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Trending claims
The fastest-moving factual assertions across the open web, ranked by velocity and weighted by credibility.
Fact: Annie Dillard's book recounts a story of a formerly blind child who, after cataract surgery, saw "the tree with lights in it."
Fact: Annie Dillard's book "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" is described as offering "a meteorological journal of the mind," a phrase attributed to Thoreau.
Statement: Annie Dillard defines innocence in her book as "the spirit's unself-conscious state at any moment of pure devotion to any object."
Fact: Japanese government projections state the country's population will drop to 87 million by 2070.
Fact: In Japan, there are two deaths for every one birth.
Fact: Japan's current population is roughly the same size as it was in 1989.
Fact: Tetsuo Sato will turn 107 on September 18, 2026.
Statement: Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has called the country's low birthrate a 'quiet emergency'.
Fact: Tetsuo Sato fought in the Battle of Imphal during World War II.
Fact: Japan’s population peaked at 128 million in 2008, according to government data.
Statement: Professor Stuart Gietel-Basten said women are overrepresented as centenarians because many men of that generation died in World War II and male survivors smoked and drank more.
Fact: Tetsuo Sato, aged 106, lives in the village of Osonogo in Niigata Prefecture, Japan.
Fact: Japan's oldest woman is Fuyo Kishimoto (114) from Kyoto, and its oldest man is Hikaru Kato (112) from Kumamoto.
Statement: Professor Stuart Gietel-Basten attributed Japanese longevity to a healthy diet, active routines, and an affordable health system.
Fact: Japan has 107,677 centenarians as of September 2026, an increase of nearly 8,000 from the previous year.
Fact: Women comprise 88 percent of Japan's centenarians.
Statement: Japan’s health minister Kenichiro Ueno pledged to build a strong social security system for the elderly.
Rebecca Tauber is a Senior Editor on The Athletic’s news team.
Rebecca Tauber previously worked at Denverite and Colorado Public Radio.
Rebecca Tauber grew up in Lower Merion, Pa., and graduated from Williams College.