Death is such a pain. There's no opt-out, and decomposing is a hassle.

Not for long, though. According to scientist Dr. Ian Pearson, immortality may be achieved by as early as 2050... For some of us.

The past few decades have brought phenomenal developments in medical science that significantly improve our chances of living longer, healthier lives. But could we take it even further? Experts are debating just how possible it might be in the near future to extend life indefinitely. Some argue that it's impossible to keep a body going forever; others contend that it's only a matter of time before science makes death a thing of the past.

Pearson expects we'll see the beginnings of immortality within the next few decades, but (initially, at least) it will be far too expensive for the masses:

"By 2050, it will only really be for the rich and famous. Most people on middle-class incomes and reasonable working-class incomes can probably afford this in the 2060s. So anyone 90 or under by 2060. If you were born sometime in 1970 onwards, that would make you 48 this year, so anybody under 50 has got a good chance of it, and anyone under 40 almost definitely will have access to this."

This all sounds a bit too much like the recent Netflix show Altered Carbon, in which the world's wealthy elite are able to enjoy endless lifetimes of fun while the poorer among society only get a relatively short span of time on Earth.

Archaeologists exploring the word's biggest flooded cave in Mexico have discovered ancient human remains at least 9,000 years old and the bones of animals who roamed the earth during the last Ice Age.

A group of divers recently connected two underwater caverns in eastern Mexico to reveal what is believed to be the biggest flooded cave on the planet, a discovery that could help shed new light on the ancient Maya civilization.

The Yucatan peninsula is studded with monumental relics of the Maya people, whose cities drew upon an extensive network of sinkholes linked to subterranean waters known as cenotes.

Researchers say they found 248 cenotes at the 347-km (216-mile) cave system known as Sac Actun, near the beach resort of Tulum. Of the 200 archaeological sites they have discovered there, around 140 are Mayan.

Sound recording equipment is getting better all the time. Researchers from Boise State University, Stanford University, and Chile's University of Concepcion have just found a new, very specific application for low-frequency microphones, however, potentially helping to predict the eruption of certain volcanoes around the world.

Their technology involves monitoring inaudible low frequencies, called infrasound, which are produced by a type of active volcano such as the in southern Chile.

"Many volcanoes produce energetic infrasound — not ultrasound — which is low-frequency sound that travels long distances through the atmosphere and can be recorded with specialized microphophones," Jeffrey Johnson, an associate professor of geophysics at Boise State, told Digital Trends. "Although humans can't perceive infrasound, it can be incredibly energetic."

I can look into your eyes and see straight to your heart.

It may sound like a sappy sentiment from a Hallmark card. Essentially though, that's what researchers at Google did in applying artificial intelligence to predict something deadly serious: the likelihood that a patient will suffer a heart attack or stroke. The researchers made these determinations by examining images of the patient's retina.

Google, which is presenting its findings Monday in Nature Biomedical Engineering, an online medical journal, says that such a method is as accurate as predicting cardiovascular disease through more invasive measures that involve sticking a needle in a patient's arm.

At the same time, Google cautions that more research needs to be done.

A single volcano can change the world's atmosphere, even permanently, depending on the intensity of the volcanic eruption, a pollution expert said.

According to Mylene Cayetano, PhD, the head of the Environmental Pollution Studies Laboratory of the Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology at University of the Philippines Diliman, on top of being a fiery spectacle of nature, volcanoes are a force to be reckoned with.

"A single volcano has the ability to completely change the world's entire atmosphere, maybe even permanently," Cayetano said in statement. Cayetano issued the statement in light of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) statement that Mayon's restiveness is still far from the peak of explosion, which may come in the coming weks.

According to Cayetano, Southeast Asia is one of the most geologically active regions, of the world, if not the most, and had been home to the most destructive and powerful volcanic eruptions in history. Mayon, one of the world's renowned volcanoes because of its almost-perfect conical shape, is the most active volcano in the Philippines.

A wave of pioneers is poised to scoop up treasure from the deep sea. But was this ocean mining boom sparked by a 1970s CIA plot?

In the summer of 1974, a large and highly unusual ship set sail from Long Beach in California.

It was heading for the middle of the Pacific where its owners boasted it would herald a revolutionary new industry beneath the waves.

Equipped with a towering rig and the latest in drilling gear, the vessel was designed to reach down through the deep, dark waters to a source of incredible wealth lying on the ocean floor.

It was billed as the boldest step so far in a long-held dream of opening a new frontier in mining, one that would see valuable metals extracted from the rocks of the seabed.

But amid all the excited public relations, there was one small hitch - the whole expedition was a lie.

This was a Cold War deception on a staggering scale, but one which also left a legacy that has profound implications nearly half a century later.

Vijendra K. Singh, Ph.D., was a research associate professor at Utah State University when he contributed this article. He has over 20 years of experience in neurobiology and immunology research, beginning at the Children's Hospital in Vancouver. He is considered a pioneer in his field and an international authority on autoimmunity and autism. He serves on the scientific board of the Autism Autoimmunity Project, New Jersey.

Dr. Singh, how did your interest in immune response and the nervous system develop?

From the beginning, my career has been devoted to the study of the nervous system. Initially, I was focusing on neurochemistry - the biochemistry of the nervous system. I was interested in specific proteins and the neuronal pathways that are found in the brain; proteins play important roles in the cellular signaling that takes place between different neurons and other cells in the brain. I also began studying immunology and was fascinated by the fact that there are chemical messengers in immune system function as well.

Then, about 20 years ago, I was struck by an article I read on the mind-body relationship that proposed a biological basis for this connection. I began to pay attention to how neurotransmitters and neuropeptides interact with other body organs, and I became interested specifically in the interaction between the nervous system and the immune system. Some neuropeptides and neurotransmitters have a clear influence on the immune response. The fact that central nervous system diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) had been heavily investigated as an immune disorder heightened my interest. I decided to focus on the immunology of the nervous system in health and in disease. This is a very important component of the mind-body relationship.

As you know, medical history shows us that an understanding of the mind-body relationship existed in ancient times. Old literature, in fact, documents that some of this understanding came from my homeland of India. All these factors have shaped my current area of research-which is the autoimmune response in autism.

Researchers aboard an Australian ship undertaking pioneering work in the Southern Ocean have found the "first hint" of a shift in a decades-long trend towards fresher, less dense water off Antarctica.

Teams of scientists on the RV Investigator have been profiling the salinity and temperature of water between Tasmania and Antarctica at 108 locations.

They also released the first batch of deep Argot floats to measure conditions as deep as 4000 metres.

But it is the early analysis of data on salinity in the so-called bottom waters near the seabed that may stir international debate.

"Every time we've measured since the 1970s, [bottom water's] been becoming lighter and fresher," Steve Rintoul, the voyage chief scientist, told Fairfax Media on Monday as the ship took its final ocean profile.

"We've got the first hint now that maybe things are shifting back to becoming saltier and denser in the deepest part of the ocean," said Dr Rintoul, who is a senior researcher at CSIRO and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems (ACE) CRC.

Dr Rintoul said "this increase in salinity still brings levels to nowhere near where they were in the 1970s ... nor even into the 1990s". The trend of warming of those waters has not changed.

Eugenio Coccia, one of the scientists who have confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, talked to Sputnik about his research and the work of the international scientific community.

Italian professor Eugenio Coccia - president of the Gran Sasso Science Institute and founder of the institute's Center for Advanced Studies - is also a member of LIGO-Virgo scientific collaboration group. He is one of the scientists who confirmed the existence of gravitational waves and has observed merging black holes and neutron stars.

Gravitational waves are often expressed as a 'ripple' in the fabric of space-time caused by some of the most violent and energetic processes in the known universe. Gravitational waves were predicted by Albert Einstein, but their existence has only been confirmed recently, after 50 years of experiments by the LIGO observatory in the US and the Virgo observatory in Italy.

On February 9th Coccie offered a lecture called Gravitational Waves: the Golden Age of Physics at the St. Petersburg Planetarium. Now, he speaks with Sputnik about his discovery.

Headphones are a standard sight in gyms and we've long known research shows listening to tunes can be a game-changer for your run or workout.

Back in 2012, Brunel University London's Costas Karageorghis likened music to a legal, performance-enhancing drug, cheating tiredness and sparking feel-good vibes.

But the precise brain mechanisms music triggers during exercise are less understood. That's because monitoring technology is easily tricked by body movements, so scientists couldn't know if the results would be the same outside the lab.

Now researchers have used portable electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring with interference shielding technology to measure three types of brainwaves during exercise. This lets them compare the brain's electrical feedback while exercising outdoors to music, a podcast, or no soundtrack at all.