Fl 311 2016-2021: Fill & Download for Free

“In life, one sometimes makes bad deals."(Jeanne / Yvonne Calment)“She was always thirty years younger than her age.”(Dr Victor Lèbre - Jeanne / Yvonne Calment’s doctor)Tax evasion is common. Living into one’s thirteenth decade is vanishingly rare. A convergence of evidence dug up by Russian researchers, notably gerontologist Valery Novoselov and mathematician Nikolay Zak (cf. “Jeanne Calment: the secret of longevity”), suggests that “La doyenne de l'humanité”, who died at an alleged age of 122 years 164 days, was actually Jeanne Calment’s 99 year-old daughter, Yvonne. Officially, Yvonne died in 1934. Jeanne Calment’s husband would have been liable for an inheritance tax of up to 38% on his wife’s half of the business if his spouse rather than daughter died. For a synopsis of the photographic evidence, see Yuri Deigin’s Jeanne 101.Financial fortune was to smile again. Jeanne/Yvonne Calment had no living descendants. She milked a credulous lawyer, André-François Raffray, for thirty years after concluding a viager deal while nominally in her nineties (cf. A 120-Year Lease on Life Outlasts Apartment Heir). Jeanne/Yvonne never worked. She enjoyed life to the full. In later years, her record-breaking status attracted progressively greater attention, a celebrity which Jeanne/Yvonne visibly relished: “I waited 115 years to be famous, so I'm going to enjoy it." Even as her memory began to fail, Jeanne/Yvonne retained flashes of her keen sense of humour, especially at the expense of actuaries, demographers and journalists. When one departing visitor expressed doubt whether he'd be able to visit her next year, she retorted, "I don't see why not! You don't look so bad to me." On her nominal 116th birthday, Jeanne/Yvonne drily observed, “I think I’ll probably die laughing.” However, in 1994, when the city of Arles requested family photos and documentation for their archives, any incriminating evidence was burned by a cousin of her putative grandson/son, her heiress Josette Bigonnet and the wife of her executor – reportedly on Jeanne/Yvonne’s instructions. Therefore, no photographs survive of Madame Calment between the notional ages of 60 to 110. If Jeanne/Yvonne's identity were challenged, then Raffray’s children and grandchildren would have a claim on her estate. Only DNA evidence will settle the issue. After a "rather tense" meeting of the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) in Paris on 23 January 2019, the INED agreed exhumation was needed. Alas, individual initiative in testing the Calment family DNA, whether motivated by forensic sleuthing or antiaging research, would count as grave desecration under French law.Alternatives to exhumation and DNA testing may be considered. The Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (Inserm) the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, report that researchers have around fifteen hours of unaired recordings of Madame Calment “…in the form of some thirty interviews conducted between 1992 and 1995. Before allowing public access, it must be ensured that they do not or no longer contain any information of a private or medical nature." None of the interviews were conducted as interrogations of someone suspected of usurping her mother’s identity. Careful review of the tapes by experts with this hypothesis in mind may yield sufficient clues effectively to close the case. Realistically, exhumation is legally unlikely for the foreseeable future.Has any human being ever lived to be 120 years old?I don’t know.Let’s leave aside here the thorny metaphysics of personal identity. Throughout history, estimates of the maximum human lifespan have been inflated by vanity, ignorance and deception, often of Biblical proportions (cf. Li Ching-Yuen (1667(?) - 1933)). The cases of several “fully verified” supercentenarians, supposedly certified to modern standards, e.g. Lucy Hannah, do not withstand scientific scrutiny. For decades, Guinness was the undisputed authority on titleholders for The World’s Oldest Person. But at least twice (the Joubert and Izumi cases), and probably three times, Guinness has conflated identities and skewed longevity research accordingly. In the case of Jeanne/Yvonne Calment, the Washington Post smelt a Russian conspiracy theory. Most of the French press were indignant that the memory of a national icon was being defamed: Arles défend sa légendaire centenaire Jeanne Calment: ‘On n’a aucun doute!’ A Facebook group was set up to defend her good name. “Si c'était sa fille, c'était une menteuse exceptionnelle”, mused one of the doctors who originally validated her case in the wake of the Russian bombshell. Yet especially when pensions, taxes, or other financial interests are involved, Russian demographers tend to be more cynical than their otherworldly Western counterparts.What about the real statistical outlier, Sarah Knauss, who died aged 119 years 97 days? No one else beside Knauss has convincingly been shown to have had an authentic 118th birthday, let alone 119. Despite the absence of a birth certificate, the Sarah Knauss case is (as far as I can judge) quite solid. Her identity is not in question. The age of her children and grandchildren tallies too. Harvard has Knauss’s DNA, which should be useful for antiaging researchers. Yet for the foreseeable future, anyone who wants to celebrate their 120th birthday – and witness our glorious posthuman future – might do well to consider cryothanasia or cryonics.______________________________________________________________THE WORLD’S OLDEST FULLY-AUTHENTICATED SUPERCENTENARIANS1) 119 years, 097 days : Sarah Knauss (U.S. (PA)) Sept. 24, 1880 - Dec. 30, 1999.2) 118 years, + days : Kane Tanaka (Japan) Jan. 02, 1903 - (fl. 2021)3) 117 years, 260 days : Nabi Tajima (Japan) Aug 04, 1900 - Apr. 21, 2018.4) 117 years, 230 days : Marie-Louise Meilleur (Canada (QUE)) Aug. 29, 1880 - Apr. 16, 1998.5) 117 years, 189 days : Violet Brown (Jamaica) Mar. 10, 1900 - Sept. 15, 2017.6) 117 years, 137 days : Emma Morano (Italy) Nov. 29, 1899 - Apr. 15, 2017.7) 117 years, 81 days : Chiyo Miyako (Japan) May 02, 1901 - July 22, 2018.8) 117 years, 27 days : Misao Okawa (Japan) Mar. 05, 1898 - Apr. 01, 2015.9) 116 years, 347 days : Maria Esther Capovilla (Ecuador) Sept. 14, 1889 - Aug. 27, 2006.10) 116 years, 311 days : Susannah Mushatt Jones (U.S. (AL)) July 6, 1899 - May 12, 2016._______________________________________________________________