THERE’S a saying in Yorkshire: “There’s nowt for getting old”. This northern English pessimism found support in the 1 December 1960 issue of New Scientist, where we discussed how automation could ease the lives of older workers by augmenting their weakening muscles with machine power. However, we pointed out that while arm strength could be compensated for, mental ability could not. Older workers, we said, may have “some failing in short-term memory, or a slowing down of reactions under stress… or a tendency to relapse into day dreaming or other irrelevant trains of thought.” Reading this in the present…
