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life span
(redirected from lifespan)

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.04 sec.

life span

Time between birth and death. It ranges from a mayfly's day to certain trees' thousands of years. Its limit appears to depend on heredity, but such factors as (in humans) disease, natural disasters, war, diet, and habits such as smoking reduce it. Maximum life span is theoretical; more meaningful is average life span, which life-insurance companies and actuaries analyze and tabulate. Long-lived progenitors tend to beget long-lived descendants. A very-low-calorie diet appears to prolong life. Reduced infant mortality and improved sanitation and nutrition account for much of the increase since c. 1800—from about 35 to over 70 years in most industrialized countries. The oldest well-documented age reached by a human is 122 years.


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Maryland artist Lawrence Romorini's "The Life Of A Tree," features a branch from the Wye Oak attached to a scroll decorated with various 3-D objects meant to reveal the rich history of Maryland throughout the tree's 450-year lifespan.
Tokyo, Japan, Feb 14, 2006 - (JCN) - Medical and Biological Laboratories (MBL) announced on February 13 that its Massachusetts-based subsidiary MBL International has acquired the antibody business of LifeSpan BioSciences (LifeSpan) of Seattle.
Finally, we neglected to explicitly acknowledge that Bear was not only the cofounder but the sole editor of the magazine throughout its lifespan.
 
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