Richard Collins: Live fast and die young or last up to 500 years

Take no risks, ‘do all the right things’, and you’ll lead a comfortable, but dull, existence. ‘Living dangerously’, on the other hand, yields ‘highs’ of excitement usually followed, alas, by pain and regret. A paper appearing in Nature Ecology & Evolution claims that similar trade-offs govern the lives of animals. Its lead author is Kevin Healy of Trinity College Dublin and NUI Galway.

On the Origin of Species or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life is the full title of Darwin’s most notorious book. Humans choose their lifestyles in the struggle for life but animals can’t; they are at the mercy of blind forces.