Climate change. Creationism versus evolution. Deep space travel. Tesla electric cars. These are just a few buzzwords that have been repeatedly popping up in current news over the last few years. What ties them all together is that they’re science-related. From literature and entertainment to advertising and education, it seems as if science, and the appreciation of science, is entering a social renaissance in the 21^st century. 

The odds of humans being dealt the medical equivalent of a royal flush—eliminating disease and slowing or stopping the aging process—may not be as long as we’ve been made to believe, according to scientists.Some futurists think even more radical changes are in the offing: That humans will be able to use technology to solve “the problem of dying.”How did humans go from living an average of 35 years two centuries ago to contemplating living a century or more?