Indonesian census discovers 157-year-old woman | Hacker News Reader

Indonesian census discovers 157-year-old woman

news.com.au

24 pointskschua14 comments

Is there a method for proving biologically that this woman is 157 years old?

I'd like to see that, too. I'm skeptical about this -- especially the part where she burned her identity documents to avoid being linked to a Communist coup that occurred when she was 102. Everyone knows that little old ladies are not to be trifled with, but this is going a little far.

The communist party in indonesia at the time had a huge women's front. They were an essential piece of the politics at the time.

EDIT: and post-1965 events, being a communist was an automatic death mark.

  EDIT: and post-1965 events, being a communist was an automatic death mark.

You can thank the CIA for that, I'm pretty sure.

Carbon-14? /jk

No. Whatever markers we have for aging, even if they were accurate, wouldn't be validated for someone that old, because we've never seen one.

You can prove she isn't 157 years old by checking her pulse.

While unlikely, I don't find it completely implausible that there are some people that live on the extreme edges of mortality charts. Out of the billions of people on earth, wouldn't statistics say that one out of a few billion should probably live an improbably long lifetime? Am I just thinking about this the wrong way?

wikipedia says that out of the billions there were only 26 who verifiably reached the age of 115 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longevity_claims

The easiest way (used by Russian villagers claiming to be >120) is to use your grandfather's birth certificate.

Russian villagers claimed to be older to skip military service (which was bad for farmers, as the sons had to serve for a long time), don't know how it would make sense for an Indonesian woman.

I believe she is going to join people on this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longevity_myths

"157-year-old Indonesian woman"

"Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, died at the age of 122."

"Turinah would be fully 25 years older than Calment when she died, according to officials."

so according to officials 122+25=157 or am I missing some detail ?

I wonder if there is a blue zone there.

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