A 100-year-old British Indian man who claims to be the world’s oldest marathoner was all smiles after completing a 10-kilometre run at the Hong Kong marathon on Sunday.
Born in 1911 and affectionately nicknamed the “Turbaned Torpedo”, Fauja Singh finished the race in just over one hour and 34 minutes, organisers told AFP, raising HK$200,000 ($25,800) for the charity Seeing Is Believing.
“The weather was very pleasant, I enjoyed the race very much,” he was quoted by local media as saying, as he crossed the finishing line, arms in the air.
The centenarian attributed his physical fitness to his healthy lifestyle, including abstaining from smoking and alcohol and to following a vegetarian diet, according to local reports.

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‘Plants really do communicate with each other’
It’s now confirmed. Plants can talk. Researchers at Exeter University in Britain claim to have found that plants can communicate with one another — in fact, they’ve for the first time captured such a process on camera.
To find out how plants talk, the researchers modified a cabbage gene which triggers the production of a gas emitted when a plant’s surface is cut or pierced. By adding the protein luciferase — which makes fireflies glow in the dark — to the DNA the plants’ emissions could be monitored on camera. One cabbage plant had a leaf cut off with scissors and started emitting a gas — methyl jasmonate — thereby “telling” its neighbours there may be trouble ahead.
Two nearby cabbage plants, which had not been touched, received the message they should protect themselves. — PTI