Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer

Advertising agencies employ behavioral scientists to use psychology to persuade people to make healthy lifestyle choices. They've discovered key insights into how the human mind works when faced with a call to action. Behavioral scientists used a universal human trait — fear of shame or social rejection — to encourage workers at a food factory to improve their hand washing habits.

Florence Nightingale hypothesizes that poor hygiene causes disease, and the data confirms it. In an ingenious move, she creates a colorful rose diagram to catch the attention of the general public so that they pay heed to her findings. Her diagram was fundamental in persuading people to change their hygiene habits.

Alexander Fleming's untidy desk becomes the key to a major scientific breakthrough when a particle of bacteria from his laboratory floats onto a petri dish on a desk in his study. This accident in a petri dish leads to his discovery that naturally-occurring mold could be a bacteria killer, setting the stage for the invention of penicillin further down the line.

Gertrude Elion and George Hitchings were a drug-making dream team. They built highly efficient, targeted synthetic drugs to perform specific tasks. Elion and her team built a new antiviral drug in the 1970s to treat herpes, ushering in a new age of medicine and paving the way for designer drugs that could treat a huge range of illnesses.

Dr. Vanessa Apea researched the impact of COVID-19 on different ethnicities in London. She found that Black and Asian ethnicities had a greater risk of death despite being a younger and fitter population due to environmental, rather than biological, factors.

By collecting data from children's teeth, Dr. Herbert Needleman was able to verify the dangers of lead poisoning. The data was clear — exposure to even low levels of lead builds up over time and harms the long-term health of children. However, the lead industry tried to discredit Needleman's finding by targeting his data.