Unpublished draft

The Price Of Not Being Cancer

Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122, holds the record for being the oldest human in history. This record remained uncontested for quite a while, with the runner-up, Kane Tanaka, reaching just 119 - full 3 years younger, an impressive and unexplained gap. If you treat maximum human lifespan as the main benchmark for life extension efforts, the natural suspicion would be that longevity science has been stagnant for the last 30 years.

Calment’s record will stand uncontested for the rest of 2020s - the oldest person alive right now, Ethel Caterham,