A darkly comedic journey into the science of aging—where ethics are irrelevant, the studies are a sales pitch, and the “world's oldest living people” all turn out to be dead.
Our morbid fascination with death and dying has created an opening for all manner of skullduggery in the science of aging—an area of study that Morbid reveals to be rife with misleading claims, mistaken assumptions, and outright chicanery. The world’s oldest man is a fake, Blue Zones are debunked, and five decades of research on human longevity is moot. What begins with a petition to exhume a famous corpse descends into amusing, if edifying, chaos as Saul Justin Newman sets out to discover what’s rotten and what’s real in the science of dying.
Unraveling an immense scientific scandal, the author finds a billionaire wrapped up in a scheme to tap the blood of Texas teenagers, the whole field of aging awash in dubious money—and himself somehow accused of spying for Russia by a CIA operative. But under the shocking absurdities lurk deadly serious questions about how people age, how long they live, and why. Newman addresses these questions with genuine curiosity and scientific rigor, contributing mathematical evidence and evolutionary insights into the mystery and mechanics of why we age and why we die.
Included in Publishers Weekly's Spring 2026 Fiction & Nonfiction Preview
ENDORSEMENTS
“Saul Justin Newman has a deliciously wicked wit and an addictively original writing style, which serve him (and readers!) well in taking bullshit science to the mat.” —Mary Roach, author of Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
“Newman debunks myths about longevity without a miss, and I’m left daring who to trust. I loved it.” —Dame Sue Black, author of All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes and Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind
“Whether you’re chasing arcane ingredients in Blue Zone cookbooks or practicing the secret ‘power nine’ list of behaviors, Saul Justin Newman is here to disprove the reams of bogus longevity research loose in the world these days. Morbid’s brilliant combination of comedy and rigorous exposé make this the liveliest science title to appear in many a day.” —Pope Brock, author of Another Fine Mess: Life on Tomorrow’s Moon: Essays and Charlatan: America’s Most Notorious Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam
Saul Justin Newman is an interdisciplinary senior research fellow at the University of Oxford Institute of Population Ageing and University College London’s Center for Longitudinal Studies.
A darkly comedic journey into the science of aging—where ethics are irrelevant, the studies are a sales pitch, and the “world's oldest living people” all turn out to be dead.
Our morbid fascination with death and dying has created an opening for all manner of skullduggery in the science of aging—an area of study that Morbid reveals to be rife with misleading claims, mistaken assumptions, and outright chicanery. The world’s oldest man is a fake, Blue Zones are debunked, and five decades of research on human longevity is moot. What begins with a petition to exhume a famous corpse descends into amusing, if edifying, chaos as Saul Justin Newman sets out to discover what’s rotten and what’s real in the science of dying.
Unraveling an immense scientific scandal, the author finds a billionaire wrapped up in a scheme to tap the blood of Texas teenagers, the whole field of aging awash in dubious money—and himself somehow accused of spying for Russia by a CIA operative. But under the shocking absurdities lurk deadly serious questions about how people age, how long they live, and why. Newman addresses these questions with genuine curiosity and scientific rigor, contributing mathematical evidence and evolutionary insights into the mystery and mechanics of why we age and why we die.
Praise
Included in Publishers Weekly's Spring 2026 Fiction & Nonfiction Preview
ENDORSEMENTS
“Saul Justin Newman has a deliciously wicked wit and an addictively original writing style, which serve him (and readers!) well in taking bullshit science to the mat.” —Mary Roach, author of Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
“Newman debunks myths about longevity without a miss, and I’m left daring who to trust. I loved it.” —Dame Sue Black, author of All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes and Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind
“Whether you’re chasing arcane ingredients in Blue Zone cookbooks or practicing the secret ‘power nine’ list of behaviors, Saul Justin Newman is here to disprove the reams of bogus longevity research loose in the world these days. Morbid’s brilliant combination of comedy and rigorous exposé make this the liveliest science title to appear in many a day.” —Pope Brock, author of Another Fine Mess: Life on Tomorrow’s Moon: Essays and Charlatan: America’s Most Notorious Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam
Author
Saul Justin Newman is an interdisciplinary senior research fellow at the University of Oxford Institute of Population Ageing and University College London’s Center for Longitudinal Studies.
