In our science programs, hosted by Janna Levin, we tackle complex, conceptual, occasionally amorphous topics like animal consciousness and string theory. These rich, hour-long conversations take place in person at Pioneer Works, and feature big thinkers engaged in big questions. To watch is a feast. “5 Takeaways” is a snack, an amuse-bouche for the mind. Because comprehension sometimes demands—or, at the very least, appreciates—distillation, and the internet loves a listicle. Below, for the benefit of lay science enthusiasts, the Broadcast editors serve up key takeaways from a conversation between Janna Levin and Venki Ramakrishnan. Watch their full discussion on YouTube.

1. You're not programmed to die.

Death may come for us all, but that doesn't mean it's programmed into our genes. Aging isn't a built-in shutdown sequence—it's the gradual result of wear and tear over time. Evolution favors traits that help us survive long enough to reproduce, but it has little interest in what happens afterward. Ironically, the same genetic traits that ensure our early survival often contribute to our decline later in life. Still, there are no genes made to age us. Death is simply the biological cost of being alive.

2. We live longer, but we don’t get older.

In the last 150 years, life expectancy has doubled, but the maximum human lifespan hasn’t budged much. The oldest person that ever lived is Jeanne Calment, who died at the age of 122 in 1997. She smoked for all but the last five years of her life, and ate more than two pounds of chocolate every week. She lived in Arles, the town in southern France where van Gogh resided near the end of his life. When she met the artist in her teens, she described him as “very ugly, ungracious, impolite, and sick.”

Despite her charms, it’s unlikely Calment was more than a genetically blessed miracle. Her habits aren’t lessons to emulate—sadly, there’s no evidence that chocolate will protect you from an early grave. No matter the advances in science and improvements in public health, nobody’s beaten her record of life in the 25 years since she died. We may be better at avoiding early death as a species, but we’re still not breaking the ceiling.

3. Your body dies, but your cells (kind of) don’t.

All of us came from an unbroken chain of living cells that stretches back billions of years. Your cells are therefore part of an immortal lineage, just renting your body for a while. You’re a disposable vehicle for ancient self-replicating molecules—which will survive so long as life continues on Earth.

Still, when we think of death, we’re generally thinking about our own: the end of our conscious existence as an individual. But if there’s a direct line of succession from us to our ancient ancestors, there is something about each of us that doesn’t die. Our cells outlive our body by developing into our children and resetting the biological clock every time we procreate—babies always start at zero, no matter the age of their parents. Individuals die, but life goes on without end.

4. There’s a jellyfish that ages in reverse.

The probability that anyone will die tends to increase with age—but there’s one species of jellyfish whose chance of death never changes. When the Turritopsis dohrnii is faced with injury or stress, it metamorphoses into an earlier stage of development and lives its life all over again. Gerontologists may salivate at the possibility that these creatures are biologically immortal—but according to Venki Ramakrishnan, their regenerative capacities make them more like trees than us.

5. Science moves at the speed of death.

Progress in science isn't just about data—it's about funerals. People don’t discard false ideas and adopt new ones because they’ve changed their minds. Rather, scientists just die, and a new generation is able to look at the data more objectively.

In other words, science advances one funeral at a time. Old ideas don’t fade quietly, they just die with the people who cling to them. ♦