Yeah, I'm not offhand aware of a method to determine the age of living tissue like that, and certainly nothing that's so granular as to detect the really short lifespan of a human being. It'd be hard, I imagine, for any test like C-14 to tell if she was 100, 120, or 157. I wonder if there are any other things that can be measured, such as some kind of buildup of chemicals in the body. Maybe there's a hormone or compound in the local environment that's built up in her body over the years, and they can estimate age by how much of that substance is stored in her celss? Or is there some type of brain scan to chart neurons or something (maybe we form more links in the neurons with age, and they can estimate how long her brain's been active)? Unfortunately all the dating methods I'm aware of work on dead things, only pinpoint age to within decades or centuries, or require analyzing things like ice cores.
Any biologists/biochemists/doctors on the list?! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mr. Worf" <hellomahog...@gmail.com> To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, July 12, 2010 6:05:50 PM Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Census discovers 157-year-old woman Good question. I think that they will try and figure out her age if and when she is gone. She has to be pretty old though, her daughter is 108! On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Keith Johnson < keithbjohn...@comcast.net > wrote: Are there any dating methods such as the famous Carbon-14 dating that would pinpoint age that's so relatively young? Typically archaelogists and scientists are dating things that are hundreds, thousands, even millions of years old, so an accuracy of a few decades isn't needed. I was wondering if something like C-14 dating would work on her. Of course, they'd have to remove a bit of bone and let it "die" to do that test, which ain't cool! Just wondered if there are any other dating methods that could be done if a small amount of her body tissue was removed and analyzed? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mr. Worf" < hellomahog...@gmail.com > To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, July 12, 2010 4:22:21 PM Subject: [scifinoir2] Census discovers 157-year-old woman Census discovers 157-year-old woman June 08, 2010 09:28:55 AM Bookmark and ShareEstimates of the size and composition of Indonesia's booming population may remain just that despite an ongoing census, if the "discovery" of a 157-year-old woman is anything to go by. Census officials have said they believe the woman's claims to have been born in 1853, when Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata debuted in Venice, the Crimean War erupted and San Francisco got its first street signs at intersections. "There's no authentic data to prove her age but judging from her statements and the age of her adopted daughter, who's now 108 years old, it's difficult to doubt it," statistics bureau official Jhonny Sardjono said. The only person verified to have lived past 120 years of age was Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122. South Sumatran villager Turinah would be fully 25 years older than Calment when she died, according to officials. Even more incredible, she still works around the house and has smoked clove cigarettes all her life, Mr Sardjono said. "Despite her age she still has an incredible memory, clear sight and has no hearing problems. She speaks Dutch quite fluently," he added. Indonesia was a Dutch colony for hundreds of years until 1945. He said Turinah burnt all her identification documents to avoid being linked to an alleged communist coup in 1965. Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country with a population of about 240 million people. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said the census results will be important for future governance. http://www.fijilive.com/news/2010/06/08/26184.Fijilive -- Celebrating 10 years of bringing diversity to perversity! Mahogany at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahogany_pleasures_of_darkness/ -- Celebrating 10 years of bringing diversity to perversity! Mahogany at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahogany_pleasures_of_darkness/
