Posts Tagged ‘age’
“Long life is welcome, agreeable, pleasant, and hard to obtain in the world”*…
… maybe, as recent research from Saul Justin Newman explains, even harder than we thought…
The observation of individuals attaining remarkable ages, and their concentration into geographic sub-regions or ‘blue zones’, has generated considerable scientific interest. Proposed drivers of remarkable longevity include high vegetable intake, strong social connections, and genetic markers. Here, we reveal new predictors of remarkable longevity and ‘supercentenarian’ status. In the United States supercentenarian status is predicted by the absence of vital registration. In the UK, Italy, Japan, and France remarkable longevity is instead predicted by regional poverty, old-age poverty, material deprivation, low incomes, high crime rates, a remote region of birth, worse health, and fewer 90+ year old people. In addition, supercentenarian birthdates are concentrated on the first of the month and days divisible by five: patterns indicative of widespread fraud and error. As such, relative poverty and missing vital documents constitute unexpected predictors of centenarian and supercentenarian status, and support a primary role of fraud and error in generating remarkable human age records…
The paper in full: “Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraud,” at @biorxivpreprint.
(Image above: source)
* Buddha
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As we long for longevity, we might send healthy birthday greetings to William H. Welch; he was born on this date in 1850. A physician, pathologist, bacteriologist, and medical educator, He was one of the “Big Four” founding professors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, the first dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and the founder of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, the first school of public health in the country.
Welch revolutionized American medicine by demanding of its students a rigorous study of physical sciences and an active involvement in clinical duties and laboratory work. His students included Walter Reed, James Carroll and Simon Flexner.
“There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last”*…
Japan’s government will no longer reward its centenarian citizens with a silver sake dish worth ¥8,000 ($64), saying the growing number of long-lived Japanese are putting a strain on the country’s budget.
The Japan Times reports that the government will find a more frugal gift in time for the country’s annual celebration of the elderly on Sept. 15. Last year, the government spent ¥260 million ($2 million) on the program, which provided dishes for more than 29,000 centenarians. Japan expects as many as 38,000 more people to celebrate their 100th birthday in 2018…
More on longevity– and the prospect of a “demographic time bomb“– at “Japan has so many 100-year-old citizens that it can’t afford to give them presents anymore.”
* Robert Louis Stevenson
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As we settle in for the long haul, we might send birthday greetings to Abilene (Wrage) Spiehs; she was born on this date in 1898. When she died (on November 24, 2008), she was 110 years old– the oldest living Nebraskan at the time, and one of a select group of humans who lived to that age.
Age before beauty?…
From the oldest (Japan, 2,673 years old) to the youngest (South Sudan, which just turned 2), the countries of the world, mapped by their ages. The average of the 195 countries assessed: 158.78 years old.
(Click here for a larger interactive version of the map.)
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As we unfurl our flags, we might recall that it was on this date in 1796 that Cleveland was founded, when surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company laid out Connecticut’s Western Reserve into townships and a capital city they named “Cleaveland” after their leader, General Moses Cleaveland. Cleaveland oversaw the plan for the modern downtown area, centered on the Public Square, before returning home– never again to visit Ohio. The first settler in Cleaveland was Lorenzo Carter, who built a cabin on the banks of the Cuyahoga River; the Village of Cleaveland was incorporated on December 23, 1814.
The spelling of the municipality’s name was changed to the now-familiar “Cleveland” in 1831. The most widely-accepted explanation is that The Cleveland Advertiser, an early city newspaper shortened the name to fit on newspaper’s masthead; another version has it that it was the product of a surveyor’s mistake. In any case, of course, the more streamlined spelling stuck.
“If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.”*
NPR takes a look at a striking dimension of the generation gap:
A new survey from the Pew Research Center finds wide gaps in how different generations view politics. Older voters are more conservative, more angry at the government and less hopeful about the future of the country. Younger voters lean left, wish the government played a greater role in their lives and believe the nation’s best days are yet to come. If the “silent generation” controlled the country, Mitt Romney would win the election next year. If millennials had their way, President Obama would win a second term — and his health care law would be expanded. Boomers and Gen Xers fall in between these extremes, but seem to grow more conservative with age.
See the full– and fascinating– infographic at “How Age Shapes Political Outlook.”
And for an interestingly (and chillingly) resonant perspective on the stock market, see this report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco… given the employment prospects– and thus, likely investment activity– of (too) many Millennials, many of those “Silents” and “Boomers” looking to depend on their investments, and get government out of healthcare and retirement, may now have an answer to the question “when can I plan to retire?” Never.
* routinely, but incorrectly, attributed to Winston Churchill– who was, in fact, a Conservative at 15 and a Liberal at 35.
As we muse, with Churchill, that we’re only as old as we feel, we might recall that it was on this date in 1861 that Jefferson Davis was elected to a six-year term as President of the Confederate States of America. In the event, re-election was not an issue.
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