Microlife: The unit of life

A microlife is thirty minutes of your life expectancy. You can use it up by chilling for 30 minutes or you could start to speed through them by smoking a few cigarettes or having a few drinks.

A simple way to bring difficult-to-grasp long-term, slow-burn risks into a unit that can motivate you and a handy way to compare risks.

Even better, you gain a microlife with 2-3 cups of coffee. Win!

Also see, micromort, the unit of death

Interesting? See Microlives: A lesson in risk taking, by Cambridge University Professor of risk David Spiegelhalter . Or see his 15 min TED talk: Motorbikes, Terrorism, Heart Attacks, Sausages: Professor David Spiegelhalter at TEDxOxbridge , or the full paper .