A worn volume bound in faded red leather has been formally recognised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation as one of England’s earliest surviving paper-based archives. It is the kind of object most visitors would walk past without realising they are looking at something that predates printing presses, predates modern record keeping,…

For decades, scientists believed that an average life expectancy of 90 years was a distant milestone that no country would reach anytime soon. Then a landmark study published in The Lancet challenged that assumption. Researchers projected that South Korean women born in 2030 could live an average of 90.8 years, making them the first population…