Madeleine Finlay speaks to Dr Saul Newman, an interdisciplinary researcher at University College London and the University of Oxford, who has just won an Ig Nobel prize – given to scientific research that ‘first makes people laugh, and then makes them think’ – for his work showing that many claims of people living extraordinarily long lives come from places with short lifespans, no birth certificates, and where clerical errors and pension fraud abound

Study after study seems to suggest drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy could have all sorts of health benefits, leading some scientists to hail them a breakthrough that could transform many chronic diseases of ageing. Nicola Davis tells Madeleine Finlay what is known so far