Top 20 countries for life expectancy

“Old people” – we all hope to live long enough to earn this distinction. In some countries, the probability of living well into your eighties is much better than in others. The worldwide average for life expectancy is just a smidge over 67, with the highest and lowest countries fluctuating by over 20 years in each direction. 39 of the bottom 40 countries are located on the African continent, and 3 of the top 5 are European micro-states. The United States ranks in at number 50, boasting a life expectancy of 78 years old.

At the bottom of the list is Angola, a country in southwestern Africa with a machete on its flag. The average life expectancy in Angola is almost 39 years old. At the other end of the spectrum is Monaco (pictured above). Monaco is a micro-state in Europe with an extremely high standard of living. The average person there lives to be 89 years old. The 50 year gap between these two countries represents the difference between yacht ownership and subsistence farming, and every other country falls somewhere in between. For the full list, check out the world fact book at cia.gov.

20. Bermuda – 80.71
19. Anguilla – 80.87 (at right)
18. Iceland80.90
17. Israel – 80.96
16. Switzerland – 81.07
15. Sweden – 81.07
14. Spain – 81.17
13. France – 81.19
12. Jersey81.38
11. Canada – 81.38
10. Italy81.779. Australia – 81.81
8. Hong Kong82.04
7. Singapore – 82.14
6. Guernsey82.16
5. Japan – 82.25
4. Andorra82.43
3. San Marino83.01
2. Macau – 84.41
1. Monaco – 89.73 (at top)

flickr images via needoptic and adomass

GadlingTV’s Travel Talk – Behind the Scenes of BBC’s ‘Life’ with Roger Munns!

GadlingTV’s Travel Talk, episode 19 – Click above to watch video after the jump

For Roger Munns, jumping in the ocean with 100 ton whales while they fight for the female is just another day at work; come with us as we go behind the scenes of BBC’s ‘Life’ series. Roger gives us the inside scoop on what it’s like to dive with whales, all while holding his breath and keeping the camera steady.

Click through to check out the interview and see some of the amazing footage he shot while capturing the never-before-seen Humpback Whale Heat Run for BBC’s ‘Life’.


If you have any questions or comments about Travel Talk, you can email us at talk AT gadling DOT com.

Subscribe via iTunes:
[iTunes] Subscribe to the Show directly in iTunes (M4V).
[RSS M4V] Add the Travel Talk feed (M4V) to your RSS aggregator and have it delivered automatically.

Links
Read more about Roger right here!
Check out BBC’s ‘Life’ series – just in time for Father’s Day!
Find out more about Humpback Whales & heat runs.
Want to see who else is behind the cameras? Check out award winning filming/photography company ScubaZoo.



Hosts: Aaron Murphy-Crews
Special Guests: Roger Munns

Produced, Edited, and Directed by: Stephen Greenwood, Aaron Murphy-Crews, Drew Mylrea

Google launches LIFE photo archive

One of the best ways to travel without leaving your home is through photography. Pictures have the ability to draw us into new cities, cultures, and traditions, allowing us to discover worlds that were once unbeknown to our eyes. And now thanks to Google we have a new way of traveling not only around the world, but through time as well.

On Tuesday the Google blog announced that the internet company is making a LIFE photo archive available on Google image search. LIFE made a name for itself in the history of photojournalism, capturing many of the world’s most important moments on film, but the really cool thing about this archive is that many of these images have never been published, meaning that we’re getting to discover ones that have, until now, been sitting in old archives in the form of slides, negatives, etchings and prints.Twenty percent of the collection is currently online, and when they’re done, there will be over 10 million images to search through.

What are some of the highlights of the collection? The Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination; The Mansell Collection from London; Dahlstrom glass plates of New York and environs from the 1880s; and the entire works left to the collection from LIFE photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gjon Mili, and Nina Leen. There are so many amazing pieces by some of the most influential photographers, it will be easy to spend hours searching the archive. And when you find one that really strikes your eye, you can even order a high-quality framed print of it.

You can access the collection here.

Eat amongst dead bodies in India, it’s lucky

“New Lucky Restaurant” may seem like the most inappropriate name for an over 50-year old restaurant in Ahmedabad (Gujarat) that is built in a cemetery. In fact, it’s probably the most appropriate.

Built over a centuries-old Muslim graveyard, the locals who go there consider eating there lucky, and the manager believes that their business rocks thanks to the presence of the dead that has led the once mere tea-stall to expand into a full-fledged restaurant.

Although every religion in India takes care of dead bodies differently (Hindus cremate, Muslims/Christians bury, Zoroastrians leave the body to be eaten by vultures), the whole concept of death is different because of the general belief of being reborn — the ‘your soul never dies’ analogy.

The dead and the their souls that become spirits are given a lot of importance in the subcontinent. They are listened to and respected under the pretext of them being “holy”, so to speak.

Digressing from the restaurant a bit, but here are a few examples of how spirits are interacted with in India: there are groups of people who go to common suicide spots and perform rituals to give the spirits looming around there salvation; they believe that unsatisfied souls are what encourage suicides. Also, my grand-mum used to leave a bowl of milk outside every full-moon night because she believed that my late grand-dad would come for it. It was never there in the morning and you dare not tell her that maybe the neighbor’s cat sapped it all up.

So, with that insight into an Indian belief, you can see how having a romantic candle-lit dinner at New Lucky Restaurant is anything but spooky.

Highest and Lowest Life Expectancies around the Globe (USA takes dismal 42nd place)

When I lived as an expat in Prague, I felt that I lived in a truly unhealthy environment. With all the cigarette smoke, fatty foods, beer drinking, and coal smoke that constantly surrounded me, I couldn’t wait to get my body back to healthy Los Angeles.

Well, as it turns out, America really isn’t all that much better. A recent study has revealed that people in a jaw-dropping 41 countries have higher life expectancies than those in the USA (and no, the Czech Republic is not one of them). This is quite a tumble from 20 years ago when America stood rather proudly at 11th place. Now, even people in countries like Jordan and Guam are living longer lives than most Americans.

A number of factors have naturally contributed towards this demise, with the greatest killer being obesity. Nearly 30% of American adults are considered overweight. Yikes.

So in case you are looking to extend the old ticker, you might want to click on the jump link below to check out the top ten countries with the highest life expectancies. And, of course, since we here at Gadling value the health of our readers, we’ve also included the bottom of the list as well so that you can be sure to avoid these countries.

LONGEST LIVED
• Andorra, 83.5 years
• Japan, 82.0 years
• Macau, 82.0 years
• San Marino, 81.5 years
• Singapore, 81.5 years
• Hong Kong, 81.4 years
• France, 80.4 years
• Australia, 80.3 years
• Sweden, 80.3 years
• Switzerland, 80.3 years
(#42, United States, 77.9 years)

SHORTEST LIVED
• Swaziland, 34.1 years
• Zambia, 36.6 years
• Angola, 36.7 years
• Liberia, 38.1 years
• Zimbabwe, 39.0 years
• Lesotho, 39.5 years
• Sierra Leone, 39.7 years
• Malawi, 40.9 years
• Mozambique, 41.4 years
• Afghanistan, 42.5 years