Ghost Mail Weekender

Happy Sunday Voornaam,

You may have heard of Jeanne Calment, the woman from the South of France who held the record for the longest confirmed human lifespan. Born in 1875, she stuck around for a casual 122 years and 164 days, outliving empires, trends, and basically everyone she ever met.
At 90 years old, with no heirs to inherit her apartment, Jeanne struck what seemed like a brilliant deal with her lawyer, a man named André-François Raffray. The agreement was that he’d pay her the equivalent of about R7,700 per month for the rest of her life in exchange for ownership of the apartment when she passed - a standard contingency contract in France.
Sounds reasonable, right? Well… life had other plans. In markets, we would call this a "pain trade" thanks to Madame Calment's incredible ability to outlive not just the contract’s financial viability, but also the lawyer himself! Raffray paid her for thirty years, shelling out more than double the apartment’s actual value. Then, at the age of 77, he died, while Jeanne, at a sprightly 120, was still very much alive and thriving.
His family, presumably questioning every life choice that led to this moment, had to keep making payments until she finally passed away nearly three years later.
And what did Jeanne have to say about her poor lawyer’s misfortune?
"In life, one sometimes makes bad deals."
Cold. As. Ice.
Instead of striking questionable deals with the elderly, you may be considering investing in a retail business or starting one up yourself. Be warned: the cute "starting an online shop" trend in the pandemic has seen its best days. The stats paint a fascinating picture of how shoppers are treating online channels. Dominique Olivier explores this in her latest column>>>

Read on for a story of a bone marrow transplant that led to an actual identity crisis, as well as Fast Facts based on anomalies that became superpowers.
Have a lovely Sunday!

The Finance Ghost (follow on X) | Dominique Olivier (connect on LinkedIn)

Click or brick: where does the future of shopping lie?

The vanishing of Chris Long

TL;DR: When Chris Long underwent a bone marrow transplant, he expected it to save his life. What he didn’t expect was that it would also turn him into a walking anomaly.
Chris Long works in IT at the Washoe County Sheriff’s Department in Reno, Nevada. But if investigators were to analyse his DNA, they’d come to a shocking conclusion: he’s also mostly a German man he’s never met.
It wasn’t always this way for Chris. In 2015, he underwent a bone marrow transplant to treat acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer that disrupts normal blood production. His donor - an anonymous German stranger - provided healthy blood-forming cells, which successfully replaced Chris’ failing ones. As expected, the DNA in his newly-created, healthy blood cells changed to match that of his donor; the factory was under new management, so to speak.
But then things got really weird.
Renee Romero, head of the department’s forensics lab and Chris’ colleague, had a hunch that the transplant might affect more than just his blood. Before the procedure, she convinced Chris to let her collect DNA samples from different parts of his body. Afterward, she continued testing - and the results were something straight out of a crime drama.
Swabs from his lips, cheeks, and tongue contained a mix of both his DNA and his donor’s. Hair samples from his chest and head were still 100% Chris. But the biggest shock came when they tested his semen: his DNA was completely gone. What remained belonged entirely to his donor.
Chris is what’s known as a genetic chimera, which is a fancy term for a person with two different sets of DNA. The term comes from Greek mythology, where the chimera was a fire-breathing beast made of the mismatched parts of a lion, goat, and snake. In humans, genetic chimerism can happen naturally (such as in twin pregnancies, when cells are exchanged in the womb) or through medical procedures like organ and bone marrow transplants.
Most people never realise they’re chimeras. But as DNA technology advances, cases like this highlight just how complicated human identity can be, especially when forensic science is involved. If someone like Chris were to commit a sex crime, for example, investigators would have no trace of his actual DNA at the scene. Instead, they’d be chasing an innocent bone marrow donor halfway across the world!
As for the awkward question about Chris’ German sperm and whether he would be genetically related to his own children… well, let’s just say it’s a good thing he had a vasectomy years before his transplant.

Dominique's fast facts:
Anomalies that become superpowers

An assortment of facts that will only take you five minutes to read.

A Scottish nurse named Joy Milne has the ability to identify people affected by Parkinson’s disease solely by smell. In 2012, neuroscientists at the University of Edinburgh put her to the test. They handed her 12 t-shirts: six from people with Parkinson’s, six from those without. She sniffed them all and got every single diagnosis right. She also flagged one “healthy” t-shirt as Parkinson’s-positive. A year later, that person was diagnosed.

A Connecticut family has what can only be described as superhuman bones. Thanks to a rare genetic mutation, their skeletons are denser than normal, their jaws are wider, and their palates have extra bony growths. They have extraordinarily strong bones with no history of fractures. Scientists are hoping that the study of their mutation could lead to new treatments for osteoporosis.

Serbian machinist Slavisa Pajkic, better known as Battery Man, can withstand thousands of volts of electricity without breaking a sweat. He’s not just a human conductor; he’s also a heater. Videos show him lighting up bulbs and even cooking sausages using energy stored in his body. In 1983, he set a Guinness World Record by letting 20,000 volts pass through him. Two decades later, he broke another record by boiling water to 97°C in just 1 minute and 37 seconds. Sounds like an incredibly useful guy to have around during load shedding!