In US, world's oldest person celebrates 115th birthday

August 27, 2011 in Health

Bess Cooper celebrated her 115th birthday as the world's oldest person in Monroe, Georgia, Friday, though there was no Elvis impersonator at the party like there was last year, reported local media.

A researcher from Guinness Book of World Records was on hand at Cooper's birthday party to deliver the Tennessee native her second plaque that certifies her as the oldest person on the planet.

"We thought one was enough," her son, Sidney Cooper, 76, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a daily newspaper based in the southern US city of Atlanta, Georgia.

"She still remembers things and thinks clearly and talks," added Cooper. "But she has her good days and her bad days. Id say she sleeps about 80 percent of the time."

Born in Tennessee in 1896, Besse Cooper moved to Georgia during World War in search of work as a teacher. She married her husband Luther in 1924, and they had four children. Today she has 12 grandchildren and more than a dozen great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren, reported the Journal-Constitution.

In the same year Cooper was born, the first Dow Jones Industrial Average was published, the first modern Olympic games were held and the first Ford vehicle was built.

"She never worried," says her son. Local media reported that Besse Cooper adds her secret to longevity lies in two key tenets: "I mind my own business," she said. "And I don't eat junk food."

(c) 2011 AFP

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Nanobanano
Aug 27, 2011

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This is NOT the oldest living person.

There are several in the middle east and HAITI which are ten to twenty years older than this (unless they all died in the last year or two,) and they even have church and government records to prove it, yet they are not recognized by the guiness records.
nanotech_republika_pl
Aug 27, 2011

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So what are the records that show some other people lived "ten to twenty" years more than 115? That would be 135 and 125. I'm not an expert on this but wherever i hear about the maximum lifespan it never is more than 122. If it's true that a person at 115 has only 50% chance of living to the next year, 116, etc, then chances of people living to 135 are extremely small. In fact that would be like 1 to 2^20 (1 in 2 at every year after 115), which is about a one in a million. So we would have to have a record of at least 1 million people who reached age of 115. Looking at say, Wikipedia entry, http://en.wikiped..._people, there are just handful of those, not one million.
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