Doctor Walter Watson held the world’s record as the world’s oldest practicing doctor. Dr Walter Watson, known to many as “Papa Doc”, has delivered 18,000 babies in his 100 years of life – celebrated last month -and still comes into the clinic regularly to see his patients – setting the world record for the Oldest Practicing Doctor.

although he has retired from that particular role, he still makes an effort to see around 5 patients every day, including new ones. There are many Augusta-area families that have several generations of babies delivered by the doctor.

University Hospital in Augusta honoured their oldest and most valued obstetrician and gynaecologist, whose name is already brandished on the entrance to the health facility’s women’s centre. People came to the hospital to honor Watson and his wife Audrey and say happy birthday. They wore stickers that declared them a “Watson Baby” or the mother of a “Watson Baby,” often both. However, Watson says he doesn’t feel a day over 99. “People think it is hard today,” Watson said. “It doesn’t compare with ’31.”

In an interview with CNN, Watson says that he served in the army before becoming a qualified doctor in May 1947. The doc’s entry into the trade was far from easy. Watson spent 7 years working on a farm in Edgefield doing hard labour for as little as 50 cents a day in order to afford medical school.

Dr Watson turned 100 on February 25. “I get up at 6.45, have my breakfast and get to the hospital by 8.30,” he said.

“I stopped delivering babies when my eyesight got bad but I do my rounds at the nursing stations and operating rooms just like I’ve always done.” The women’s centre at University Hospital in Augusta, Georgia, bears Dr Watson’s name and there is a bronze statue of him holding a newborn baby.

Dr Watson also delivered his colleague at the hospital, Dr Michel McDonough, who is young enough to be his grandson.
Dr. McDonough said: “His work ethic is unsurpassed by anybody.“He was around before beepers – back then you were either at the hospital, at home or at church.”

Dr. Watson says he has no plans for retirement despite suffering from minor arthritis and diminished eyesight and hearing.
“I love medicine and I love having contact with people,” he said. “It gives me a reason to crawl out of bed in the mornings.”

According to records Dr Watson is the oldest practising doctor. The previous record holder was Dr. Leila Denmark, also of Georgia, who practised until she turned 102 in 2000.

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Pedro plays for A.D. Perilima, the worst club of Paraibano championship and scored from the penalty spot when Campinense had a 4 – 0 advantage in the score board. When the referee signalized the foul, his teammates had no doubt: Pedro had to take it. The fans celebrated the achievement as a title, and greeted Pedro as top star.

Despite the final score of 5 – 1, Pedro was very happy about it, and said that Romário’s search for the 1000th goal inspired him.

“I’m 58 years old but I feel 30,” said the iconic midfielder. “My dream is to reach 60 playing football. I believe that I can, but I only want to do so if I’m helping the team. Achieving positive results is the most important thing.”

At 58, Pedro Lima not only has the distinction of being Brazilian football’s oldest active player, he has also outranked some legendary performers across the continents. These include the iconic former England winger Stanley Matthews, who represented Maltese outfit Hibernians until he reached 55, and the ageless Cameroonian Roger Milla , the oldest goalscorer in FIFA World Cup™ history.

Indeed, while it remains to be seen whether the Brazilian can realise his dream of playing into his 60s, his talismanic presence has certainly made Perilima popular among the neutral supporters

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The spruce tree has shown to be a tenacious survivor that has endured by growing between erect trees and smaller bushes in pace with the dramatic climate changes over time.

For many years the spruce tree has been regarded as a relative newcomer in the Swedish mountain region.

”Our results have shown the complete opposite, that the spruce is one of the oldest known trees in the mountain range,” says Leif Kullman, Professor of Physical Geography at Umeå University.

A fascinating discovery was made under the crown of a spruce in Fulu Mountain in Dalarna. Scientists found four “generations” of spruce remains in the form of cones and wood produced from the highest grounds.

The discovery showed trees of 375, 5,660, 9,000 and 9,550 years old and everything displayed clear signs that they have the same genetic makeup as the trees above them. Since spruce trees can multiply with root penetrating braches, they can produce exact copies, or clones.

The tree now growing above the finding place and the wood pieces dating 9,550 years have the same genetic material. The actual has been tested by carbon-14 dating at a laboratory in Miami, Florida, USA.

Previously, pine trees in North America have been cited as the oldest at 4,000 to 5,000 years old.

In the Swedish mountains, from Lapland in the North to Dalarna in the South, scientists have found a cluster of around 20 spruces that are over 8,000 years old.

Although summers have been colder over the past 10,000 years, these trees have survived harsh weather conditions due to their ability to push out another trunk as the other one died.

”The average increase in temperature during the summers over the past hundred years has risen one degree in the mountain areas,” explains Leif Kullman.

Therefore, we can now see that these spruces have begun to straighten themselves out. There is also evidence that spruces are the species that can best give us insight about climate change.

The ability of spruces to survive harsh conditions also presents other questions for researchers.

Have the spruces actually migrated here during the Ice Age as seeds from the east 1,000 kilometres over the inland ice that that then covered Scandinavia? Do they really originate from the east, as taught in schools? “My research indicates that spruces have spent winters in places west or southwest of Norway where the climate was not as harsh in order to later quickly spread northerly along the ice-free coastal strip,” says Leif Kullman.

“In some way they have also successfully found their way to the Swedish mountains.”

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This flute is the first musical instrument in the history of humankind—one of the first examples of technology—which has surprised everyone demonstrating that music already existed 35,000 years ago. Stone Age Rock Band, here we go.

It was made from the bone of a giant vulture during the Upper Paleolithic. Found in Ach Valley, in the south of Germany, the 8.7-inch long, one-inch diameter instrument has five holes, with two V-shaped notches carved on one side of it. This was the part in which the musician put the lips to blow, according to University of Tubingen’s professor Nicholas Conard, the lead author of the discovery. The other end is broken just on the fifth hole.

Also according to the study, it was capable of producing a note range similar to those of modern flutes. Conard also points that while music probably didn’t have much to do in the success of the first modern humans, it could have given them an advantage against the Neanderthals:

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