SCIENCE REPORT - World's Oldest Man

SCIENCE REPORT
–
January 24, 2002: World’s Oldest Man

By George Grow

This is the VOA Special English SCIENCE REPORT.

The Italian island of Sardinia recently lost its oldest citizen. Family members say Antonio Todde died in his sleep
early this month. Mister¹ Todde was one-hundred-twelve years old. He was less than three weeks away from his
one-hundred-thirteenth birthday. Record-keeping experts say he was the world’s oldest man.

Mister Todde was born in a village on Sardinia in Eighteen-Eighty -Nine. He cared for farm animals in the
mountains almost all his life. Mister Todde often said that drinking a glass of red wine every day helped him live
to an old age.

His long life and that of other very old Sardinians is the subject of a scientific project called Akea. Luca Deiana
of Sassari University is directing the study. He says the name Akea comes from a traditional greeting on Sardinia.
It means “health and life for one -hundred years.
”

Professor Deiana and his team started to collect information for the study in Nineteen-Ninety-Seven. They
identified more than two-hundred-twenty Sardinians who were centenarians --one-hundred years old or older.

His team required three documents to confirm a person’s age. They are a government birth record, a church
record and a statement by a close family member.

The Akea study has produced two major findings³. The first is Sardinia’s extremely high number of
centenarians. The island has about one-hundred-thirty-five centenarians for every one-million people. In other
western countries, the average is about seventy-five centenarians for every one-million people.

The second major finding² was an unusual rate of female⁴ to male centenarians. Sardinia has two women
centenarians for every male centenarian. In central Sardinia there are equal numbers of female and male
centenarians.

Studies in other parts of the world have shown a much higher percentage of female centenarians. The Akea study
collected information about the health and diet of about one -hundred-forty of the centenarians. About ninety
percent of those in the study also agreed to provide blood for scientific testing. The study team hopes to identify
genetic⁵ material in the blood that can be linked to successful aging.

Study leaders say there is no single reason why people on Sardinia live so long. They believe the answer is a
combination⁶ of genetic and environmental conditions.

This VOA Special English SCIENCE REPORT was written by George Grow.

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1 mister   

n.(略作Mr.全称很少用于书面)先生

参考例句：

• Mister Smith is my good friend.史密斯先生是我的好朋友。
• He styled himself " Mister Clean ".他自称是“清廉先生”。

2 finding   

n.发现，发现物；调查的结果

参考例句：

• The finding makes some sense.该发现具有一定的意义。
• That's an encouraging finding.这是一个鼓舞人心的发现。

3 findings   

n.发现物( finding的名词复数 )；调查（或研究）的结果；（陪审团的）裁决

参考例句：

• It behoves us to study these findings carefully. 我们理应认真研究这些发现。
• Their findings have been widely disseminated . 他们的研究成果已经广为传播。

4 female   

adj.雌的，女(性)的；n.雌性的动物，女子

参考例句：

• We only employ female workers.我们只雇用女工。
• The animal in the picture was a female elephant.照片上的动物是头母象。

5 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

6 combination   

n.组合，合并，联合；

参考例句：

• He carried on the business in combination with his friends.他与朋友们合伙做生意。
• The materials can be used singly or in combination.这些材料可以单独使用也可以混合用。