Citation Needed - Jeanne Calment

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Jeanne Louise Calment (French: [ʒan lwiz kalmɑ̃] ⓘ; 21 February 1875 – 4 August 1997) was a French supercentenarian and, with a documented lifespan of 122 years and 164 days, the oldest person ever whose age has been verified.[1] Her longevity attracted media attention and medical studies of her health and lifestyle. She is the only person verified to have reached the age of 120 and beyond. According to census records, Calment outlived both her daughter and grandson.[2] In January 1988, she was widely reported to be the oldest living person, and in 1995, at age 120, was declared the oldest verified person to have ever lived.[3]

Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Noah and I'm going to be the butt of the old jokes tonight, but to make that happen, I'll have to welcome in a bunch of people who aren't appreciably younger than me. First up, two men with magnificent beards, Cecil and Eli. It hides some of the rest of it, so it's a total win for me. Yeah. And I can't wait for other forms of laziness to signify refinement.

I'm hoping my untrimmed pubes get me onto a library board one day. Refinement is what you think is happening. Yeah, that's what people tell me. And also joining us tonight are two other guys who also have Beards, Heath and Tom. Yeah, no, I don't use mine for personality. So it's different. Yeah. No, I do tall and no, I do tall and that's my wife, Noah, not a beard. I don't know why nobody believes me.

And quick before we get started, I want to take a second to remind our listeners that some motherfuckers pay for this shit. And those are the best motherfuckers. If you'd like to learn how to join their race, be sure to stick around until the end of this show. And with that out of the way, tell us, Heath, what person plays, think concept, phenomenon or event we'll be talking about today. We're going to be talking about Jean Calment, a French woman who had a long and interesting life story. All right. I don't love that you're trying to convince me this is interesting in advance, but okay. Tell us about Jean Calment. Sorry, I didn't want to under pronounce you

or you would set the precedent. Yeah, that was all right. That was really good. He brought a dick with him into studio to put in his mouth andahuisque. That was just for today. Yep. Jean-Liz Calment was born in Arles in the south of France on February 21st, 1875, and she died on August 4th, 1997. Oh wow. That made her a super centenarian.

And with a documented lifespan of 122 years and 164 days, she lived the longest life that's ever been verified. The next person on the list lived to 119, which is also called super centenarian, which means living past 110. We don't even have a word for living past 120. This longevity caused a bunch of media attention

and led to medical studies about her age-defying lifestyle that let her outlive her grandson. Or did she? But that's the official story. 122. Oh, oh, was it random chance? I bet it was random chance. All right, everybody. Thanks for coming. I'm only 46 and if I'm not at least halfway done with this bullshit, I'm gonna be unfucking bearable. Going to be? More unbearable. Okay, so I'm gonna start with a vague spoiler. There's gonna be a big controversy about Madame Calment that I'll explain in

the second half. But to start out, I'll give you her life story and you can try to pick out any details along the way that might indicate a giant conspiracy. Okay, so how do you live to 122? We all want to live that long because the world's amazing and delightful. Tom said so just now. So let's examine some of the factors that might have contributed to that impressive lifespan.

Tomal was raised Catholic, moving on. When asked about her daily routine during her childhood, she described waking up at 8 a.m. and having a liquid breakfast of coffee or hot chocolate. Woke up and had coffee, huh? Slow down, Heath, I'm taking notes on her secret recipe for immortality. It's pretty weird.

Another big factor that might have contributed to her longevity was being a rich person who never had to work a single day in her life. Well, now I am joking. Yeah. After graduating from high school, she continued living with her parents and according to a biographer,

she spent most of her time painting, improving her piano skills, and awaiting marriage. This is a huge conspiracy, Heath. You're right. It's a conspiracy put on by big affluence. Absolutely. Good strategy. If working is bad for your health,

I am feeling much more confident about being halfway through this. Right? Yeah, a podcaster might be the immortal job. Yeah. So so wait, so she did nothing in particular. As as her thing, like and she had a biographer. That's that's like a hard fucking job. Yeah, nothing in particular for the longest time ever. Yeah. Yeah. I had to do that as a job. So after a few years of the awaiting,

John finally got married at the age of 21. She married her cousin. His name was Fernand Camon and they were double second cousins. Caliente. Which means it was gross coming from both sides of the family. It was double gross Caliente. Their paternal grandfathers were brothers and their paternal grandmothers were sisters. I don't like this anymore. This is a weird twister, Matt.

The old double Giuliani. And for none, he'd been courting her since she was 15 years old. Presumably at holiday dinners with the whole family. Jesus. Regardless, the point is the oldest person on record was having sex with her double cousin. So Heath, you just went with your kinks first and then found an essay to match or... Yeah. Okay.

What do you do? Pick. It doesn't matter. So, John's new husband and old cousin was the heir to a successful drapery business located in a big expensive building right in the center of the city and the newlyweds moved into a large apartment above the store. They always had plenty of money and a staff of servants and Jeanne was able to live a relaxing life of luxury and no responsibility. She pursued more hobbies including fencing, cycling, tennis,

swimming, roller skating, and making music with her friends. Just jamming out. So that was fun. She also got into mountaineering on a glacier in the French Alps while summering in Riyage, Switzerland. They used summer as a verb, which is also something that happens with people who live a long time.

Yeah, for a decade, I used to life in a studio apartment. So. Well, yeah, we do all know the famed longevity of Alpine Glacier Mountaineers, right? Yeah, something like that. I was thinking the same thing. In the 1800s? Impressive, or was it?

So in 1898, at the age of 23,, John gave birth to her daughter, Yvonne, her only child. Fast forward to 1926, when Yvonne got married to an army officer named Joseph and they had a kid the same year named Frederick. Yeah, I guess with 122 year olds, but you have to do some pretty jarring time cuts. Yeah, here's where it heats up. Thanks to the family money, they were all taken care of as well, and they moved into the neighboring apartment above that big store, right next to Jeanne. And then eight years later, on January 19th of 1934, the age of 36,

Yvonne died of pleurisy. That's an inflammation of the membranes that surround the lungs, or in 1934 terms, she died of a bad chest. And Frederick got raised by his grandmother, Jean. From there, you get World War II and France did not have a great time. But Jean said it wasn't really a big deal in her life. German soldiers slept in her guest rooms a few times.

But according to Jean, they didn't steal anything, so she didn't bear a grudge against the Nazis. Oh, so? Yeah, I know. For a second there, I was worried the Nazis were gonna do something bad, so I'm glad. Yeah. It's weird how many directions you've found

for me to hate this dozen-genarian from, right? Yeah. So, moving ahead to 1942 and John's husband died at the age of 73. Allegedly, the cause of death for him was cherry poisoning. Apparently, that's a real thing. Cherries like the food, the fruit. It's when you're eating cherries and you get way too excited about the cherries.

So you're just fucking housing those pits. Jesus Christ. And if you really chew them up nice and hard, they release tiny amounts of cyanide that can add up to a lethal dose. If you're a crazy person who's capable of doing that. What the shit fuck is this? Yeah.

That's the story of John's husband. Jesus Christ. That's the story of John's husband dying. That's the story of her husband dying. Her daughter Yvonne died of bad chest. Then her husband, Yvonne's father, died of overzealous cherry eating. Look, I mean, this sweet, tender kind of tart outside is fine, but that little bit that tastes like someone hit a chunk of particularly tough tree bark inside, that is the magic. That's the winner.

Heath, I looked this up and it is apparently this is something that happens mostly to dogs. That's correct. Yes. Sure. Probably because what the fuck, man? Right. Just like handfuls at a time. Where the fuck?

If you could do this, people should clean dishes into your mouth after they're done. Like, are you like a Flintstones garbage disposal? Yeah, exactly. You're like with a stork that's under the sink. It's a living. That's the claim. That's the claim. So from there, Jean continued outliving everyone in her family.

That includes her brother who died in 1962 at age 97. People who studied the longevity, they did some genetic analysis and found that she and some of her family carried the DR1 allele, which is common among people who live the longest. But that doesn't help with stuff like bad chest or cherry poisoning, or in the case of her grandson, Frederick, dying in a mysterious car accident also in 1962.

Okay. If this lady murdered everyone in her family because she realized how boring her life would be otherwise. I am in. Yeah. It, it really feels like you're setting up for a, she siphoned the life away from her family members reveal or something.

So it's actually in maybe close to what's going to happen. Okay. So that brings us to one of my favorite moments. Following that series of weird deaths, Jean had no remaining heirs. And in 1965, she signed a deal called a life estate contract on her fancy apartment. And she signed the deal with a lawyer named Andre Raffray. This meant she was pre-selling him the property in exchange for keeping her occupancy rights, along with a monthly payment of 2,500 francs for the rest of her life, however long that might be. Oh, wow.

Converted and adjusted for inflation, that's about $4,200 a month in today's money. Raffrey was much younger than Calment at the time. He was 47 and she was 90, but he died in 1995 at age 77 while she was still alive at age 120. In your fucking face, Andre! In his face so hard, exactly. By then, he'd already paid more than double the value for the property, and according to the contract,

his heirs had to continue making payments. Oh my God. Kamau was living in a senior community at that point and still getting those monthly checks. And on her 120th birthday in 1995, she was asked about the contract. She said, quote, "'In life, one sometimes makes bad deals

Sucks to suck depending on the translation Just one paid-off senior care worker here's John eat the pits. They're the best part. They are the cherry Yeah, I feel like you're purposely leaving out the slept in a coffin at night detail until later. So impressive. So in 1986, John became the oldest living person in France and she started getting some media attention and it ramped up in 1989 during the 100 year anniversary of Vincent van Gogh moving to Arles. That happened when she was 13 and she told reporters that she met Van

Goh at the time. She described him as ugly, disagreeable, and reeking of alcohol, but she forgave him for his bad manners. She also mentioned that locals were calling him the Dingo. Yes, plus he killed himself before I could get to him and I hate when people do that. That's nothing. And the following year, she had a cameo in the 1990 fantasy movie called Vincent and Me, making her the oldest cast member of all time at 115 years.

Wow. Yeah, and almost certainly the last person to be in a movie that was older than movies when it happened. So around the same time as the Van Gogh celebration, Jeanne became the oldest living person in the world. She got recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, which included an official verification. And then in 1995, when she turned 120, French demographers from the National Institute of

Health and Medicine, or INSERM did a year-long verification process of their own. The gerontology community does not fuck around. That's what I learned when I was reading about this. So they conducted a bunch of interviews. Yes and at what point did you notice that she had no reflection in mirrors? Yeah they talked to a bunch of people she knew and her. And they reviewed a long series of census documents and other evidence to support their eventual verification of her age And that's when her lifestyle started being studied extra closely to figure out how to live forever And we learned some unexpected details for example

She started smoking around age 21 having a few cigarettes a day and continuing that habit until she was 117 years old. In terms of eating habits, she had a diet that was rich in olive oil and she believed that was a big key to her long lifespan. She also used olive oil for skin care, rubbing it into her face every single day. She claimed that was the secret to her skin looking about 20 years younger than her peers. Wow, Sean, you don't look a day over 102.

It's amazing. Yeah, yeah, the other undead ghouls, they really gotta work on their skincare right. So in terms of food choices, some of her favorites were duck leg, cheese, salad, foie gras, and large amounts of chocolate. The chocolate habit. Yeah. All solid. All amazing. The chocolate habit often reached a kilogram per week. That's a lot. That's a lot. That's a lot of chocolate. Yeah. And after every meal, she'd smoke a cigarette and drink

some port wine. Those were all habits throughout her life, including her time at a nursing home starting at age 110. She was also a big fan of crossword puzzles. Also, my grandma is 99 and super healthy. I'm pretty sure I'm going to live forever. Yeah, turtles can live to be 300 Heath, but I don't want to be them, you know? You know what I'm saying, man? So the story of Jeanne's life finally ending The waste of human being. when she passed away of unspecified causes

on August 4th, 1997. It feels like old could be specified there. I don't know why they were super vague about it. And here's my favorite extra detail. Right before she died, somebody got her to cut a rap album. It was called Mistress of Time. What is happening with this essay? Yeah, this is real. There's a CD of a 122-year-old French woman rapping. That's real. Oh. And while we all curse copyright laws for not allowing us to segue with a clip,

I guess we're going to take a quick break for some Apropos of Nothing. Sadly, there were no survivors. Tragic stuff, Diane. Up next, the world's oldest woman turns 122. Fox 4 had the chance to sit down with her and learn her secret. I'm here with Helene Lebois, Chris. Tell us, Helene, you are 12 twenty two years old today to what do you attribute your incredible longevity and it is the numbers Frank there are lots of people the chances that someone lives long is inevitable inevitable indeed So any secrets you want to share with us? Hobbies perhaps? Favorite foods?

No. I like the things that most people like and I happen to be alive statistically. I like chocolate and walking. Chocolate and walking. Fascinating stuff. And if the folks at home want to live like you, what do you recommend? I recommend existing in a universe of numbers and being lucky. Being lucky. Amazing. Back to you, Chris. Wow. Fascinating stuff. Sounds like I've got a new hobby. Indeed it is, Dan.

Indeed it is, fascinating. My hobby is being gay. Yes it is, Chris. Yes it is. Up next, if five billionaires you've never heard of pay taxes, everybody would have enough food, but they don't want to, so they don't. Right after this. And we're back next up at the very beginning of this essay you told us the story was interesting interesting. You spent half an episode convincing us otherwise. That's a ripe CD of 122 years old.

She had so much chocolate. That's like a bar a day. Well, not a bar a day, but it is close. All right. So where do we go from here, Heath? She's already dead. Yeah, no, I got to get to the point of my essays faster. That's a problem I have here, right? So that brings us to the conspiracy. It started three years after Jean's death when a professor named Leonid Gavrilov published a paper in which he claimed her age was a statistical flu. And yeah, it was. That's the nature of world records.

He was pointing out that three years more than the previous record of 119 is astronomically high. That was just a boring math claim, but over the next two decades, the conspiracy really got rolling. Rumors were flying around in the very high strung gerontology world that Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122 was actually not Jean. It was her daughter, Yvonne, who allegedly died in 1934, but that was actually a big hoax.

According to the conspiracy theory, Yvonne assumed the identity of her dead mom and pretended the dead body was actually her. By posing as her mom, who had pretty big fortune, Yvonne avoided approximately 35% in estate tax in France at the time. And then she spent the next several decades continuing that lie and making extremely profitable wagers

based on her fake age with some French lawyer guy and possibly doing a crazy murder spree, killing everyone in the family who might be a narc. Oh, okay, I'm sorry, are we just neglecting the fact that that Guinness Book of World Records vetted her? The Guinness Book? Now, I have to admit, Heath, when the first half of your essay was,

one time an old lady didn't die, but then she did, I doubted you, but I am back on board, baby. Hell yeah. You know, for living that hashtag fraud life, nothing beats being alive during a time when what passed for record keeping was a pinky promise at City Hall and a Bible with your dead kids' names in it. Yeah. So, the mother-daughter switch theory got global attention in 2019

Thanks to a paper by Nikolai Zack from Moscow State University his job. There is a glassblower I'm sorry. Do they have a glass blower in residence program at that university? They do I suppose but what apparently he also knows about math and that university. They do, I suppose. But what apparently he also knows about math and oldness. He has a degree in math and he did a project on the aging of naked mole rats. So he was perfect. And that's why he got assigned to write that paper by the chairman of the gerontology department at the university. When he was done, Zach tried to submit his big expose to several peer reviewedreviewed journals, and they all immediately rejected it. So he published the paper on a social media site called

Research Gate, which is basically a yick yak for sciencey stuff. The story got picked up by news agencies all over the world. And immediately, the French guys who verified John's age and pretty much the entire Western European community of gerontologists went buck fucking wild and accused Nikolai Zak of being part of a Russian disinformation campaign to slander the old people science of the NATO block and then profit or something. It turned into a giant internet fight with Wikipedia editors, curiously typing and erasing each other at the same time.

So in response to the accusations of fake news from Russia, Nikolai Zak published a followup study with a long series of what he admitted weren't exactly smoking guns, but taken all together, they led him to be 99.9% certain of his theory. For example, during that interview in 1989, during the Van Gogh thing, Calment claimed

that she met Van Gogh in her father's fabric store, but it was actually her uncle's fabric store. Her uncle slash father-in-law's. But if that was Yvonne talking in 1989, that fits the switch theory because the fabric store was Yvonne's father's by the time he inherited the business, married John and had Yvonne. On the other hand, defenders of John being John pointed out that people get stuff wrong during interviews when they're 114 years old. I've seen presidential candidates disqualified over Les Heath.

Yeah, older ones. Yeah, and also having married her double secret probation cousin or whatever, she might have some understandable confusion about her family tree. When did the web start between the fingers? Is that? That's the thing is if every every pick in relation has a slash in there somewhere, how do you expect her to get it right? Yeah, that's tricky stuff.

My uncle, he is a fire type and a ghost type. So another big component of Zach's theory is based on looking at a small handful of old grainy photographs and showing inconsistencies between young Jean and old Jean, and then showing how Yvonne's features are a closer fit to the modern photos of the Super Old Woman. He points to a change in eye color from black to green, the shape of the nose and ears changing, the chin line changing and the contours of the neck changing.

In one of his photo comparisons, he tries to like hand draw his own version of one of those AI programs, you know, like in a movie when the AI program is doing like facial recognition, like minority report. And it's like he tried to draw that. But it's just circling chins and neck waddles with the MSG. And there's a side by side of Yvonne around age 30 and allegedly Jean around 110.

And Zach labeled it spitting image, which is absurd. That being said, overall, the photos from the Russian glassblower guy kind of worked on me. I looked at his stuff and I was like, this is pretty convincing about the chin lines and the eyes and the neck lines. I pasted some of the examples so you guys can take a look. If anybody else is curious, you can Google Nikolai Zak, N-I-K-O-L-A-Y-Z-A-K, Nikolai Zak, Jacques Hughes, and you'll get one of his articles with all the photos. Okay, so based on those photos that I pasted in there, who's on what side so far? The potato photos he posted? Look, I don't know that I want to weigh in on the photos

here, but I do want to say our previous president can't remember who he flew in a helicopter with five years ago. Hey, hey, Cecil, that is not fair. He knows it was a black guy. Could have been any one of them. Yeah, that's all. That's the story. Yeah. So to be clear, so far you have presented a less convincing version of the evidence

used to say Paul McCartney died in a car accident in 1966 and was replaced by a lookalike that just happened to be everybody's talented. That's what we got to play her CD backwards might say like, John is that John is that we'll figure it out. Maybe you're a Jew man. Maybe you're not. And by the way, just for context, Nicolai Zak did a very official poll about this on Facebook, and the majority of voters agreed that photos of old John looked more like young

Yvonne than young John. Yeah, that settles it. I mean, seriously, why even argue with this one? So we're all on that side so far. Another piece of evidence for Zach is the Kalma family tomb at a cemetery in Arles. The tombstone has etchings for Jean, her son-in-law, Joseph, her grandson, Frederick, but not her daughter, Yvonne.

A reporter from The Guardian went to investigate this in 2019, and the cemetery overseer said approximately, Fuck you, Yvonne's down there too. They just didn't put her name on it. Don't be an asshole. The same reporter met up with a group of Jeanne supporters from Arles who started a Facebook group called The Counter Investigation into the Jeanne Calment Investigation.

When he asked about the missing etching for Yvonne, here's the story he got. They said the grave got renovated in the 1960s, soon after Joseph and Frederick died. But Yvonne was already dead for about 30 years at that point, so Jean only engraved the names for the people who died recently. So, skipped her daughter. Just a French cemetery manager. Ooh, three names, huh? Well, that is going to cost you. Right. But like, but even in their theory, there's a body in there. Right. So like, this is only evidence of the conspiracy if they use the Illuminati method

of intentionally leaving clues. Which is like the double perfect crime because it sounds crazy for that one. So the anti-investigation investigators did some investigating of their own and they found some evidence to support the claim that Yvonne did in fact die in 1934. A family member had an old picture of Yvonne posing on a balcony with mountains in the background and using Google Maps, in fact die in 1934. A family member had an old picture of Yvonne

posing on a balcony with mountains in the background. And using Google Maps, they were able to show that Yvonne was at the Belvedere Sanatorium in the Swiss Alps, where people went to be treated for tuberculosis at the time. And that's consistent with the claim that Yvonne died of bad chest in 1934. But according to Zach, it was Jean who had TB and Yvonne was dressing

up as her mom and walking around town pretending to be fine in order to help avoid the social stigma of TB. Guys, trust me, this is going to pay off in the 1990s. I'm going to get in a movie and everything. And then eventually, Jean died. This is according to Zach's theory. And Yvonne already had that costume going. Yeah, she'd be ashamed to let it go to waste. Exactly. To make it to the bed.

It was her that died. And then she moved out of the apartment with her husband and child and started living with her father as his wife. So the father, she either tricked him or he was part of the hoax and pretended to be married to his daughter for eight more years until he died in 1942. Double the incest Heath. At a certain point, you're just doing citation needed essays about your browser history. You know what I'm saying? Like, hey dad, yeah, you know how mom has that cough? Okay, I got a great idea, but first, do you like cherries?

Like really like them? Here's, here's the thing. I think the real story here is that some internet sleuth in the face of evidence Refuses to be wrong. When does that happen guys when? Plaza crazy when insanity So another argument from Zack is based on John's odd interaction later in life with the local government in Arl in interaction later in life with the local government in Arles. In 1994 they requested some of her old documents and photos open to put those in the city archive for posterity but she had a really weird reaction. According to the city she said that all her photos and documents had been recently burned. John

had a cousin burn all her stuff that might be relevant right before that, apparently. Seems like you could have just thrown that stuff out or, you know, anything other than burning it all right then in a weird symbolic pyre. This argument, it was a bit harder to dispel for Team John because that was weird. Oh yeah, me? Oh yeah, I'm just doing a little spring archive burning, you know? Nothing to see here. I mean, come on, honestly Heath, what else would a French lady who said the Nazis were

perfectly nice house guests have to hide? I mean, it has to be. Right, what else could a rich person possibly not want people to know? So what we're doing now is called anomaly hunting, right? Because it turns out that if you look deep enough into anything at all, you're going to turn up weird details that will cast out on literally any claim. Go, Zach. Especially anything that lasts 122 years, right?

Pretty easy to click into. Yeah, exactly. Interesting about every claim ever. Exactly, Noah. So you think a couple of claims claims that wouldn't be the case. So the two sides of the fight argued back and forth throughout 2019 and it led to Zach sending out an open letter to gerontologists, journalists, Vladimir Putin, Manuel Macron, Boris Johnson, and Donald Trump. And he called a bunch of trustworthy guys.

Serious people. They demand truth. And he called for John's body to be exhumed for a DNA test. He also mentioned that digging up the grave might not even be necessary because there's a rumor that a research lab in France had already collected a sample of her blood. According to Zach, his demand was for science, not for spite about winning the argument on the internet. He wants her DNA to be made available in order to help life extension research.

And one of the sponsors of his paper is a company called SENS, S-E-N-S, founded by a controversial gerontologist in California named Aubrey DeGray, which really feels like a fake name. Like, come on, you're a gerontologist named DeGray? Fuck you. Absolutely not. DeGray claims that by the year 2100, the human lifespan could be 5,000 years. And he really wants that DNA.

So we've reviewed the results of the DNA. Looks like with a bit of exercise, a high quality multivitamin, and a portrait in the attic, you too can create an everlasting carbon footprint. Yeah. People Tom wakes himself up by shocking himself awake. You cannot ask him to do that for 4,650 more years. You really cannot. So I know by the way, the research by people like DeGray used to be outlawed because it sounded like a creepy dystopian novel, but now it's become a big thing.

Yeah, that's because in no way does that mean it doesn't match a creepy dystopian novel. Yeah, no, the dystopian novel Overton Window has been shifting so fast it left a skid mark. Jesus Christ. So in 2013, Google invested $1.5 billion, created a division that's dedicated to quote solving death. What if we just gave people food? Do you want to give some of this? Shut the fuck up! Shut up!

Whoever's getting it from the background, we're doing science. I'm Rich. And on top of Google, billionaire lunatic, steroids Olympic enthusiast, J.D. Vance, benefactor Peter Thiel has donated millions to Aubrey de Grey's foundation. Sadly, it's not really helping so far. They've spent a ton of money and they haven't solved the death.

Neither has Google, but they are working on it. It does sound weird and evil, but I kind of like it. That's actually how most coaches feel about JD Vance too. Sound weird? Kind of like it. One other piece of context regarding Russia and their role in the gerontology community that I wanted to mention here. According to almost everyone who's not in Russia, the sources in Russia just keep lying and it's not even clear what they're trying to accomplish with those lies about gerontology. This includes a claim about a population in Russia where people have lived to 168 years old. They have not. That has not happened. And stories like that have led to Russian data being banned by most

international research groups on the topic. Now, none of that means Nikolai Zak is lying or that he's part of a gerontology world domination plot by Vladimir Putin, but it doesn't help the case. Guys, guys, we might be going overboard with this misinformation stuff. We seem to be out of just information at this point. Do I want some of that to sort of balance? Okay, so bottom line, I'm pretty sure Yvonne did it.

She did a Norma Bates and pretended to be her dead mom one time, and then she just had to keep rolling with her, and she did a giant scam with tax evasion and a genius move on that property contract. Now okay okay the string of murders feels like a bit much but cherry poisoning come on seriously for a human? Now granted the conspiracy people you seem to be highly questionable sources using yarn and pushpins, but I like what they did with the yarn and pushpins. I really like their story and the French guys are boring. That's what's in my heart, but also as usual, probably wrong. Definitely wrong. Yes. Okay. So if you had to summarize what you've, let's say, learned in one sentence,

what would it be? Interesting that you would ask that. My answer is truth is about fun because this is the internet. That's how it works. Oh no. All right. Well, now that you're done stabbing my very reason for being in the heart with an ice pick for half an hour, are you ready to do the quiz? Ready to go. All right, Heath, since it's okay to make episodes based on our kinks, what is my next essay about? A. French made costumes over the years.

B. Oh, Amelia Bedelia. Yeah, sure. B. Asa Akira. C. Elizabeth Warren, the swimsuit years. Or D. Jean Benet. All right, nope. So there we go. It was a none of the above?

It was a none of the above? Yeah. Cecil keeps cutting my answer. Keith, this random internet sleuth has amazing powers of observation. He's only rivaled by A. JK Rowling discovering a non-existent trans person in women's Olympic boxing. B. Richard Dawkins discovering a non-existent trans person in women's Olympic boxing. C. Joe Rogan discovering a non-existent trans person in women's Olympic boxing. Or D. Piers Morgan discovering a non-existent trans person in women's Olympic boxing, or D, Piers Morgan,

discovering a non-existent trans person in women's Olympic boxing. Oh, I feel like it's another E, but this time it's all of the above. Correct, absolutely. All right, okay. So we're now using this show to just straight up promote conspiracy theories apparently.

Oh! So what can the listeners look forward to from the next essay? A, how you don't need a driver's license to drive if you spell your name right. It's all lowercase. Lowercase, yes. B, why? If you do it in webdings, there's other special stuff you can do too. B, why all the Jews called in sick on 9-11.

C, what the gold fringe on the flags in federal courts really means. Or D, how the Fed is a Ponzi scheme. Okay, I've considered D. It just makes me so mad whenever I'm reading or writing about it. I'm gonna go with another E all the above. I could see all those. Oh yeah, unfortunately. That's the world we're in now. All right, Heath. What great fun it would be to live to 120. No it wouldn't. Okay, I get that instinct. I will say though, 99 year old grandma, absolutely truly healthy, happy, loving it. Like swims all the time, does a bunch of stuff. I think she's got another couple

decades in her. Very possible. Yeah, another very possible yeah another 20 your grandma strong now put her on speaker phone and ask her if she wants to do this for 30 more years you will hear a loud clap from the other side of the phone she's crushing it she's a senior community she's looking at like the Hudson River she loves it all right so guess Tom, you won because you're the more honest of us. Yeah, right. I guess that I'm also going to be the essayist. Oh, well, there you go. All right.

Well, for Eli, Cecil, Heath, and Tom, I'm Noah. Thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week. And by then, Tom will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can hear more from us. Like, there's literally never a moment when one of us isn't recording a podcast actively in that moment. So there's plenty. If that's not enough, then we cannot supply you with enough and it's not our fucking fault.

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