Marie Curie died in 1934 in her 50s. The page says it was published in a journal of April 2002.
If the editor “knew” Marie enough to have educated discussions with her on her deathbed (at least long enough to be “friends”), let’s say the editor was really young in their 20s, that would make the editor at the time of writing in their response in their late 80’s to early 90s… working hard at some subpar journal?
Without more detail, the editor’s response doesn’t pass the sniff test, and it sounds like they’re full of shit.
I looked for the issue on anna’s archive, the editor in chief was Martin Zatz, born in 1944, so if it’s him yeah he couldn’t have met Marie Curie, but there is no confirmation that he was the one answering. However page 156 features two very cute raccoons, so it was worth investigating.
TLDR: couldn’t confirm, found raccoons
This was a reframing of a line from the 1988 vp debate which would have been more familiar in 2002.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senator,_you're_no_Jack_Kennedy
unoriginal, plodding, pedestrian and pointless.
Did the peer reviewer call in sick and emergency sub a NYT book reviewer?
