Horizon

If you have ever wondered what's

going to happen in the future,

then this is the programme for you.

Because we're going to be asking

the kind of questions that we all have

about our future.

In this very special edition of Horizon we'll be

revealing the ten things you definitely need to know that will,

for better or worse, change our lives.

We'll explore how artificial intelligence

will change the way we work.

Can I enquire, do you have pain in your mouth?

Yes, I do. I see.

We'll look at the likely impact of our changing climate.

It could well top 40 degrees in a few days' time.

And discover how gene therapy will transform medicine.

And he said, "There is no evidence of disease.

"You are cancer-free."

We'll introduce the people already turning themselves into cyborgs...

This last year people just shout at me, Pokemon.

And they try to catch me.

Ask if renewable energy is here to stay...

The place to be might not be down here,

or even up on that hilltop up there.

It's up there.

And reveal how we are mapping our brains...

It's absolutely astonishing.

But jeopardising our very existence.

What we are doing is removing the ability

for us to live on this planet.

We'll also celebrate, finally, the arrival of

that science fiction cliche, the flying car.

That's it, that's all it takes.

So, if you want to know what's in store for you, then keep watching.

Welcome to the future.

Now, we are all going to experience the future

and we all want to know how it will change our lives.

What's going to be the future of our daily commute?

What will we spend our money on?

What's going to happen to our planet?

Now, over the years, many people have made some pretty bold claims,

including science fiction legend Arthur C Clarke,

in an interview that he gave to Horizon in 1964.

I'm perfectly serious when I suggest a world

in which we can be in instant contact with each other,

wherever we may be.

Where we can contact our friends anywhere on Earth

even if we don't know their actual physical location.

It will be possible in that age,

perhaps only 50 years from now,

for a man to conduct his business from Tahiti or Bali,

just as well as he could from London.

Isn't that incredible? Arthur C Clarke, there, in 1964,

accurately describing what is effectively the internet age.

Something, of course, that we all take completely for granted now

but a world that was totally alien to his audience.

But, predicting the future is notoriously tricky.

And while Arthur was bang on the money with that one,

he didn't stop there. Because here he is with his follow-up prediction.

The development of intelligent and useful servants

among the other animals on this planet.

We could certainly solve the servant problem

with the help of the monkey kingdom.

Sorry, come again?

Solve the servant problem with the help of the monkey kingdom.

Of course, eventually our super chimpanzees

would start forming trade unions

and we would be right back where we started.

Well, I suppose one out of two ain't bad.

But it does just go to show that predicting the future

is usually a mug's game.

Flying cars, salad-making robots and living in space colonies

were the embarrassing staples of TV programmes like Tomorrow's World.

Usually, their earnest predictions were way off.

But this programme is different.

And I'm as confident as I can be that these predictions

aren't going to end up being laughed at by a TV audience in 2050.

Because we are basing our predictions

on real data from trusted sources, from today.

And that is why we can confidently tell you that what you're

about to watch really are the ten things

that you need to know about the future.

First up, Dr Kevin Fong on perhaps the biggest question of all.

How can we cheat death and live longer?

In the 1980s, if you wanted some constructive advice

about how to achieve immortality,

you went to see the film and musical Fame.

The star of the piece was very clear about her advice,

"I'm gonna live forever," she told us.

And she was going to do that by becoming famous

and living on forever in the memory of her adoring fans.

And that kind of immortality is all that human beings

have ever been able to aspire to.

To be remembered by as many people as possible

for as long as you possibly can.

Woody Allen had a very different approach, of course.

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work," he said.

"I want to achieve immortality by not dying."

And if you want to live for longer, not dying is a great place to start.

And the good news is that, on average,

we're living longer today than we ever have in the past.

But how far can we push that?

How long can we expect to live in the future?

Now, births and deaths are one thing that we have quite a lot of data on

here in the UK. And here is some of that data.

This shows you how our life expectancy has changed

over the last 170 years or so.

Now, Kevin Fong, welcome back to the studio.

As a doctor, help me make some sense of these numbers.

Well, I think this is all fascinating data.

When you look at it, this is average life expectancy which, for almost

the whole of human history,

languishes around here, around 40-45 years.

And then you hit the start of the 20th century.

You get this massive kick.

Why? Well, it's all prevention.

It's all about stopping the things that kill you early on in life

shortly after you've been born, like measles, mumps, rubella.

It's all about stopping the diseases of infection.

And that is achieved through vaccination and better sanitation.

So that's what explains this big kick and these early gains here.

So this bit really is all about sort of child mortality?

Yep. Prevention is always better than cure, and that was vaccination.

But it continues to go up past then. What about this bit over here?

So this kick up the top here is us getting better at

advanced modern medicine.

So we have better lifestyles,

but also we get better at treating diseases like heart disease and also

cancer, so that gives us a bit of an extra gain here.

So we still see increases all the way through.

And then what about going forward to the future, then?

Will this continue to increase?

Is there a limit to how long we can live for?

It would be lovely, wouldn't it,

if this line kept going up and up and up to infinity?

It doesn't look like it.

It looks like this data plateaus.

This graph shows that being born in

gives you a very high average life expectancy.

But in terms of maximum possible age,

you're no better off than your early Victorian ancestors.

There's a fundamental limit, it would appear,

at least at the moment, around 110, 120 years,

to which we seem to be limited.

If we want to improve things, and who doesn't,

we could do a lot worse than to investigate the naked mole rat.

It lives at least ten times longer than other rats.

In human terms, that's a potential lifespan of upwards of 700 years.

As it happens, we actually have a naked mole rat expert

here in the studio with your mole rats.

Welcome to the studio, Chris Faulkes.

Tell me about these amazing creatures.

Well, naked mole rats,

just about everything about their biology

is weird and wonderful and exceptional.

And recently they've been generating a lot of interest

because of their extreme longevity.

Which can be... We don't know the upper limit, but more than 30 years.

Gosh. Cos I guess a rat only lives, what, two or three years,

maybe at the most. Yeah, exactly. And these live to 30, did you say?

Yeah. And counting.

Wow. And do they get old in that time?

Well, this is really the remarkable thing.

Because not only do they have a long lifespan,

but their health span is very long,

which means that they go through a huge proportion of their life

without showing any signs of ageing whatsoever,

like an 80-year-old having the body of a 30-year-old.

Well, that would be nice, wouldn't it? It sure would. So, why is that?

What is it about them that means that they have that feature?

Well, it seems that it's not a single thing,

but there's a whole mosaic of adaptations

that have given them very low metabolic rate,

a low body temperature, there's resistance to cancer,

and a whole bunch of other things

which all collectively give them

this really long lifespan and health span.

So, do they not get cancer?

There's been virtually no recorded cases.

As opposed to lab mice, for example, where 70% will die of cancer.

Wow. Gosh, that's extraordinary.

So what is it about them that means that they don't get cancer?

There's a substance in the skin called hyaluronan that we all have.

These guys have a very special version of that substance,

which we think is what gives them their really elasticky skin,

which is useful when you're living in tight tunnels.

And this hyaluronan is implicated in one part of their cancer resistance.

How stretchy is their skin?

It's pretty stretchy.

Do you want me to see if I can demonstrate?

Yeah, go on, why not, let's have a look.

They'll probably all go running off.

And this sort of stretchy substance is one of

the things that protects them against... Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, so, there we go, they don't mind

being picked up like this at all as you can see.

The animal's quite relaxed. But see how really elasticky the skin is.

Incredible. My goodness me.

Let me just pop him back there. There we go.

And he's quite happy. Yeah, no problem.