BBC NEWS | Business | Pension age 'should rise to 67'

We are rapidly learning more about why people get old, and ways we can interfere with that process. When you add in all the progress we are seeing with adult stem cells in repairing tissues, and other medical advances, it is clear that we are going to see further extensions of life-expectancy.

That is why the proposal to increase retirement age from 65 to 67 has already been overtaken by the realities of biology. Workers who are in their 20s today have more than two additional years of life ahead of them compared to people now in their 60s when they were at the same age.

You will see government actuaries continue to upgrade their estimates of how long we will all live, every few years, and every time they do so, we can expect to see further worries about the solvency of corporate pension funds.

For more on these important issues see http://www.globalchange.com/ppt/index.htm
for presentations on ageing and the future of medicine, also http://www.globalchange.com/stemcells2.htm
for more on stem cell advances.