Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Why do the oldest of the oldest then, promptly, die?

Jeanne Calment at age 121 in 1996, the oldest ...
Jeanne Calment at age 121 in 1996, the oldest person ever when she died at the age of 122 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
From fivethirtyeight.com, the stats-about-everything site, an answer, perhaps, to a question raised by the always-thoughtful blog Cotton Boll Conspiracy:
Want to know what the kiss of death- literally- is? Being named the world's oldest person. 
Such recognition brings with it a guarantee that within a short period, months often, the honoree will shortly shuffle off this mortal coil.
According to fivethirtyeight, more and more people can be documented as living to see the last laps of the human race, but there seems to be a ceiling that virtually all then hit. As a result, the honor of reaching the top of the age curve is,increasingly, an honor savored only for days:


Waldo's bio of the woman who made it the longest to the oldest, is here.

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