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Jasper Doest

A forest elephant reaches for the fruit of a Detarium macrocarpum tree in Gabon’s Lopé National Park. Fruit is the most nutritious part of the animal’s diet. Elephants help trees such as this one spread by digesting the fruit, which makes the seeds germinate faster. The photograph was published in May 2019.

A forest elephant tries to defend itself after it was hit by a train in Gabon’s Lopé National Park. Park officials decided the animal was too severely wounded to be saved, and after it was killed, the meat was distributed to local people. A changing climate—warmer nights and less rainfall—may be reducing food options for forest elephants, as a story in the May 2022 issue reported.

Aldo Calabrese, 83, shakes fruit from a tree as his wife, Nazzarena Murace, 75, catches them in her dress. Locals grow much of their own produce.

Maria Rosa Tranquilla, 93, poses for a portrait with her six-month-old great-granddaughter, Kiara. Children born today in prosperous countries are likely to live into their nineties.

The village of Stilo in the Calabria region of southern Italy. There are about 20,000 centenarians in Italy and this region has the highest concentration.

Domenico Calisti, 59, visits nutritionist Antonella Pellegrino and undergoes a health check as part of Valter Longo’s fasting-mimicking diet clinical trial in Varapodio.

Cosmano has pasta for lunch. She has eaten vegetables almost exclusively from her own garden her entire life—and she eats no red meat.

“Don’t eat too much,” says Grazia Cosmano, 102, and stick to fruits and vegetables. “Keep it as simple as possible.” That’s how Cosmano became one of an unusual concentration of centenarians in Italy’s Calabria region, says biochemist Valter Longo.

This example of a five-day diet mimicking a fast would be taken no more than four times over the course of a year. Biochemist Valter Longo of the University of Southern California created the diet, which consists of a combination of nut-based or chocolate-crisp bars; spearmint or hibiscus tea; an algal oil capsule; vegetable soup; a multivitamin and mineral supplement; almond-and-kale crackers; olives; and a glycerol drink.

Teun Toebes (centre) chats with residents of a nursing home for adults with dementia in Utrecht in the Netherlands. The 23-year-old stayed there for more than two years, living for free in exchange for interacting with the residents. “I believe that everyone has the right to a beautiful, equal, and inclusive society,” he says.