theSIGNAL SCIENCE
12 July 2026
"A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit."
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Science

Who Really Runs America? Hint: Check Their Age

A Yale scholar argues that longer lives have quietly handed America's wealth, jobs, and political power to the old — and the young are paying for it.

In 1880, the average American died before turning 45. Today, that same average sits comfortably at 79. That is, by almost any measure, one of the greatest victories in human history. So why does Yale Law professor Samuel Moyn think it might also be a problem?

Moyn's new book, *Gerontocracy in America*, opens with a deceptively simple question: what happens to a society when almost everyone lives long — and powerful — lives? His answer is unsettling. Older Americans, he argues, have quietly accumulated a disproportionate grip on nearly everything that matters: political offices, financial wealth, housing, and even jobs. The median age of members of Congress has crept past 60.

In some election campaigns, the average age of donors reaches 70. Workers aged 55 and over now make up nearly a quarter of the entire American workforce — a figure that was just 10% in 1990. The young, meanwhile, are left competing for what remains. This is not simply an American story.

Photo: Neon Wang / Unsplash
An empty legislative chamber echoes the debate over who holds power in an ageing democracy.
Discuss
  • How did average American life expectancy change between 1880 and today, and what caused this shift?
  • What does Moyn mean by the term 'gerontocracy', and what evidence does he use to support it?
  • Why might a high average donor age of 70 in an election campaign be a problem for democracy?
Science

Tiny discs wear immune cells' disguise

Imagine wrapping a weapon in your enemy's own skin. That is essentially what engineers at UC San Diego have done — they coated biodegradable nanodiscs with membranes stripped from human macrophages, the white blood cells that hunt fungi naturally. Because the discs carry real macrophage proteins, they recognise Candida albicans, punch holes in its outer membrane, and trick the immune system into ignoring them. In infected mice, the nanodiscs slashed fungal loads across major organs and lifted survival rates dramatically.…
  • Could fungi eventually evolve to resist weapons built from our own immune cells?
∞
I am interested in, let us say, the dark side of that — the unexpected consequences of having longer lives.
Samuel Moyn, Kent Professor of Law and History, Yale Law School
Science

A Still Device That Fakes a Black Hole

In 1969, Roger Penrose described something almost magical: a spinning black hole that could give energy away. A wave entering its swirling ergosphere, he argued, could actually leave stronger than it arrived. Now, researchers at CUNY's Advanced Science Research Center have built a radio-frequency device that mimics this effect — without spinning at all. By modulating the device's properties in space and time, they engineered what they call "synthetic rotation," achieving speeds that no mechanical system could ever reach. The result, published in *Nature*, is a new form of broadband wave amplification.…
  • Could synthetic rotation eventually help us harvest energy the way black holes do?
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theSIGNAL IN THE LAB
1VOCABULARY
disproportionateergosphere
biodegradablegerontocracyamplification
prescriptionsmodulating
2GRAMMAR FOCUS
Relative clauses — defining vs non-defining with commas
A defining relative clause identifies which person or thing is meant and uses no commas (e.g. 'the book that changed everything'). A non-defining relative clause adds extra information about something already identified and is separated by commas (e.g. 'Samuel Moyn, who teaches at Yale, argues...').
who · which · that · where · whose · whom
  1. Samuel Moyn, teaches at Yale Law School, argues that older Americans have accumulated a disproportionate grip on political power.
  2. The nanodiscs are coated with membranes are stripped from human macrophages.
  3. Roger Penrose described an ergosphere, is the swirling region surrounding a spinning black hole.
  4. Workers aged 55 and over now make up a quarter of the workforce, a figure has more than doubled since 1990.
  5. The CUNY researchers built a device mimics the energy-amplifying effect of a spinning black hole.
  6. Candida albicans, resistance to antifungal drugs is growing, was targeted by the nanodisc treatment in infected mice.
3DEPENDENT PREPOSITIONS
Complete each phrase with the correct preposition. All from today's articles.
  1. competing ___ what remains
  2. a bias ___ the old
  3. locked ___ of the rooms where decisions are made
  4. coated ___ membranes stripped from macrophages
  5. built ___ the body's own toolkit
4CRITICAL THINKING
Moyn argues that the United States has developed a 'structural bias' toward older citizens through tax law, weak elder-care systems, and the absence of mandatory retirement. If these structures were dismantled, what unintended consequences might follow for older people who lack savings or family support — and does that change how you assess his argument?
5CREATIVE · HEADLINES
Write a headline for the top story in each of the following styles. One line each, no explanation:
  • TABLOID NEWSPAPER
  • LUXURY MAGAZINE
  • ACTIVIST BLOG
6WRITING
Moyn's prescriptions — mandatory voting, age-related tax reform, socialised elder care — are described as 'deliberately provocative.' Choose one proposal and argue either that it is a practical solution or an overreach, using evidence from the article and your own reasoning.
7DEGREES OF EXTREMITY
Complete each ladder from mild to strong.
  • older people have some influence in politics→→
  • the book raises a few doubts→→
  • the number of older workers has risen→→
  • fungi can adjust to some treatments→→
  • the nanodiscs reduced fungal levels somewhat→→
  • the device moves its properties slightly→→
8SPEAKING
  1. Should elder care be socialised? Who benefits most?
  2. Which of Moyn's prescriptions do you find most controversial, and why?
  3. Can a biodegradable weapon built from immune cells raise ethical concerns?
  4. What does 'synthetic rotation' suggest about how we define physical laws?