Ulya Margusheva - 125 years old? Mum at 79?

Russia Today are reporting a story that takes some believing, and with it a three-way tussle is shaping up for the oldest person in the world gong.

Ulya Margusheva, from the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, has two documents, her passport and her child’s birth certificate, which state she was born in 1884 and her child was born 79 years later.

Passports schmasports, clearly they could be fakes, but why go to the trouble? If there was a large cash prize for being super-old then perhaps. Of course, we are only interested in the world's oldest person round these part, but Ulya's dash for the title of the world's oldest mother has us gobsmacked.

"I explain it by the fact that she lives in an ecologically-safe environment," says Maria Tembotova, the republic's chief obstetrician. "She's a healthy woman herself and despite the fact she got married in her late she had a healthy lifestyle. So it is possible in theory."

Possible in theory? Which we take as meaning she's a woman and woman can have babies.

Stop Press: Is Sahan Dosova 130 years old?

Oldest person in the world since: TBC

Age: 130 years and counting
Born: March 27, 1879 - Kazakhstan
AOB: If Sahan was 130 years old, not only would she be the oldest living person, she would be the oldest ever person, strolling through the previous record set by Jeanne Calment from French France who shuffled off at the age of 122 in 1997.

The problem is, The Guinness Book of Records won't officially recognize Shana as the oldest living person without official proof and documentation. Bit of a problem when you were born before birth certificates were invented.

Doubters also point out that Sahan has 76-year-old daughter, which means she would have given birth at 56, which in itself would probably be some sort of record.

Gertrude Baines: 6 April 1894

Oldest person in the world since: 2 January 2009

Age: 115 years and counting
Born: April 6, 1894 - Shellman, Georgia, USA
Wise words: "No, I didn't never think I'd live this long."
AOB: A daughter of former slaves, the whole Barack Obama thing didn't pass Gertrude by. "Why am I voting for him? Because he's for the colored," she told Tami Abdollah of The LA Times on Election Day. "I hope nothing don't happen to him," she added. See, last time she voted it was for John F. Kennedy... hm.