-

ARTS & LETTERS

rapher James Vaupel has scrutinized un- usually accurate Swedish data on 85-year- olds and found drastic improvements in remaining life expectancy during the past 50 years. The same is true for Swedes as old as 100. If there is a biological limit to life, Vaupel suggests, it m...