Speak and Write like The Economist: Говори и пиши как The Eсonomist

She smoked until the age of 117. Alexander Imich, who was the oldest living man (111) until he died in June, did not have a secret. Asked how he lived so long, he replied, "I don't know, I simply didn't die earlier."

Predictions without dates are easy. All trees fall; it is spotting the diseased ones that is trick.

In 1847 Ignac Semmelweis pioneered mother-friendly childbirth, insisting that doctors should wash their hands between autopsy and delivery rooms.

Anti-corruption campaigners would have nothing to cheer if the cure ended up being more harmful than the disease.

Changing a face can change nothing, but facing a change can change everything.

People around the world produce an estimated 6.4 trillion litres of urine every year.

America's hospitals are the most expensive part of the world's most expensive health system. They accounted for $851 billion, or 31 %, of American health spending in 2011. If they were a country, they would be the world's 16th-largest economy.

He learned about the "umbles": as hypothermia sets in you mumble, fumble, grumble, stumble, then finally tumble. Without help you die.

Asked the secret of his youthfulness, Benito Martinez Abrogan, 120, said he had never cheated a man or said bad things of other people.

Patriotism requires Medicare for all. Somehow, neither has caught on.

Patriotism requires Medicare for all. Somehow, neither has caught on.

Puffing 15–24 cigarettes a day, on average, robs a smoker older than 35 of five hours of life each and every day.

But 20 minutes of moderate exercise a day earns almost an hour back. Alcohol wears a Janus face: the first drink of the day adds about 30 minutes per day to one's life expectancy, but each subsequent one cuts it back by 15 minutes.

The Amish in America spurn modern medicine, along with almost everything else invented since the 17th century.

The UN reckons that by 2100 the planet's population will be rising past 10.

9 billion, and be much older. The median age will go up from 29 to 41, and around 28 % will be over 60. A few may even remember this article.

ERC, a research firm, says consumption per person was 999 cigarettes a year in 1990 and only 882 in 2012. Yet the appetite for cigarettes continues to rise. Smokers lit up 5.9 trillion times last year compared with 5.1 trillion in 1990. ERC tracks 123 countries, home to about 99 % of smokers.