5 ways to develop a younger mindset

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age - Sophia Loren

With life expectancy steadily rising in most countries around the world, the number of people aged sixty-five years or older will rise sharply over the next two decades. And you might already be one of them.

Certainly, were already seeing far more centenarians and near-centenarians than ever before. Just a few weeks ago, the world was collectively awed by nonagenarian William Shatners trip to space as the worlds foray into space. Not long after, there were numerous news stories about Dr. Manfred Steiner earning his third doctorate at the age of 89. But there are hardly outliers. More than ever, we are seeing other examples of seniors in their eighties and beyond continuing to enrich the world with their achievements instead of settling into the decrepit old age far too many people pessimistically see in their own future.

But what is it that makes these super seniors so vibrant and active? Though it is easy to attribute this ability to stay young to good genes alone, the opposite seems to be the case. A ground-breaking Danish study published in 1995 examined more than 2500 twin pairs born between 19870 and 1900 and concluded that genetics only played a modest role (at best) in human longevity. Instead, non-genetic factors, including lifestyle choices and environmental stress appear far more important in determining how long people can remain active and healthy over time.

Perhaps as importantly, the attitudes that people have towards growing older are often shaped by the kind of negative stereotypes too many of us have. These stereotypes often result from cultural expectations as well as the experiences people have dealing with their aging parents and grandparents. Along with affecting how people treat older adults, these stereotypes can also make us pessimistic about our own aging and what we will be capable of as we grow older. According to Stereotype Embodiment Theory,

people who internalize their own negative beliefs about aging are more prone to physical and mental health problems as well as becoming less productive as they age. A conclusion borne out by recent research.

This can include the belief that we are somehow doomed to become less creative and, presumably, less productive with time. Granted, this point remains controversial with many physicists, computer scientists, musicians, and even artists doing their most prominent work before they hit midlife (or younger). And yet, there are prominent exceptions: J.R. Tolkien was 62 when he wrote the first volume of the Lord of the Rings, prominent physicist Sir William Crookes was 68 when he began cutting-edge research into radioactivity, while Bertrand Russells work as a writer, academician, and peace activist continued until he was almost 100.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg when you consider that people over the age of 65 represent the fastest growing age group internationally, largely due to the major medical advances of the past few decades. As I have noted in prior articles, the biological limits of our own lifespans are being radically altered and new breakthroughs may push the upper limits of human longevity even further in decades to come.

But, there is more to aging than taking stock of your grey hairs and wrinkles. Along with physical aging, there is also psychological aging, something I have already covered previously on Forbes. Also known as subjective aging, our own research has demonstrated that a lower psychological age is linked to better mental and physical health. While true physical rejuvenation isnt available (at least so far), it is also possible to make yourself feel younger, something that is an important feature of successful aging. Here are just a few suggestions you can try, and you are welcome to come up with your own suggestions:

Set ambitious longevity goals for yourself, along with fosterity the optimism you will need to achieve these goals. Our research into using deep learning techniques to predict human psychological and subjective age shows that people who are more optimistic about the future of their health and longevity, expect to live to the age that is substantially longer than average in their country, and of their health and expect to stay in good health or even improve in the next 10 years and beyond. But, what might happen if you imagined yourself living to 120 years or longer and spending those extra years being healthy and productive? Even if medical technology fails to give you those added years, the positive mindset this optimism will produce can have valuable benefits in its own right.

Science is not standing still. Huge progress was made in science and technology in the past decade alone and you should expect to live much longer and healthier. Learn as much as you can about the recent progress in aging research and tart making your own plans for an extended future. Some books you can start with include popular non-fiction books like David Sinclair's Lifespan: Why We Ageand Why We Don't Have To,

Peter Diamandis's books, The Future Is Faster Than You Think, and Bold. You can also take a look at Sergey Young's book The Science and Technology of Growing Young. These are just a few of the books already available on what is already a hot topic in science and many more will become available soon enough.

Take a psychological aging test and try to develop a longevity mindset. Go to young.ai and register for the app which can also be downloaded onto your Android or iPhone. By answering a few simple questions about your medical history and syncing information from your medical tests or your FitBit or Apple Watch, you can receive age estimates based on your different measures. This includes estimates of lifestyle age based on your response to health survey questions, mind age based on your psychological survey responses, or blood and heart age based on biomedical data. There is even a photo age feature estimating age based on face appearance alone! Use the data the app provides to develop an action plan for staying younger.

Develop friendships with younger people and avoid the retirement peer pressure that might motivate you to act your age and just settle for a comfortable retirement. As I noted in previous articles, humans are very good at adapting to radical changes, whether positive or negative. This hedonic treadmill can also cause many older adults to become complacent about their lives and correspondingly less flexible in terms of handling changes and the stress that comes with it. This means that the best way to stay younger and more creative is to avoid this age trap and take yourself out of your comfort zone. At least once in a while.

Consider taking a few courses or even going for an entire degree at a university that requires group work and constant interaction with the younger people.

Join or start a new business, preferably in health or longevity. New business opportunities are springing up daily and this is a trend that can only go upwards in the years to come. Instead of focusing on retirement, you can think of new business opportunities for yourself. Many of these opportunities will stem from the growing number of over-65s living longer and more active lives. Start exercising your own creativity and plan out a business model that will revitalize your own life.

These are just a few suggestions to consider and you can likely come up with more with the right determination and a little creativity. Remember the words of Mark Strand who said that the future is always beginning now and start planning out your own future. It will be here faster than you think.

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5 Ways To Stay Younger And More Creative As You Get Older - Forbes

Christmas trees aredead or dying. But some conifers and other trees theoretically could live forever, according to a recent essay that reviews accumulating evidence on extremely long-lived treesand calls for more scientifically rigorous methods to determine their age and study their longevity.

Across the board, trees do not die so much as they are killed, write the authors of the review essay, entitled On Tree Longevity. Their killers are external physical or biological factors rather than old age alone. That is, there is no evidence that harmful genetic mutations pile up over time or that trees lose their ability to produce new tissue.

Trees can indeed live indefinitely, but this does not happen, says co-author Franco Biondi, an ecoclimatologist and tree-ring scientist at the University of Nevada, Reno. Because eventually an external agent, biotic or abiotic [a living thing or a nonliving one such as a physical condition], ends up killing them.

Tree killers include environmental threats such as droughts, wildfires, harsh weather and pestsas well as human threats such as logging and fires set to clear forests for hunting or pastureland, write Biondi and his co-author Gianluca Piovesan of the University of Tuscia in Italy. Their essay was published in the August issue of New Phytologist.

Tree longevity interests researchers in part because trees and other plants remove carbon from the atmosphere for photosynthesis, and older trees are thought to store more carbon than younger ones. The persistence of trees could thus play a role in slowing climate change (although rising temperatures caused by global warming also can put a strain on trees, making them more vulnerable to environmental threats). The rings of old trees can also serve as an invaluable record of climate history, with wider rings indicating better years.

Scientific models designed to study tree longevity have made incorrect assumptions, including the idea that highly shade-tolerant late-successional trees, which are found in older ecosystems that have developed larger trees and a lot of shrub cover, are longer-lived, the essay also notes. For example, extremely long-lived bristlecone pine trees are known to live in wide-open landscapes of the West and in ecosystems that have not changed much for thousands of years.

David Stahle, a geographer and tree longevity researcher at the University of Arkansas, who was not involved in the review essay, used words such as excellent and comprehensive to describe it. But he takes issue with the assertion that trees can potentially live forever. The likelihood, all things being equal, that trees are immortal seems improbable to me, he says. I love the idea. Its a romantic idea, but, I mean, come on.

The hypothesis of tree immortality has grown popular in the past 20 years as researchers continue to report having found little to no genetic evidence of aging in extremely old trees meristem (tissue that generates new cells), Stahle says. And this is one of the review essays most important points, he adds. But evidence of aging could be out there and just not yet found.

Adverse conditions, including the harsh, rockylandscapes populated by stands of bristlecone pines, can kill trees. But not all disturbances are bad for trees in the long run, the essays authors write. Many extremely old trees occur in mountain regions with limited soil and tough climate conditions. Biondi says it is as if trees that live a long time, up to thousands of years, abide by the axiom that which doesnt kill you makes you stronger. Many long-lived trees grew up in environments in which they had to compete for resources, such as water in dry stands of trees or sunlight in dense forests with leafy treetops or crowns, Biondi says.

Earlier in this century, an individual Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) in Californias White Mountains was dated using tree-ring analysis, or dendrochronology, and found to be more than 5,000 years old. That would make it the oldest known living organism on Earth that reproduces sexually, according to various sources. The age determination was made by the late Tom Harlan of the University of Arizona, who performed detailed analysis on a core sample taken from the tree in 1957. That estimate has not been confirmed by other researchers, according to a list of extremely old trees created by Rocky Mountain Tree-Ring Research, a nonprofit organization in Fort Collins, Colo. If we set aside that individual, the oldest living tree would be an around 4,850-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine known as Methuselah, which is also located in the White Mountains, according to the nonprofits list.

The uncertainty about the oldest living tree perhaps illustrates larger questions about nailing down tree agesa point that the review essay tackles. Some scientists estimates of tree ages draw on unreliable data and methods, including anecdotal reports, Piovesan and Biondi write. The most reliable age-determination methods are analyses of tree rings, with help from radiocarbon dating when necessary, they add. Stahle agrees.

Some popular tree species chopped down for sale as Christmas trees, such as Colorado blue spruces, can live for hundreds of years, Stahle says. But commercial forestry requires neither cutting short the lives of ancient and culturally valued trees nor practicing clear-cutting or other forms of deforestation. More sustainable practices include harvesting only individual trees in a stand or forest while maintaining the cover each tree provides, the water quality it protects and the carbon it sequesters. We can do all these things, and we are, Stahle says. There are good actors and bad actors in the production of forest timber for society.

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Trees Have the Potential to Live Indefinitely - Scientific American

There is a fundamental difference between what can be designed and built and what makes sense. History provides a lesson in the shape of record-setting behemoths that have never since been equaled.

The Egyptian pyramids started small, and in just a few generations, some 4,500 years ago, there came Khufus enormous pyramid, which nobody has ever tried to surpass. Shipbuilders in ancient Greece kept on expanding the size of their oared vessels until they built, during the third century BCE, a tessarakonteres, with 4,000 oarsmen. That vessel was too heavy, too ponderous, and therefore a naval failure. And architect Filippo Brunelleschis vast cupola for Florences Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, built without scaffolding and finished in 1436, was never replicated.

The modern era has no shortage of such obvious overshoots. The boom in oil consumption following the Second World War led to ever-larger oil tankers, with sizes rising from 50,000 to 100,000 and 250,000 deadweight tonnes (dwt). Seven tankers exceeded 500,000 dwt, but their lives were short, and nobody has built a million-dwt tanker. Technically, it would have been possible, but such a ship would not fit through the Suez or Panama canals, and its draft would limit its operation to just a few ports.

The economy-class-only configuration of the Airbus A380 airliner was certified to carry up to 853 passengers, but it has not been a success. In 2021, just 16 years after it entered service, the last plane was delivered, a very truncated lifespan. Compare it with the hardly puny Boeing 747, which will see its final delivery in 2022, 53 years after the planes first flight, an almost human longevity. Clearly, the 747 was the right-sized record-breaker.

Of course, the most infamous overshoot of all airplane designs was Howard Hughess H-4 Hercules, dubbed the Spruce Goose, the largest plane ever made out of wood. It had a wingspan of nearly 100 meters, and it was propelled by eight reciprocating engines, but it became airborne only once, for less than a minute, on 2 November 1947, with Hughes himself at the controls.

Another right-size giant is Fords heavy and powerful F-150, now in its 14th generation: In the United States, it has been the bestselling pickup since 1977 and the best-selling vehicle since 1981. In contrast, the Hummer, a civilian version of a military assault vehicle, had a brief career but is now being resurrected in an even heavier electric version: The largest version using an internal combustion engine, the H1, weighed nearly 3.5 tonnes, the electric Hummer, 4.1 tonnes. I doubt we will see 14 generations of this beast.

But these lessons of excess carry little weight with designers and promoters pursuing record sizes. Architects discuss buildings taller than a mile, cruise ship designers have already packed nearly 7,000 people into a single vessel (Symphony of the Seas, built 2018) and people are dreaming about much larger floating cities (perfect for spreading the next pandemic virus). There are engineers who think that we will soon have wind turbines whose more than 200-meter diameter blades will fold, like palm fronds, in hurricanes.

Depending on where you stand you might see all of this either as an admirable quest for new horizons (a quintessential human striving) or irrational and wasteful overreach (a quintessential human hubris).

This article appears in the January 2022 print issue as Extreme Designs.

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Life expectancy has come to be the gold standard in assessing the health of a population, especially during Covid-19, where the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and others advised the elderly to "shield" for months in isolation. Health services across the industrialised world have kept their citizens alive for longer, often adding more than a decade of life over the last two generations.

But as lifespan the total number of years someone will be alive has increased exponentially, healthspan the part of a persons life when they are in good health has largely stayed the same. This creates a huge crisis a demographic, economic and, above all, a humanitarian one. And it doesnt have to be this way.

A Chinese winter swimming enthusiast swims in a cold Houhai lake in Beijing, China, December 3. Winter swimming is popular among middle-aged and elderly citizens as they believe it can keep them in excellent health. EPA

Unhealthy ageing is a human tragedy. If governments and health authorities can focus on healthspans, not just lifespans, longevity technology can remedy it. Looking and feeling younger for longer is not the preserve of beauty brands or Silicon Valley billionaires. The science is real. It just needs investment, a favourable regulatory environment and health policies that are as focused on allowing people to live as much, rather than just keeping them alive.

The quality of life is just as, if not more important, than the length of life

The adverse health effects of ageing, just like high cholesterol or high blood pressure, is a risk factor for a variety of diseases. This means ageing should be treated the same way as any other risk factor that is, something to be treated and reduced. Health policy, however, has not always caught up with the science. Ageing is not an inevitable part of life that must be accepted. It is a technical problem that can and should be overcome.

It is no mystery that some individuals age better (healthier) than others. Now we know why: In 2006, the stem cell researcher Shinya Yamanaka identified four key proteins that seemed to turn the clock back on the ageing of cells, otherwise known as the "Yamanaka factors". This discovery was so profound that it led him to win the Nobel Prize. It has been hailed by some as the most important advancement since Francis Cricks discovery of the Double Helix.

But those discoveries havent always found their way into health policy. "Bio-conservatives" have resisted the notion of dramatically tampering with the ageing process, with some describing it as nothing more than billionaires' bid to buy their way out lifes only certainty: death.

Palestinian grandmother Jihad Butto, 85, celebrates obtaining a bachelor's degree in religious studies with her family at her home in Nazareth, Israel, on October 9. Reuters

Azra draws henna on her grandmothers hands in Dubai. Azra Khamissa is a Dubai based Canadian/South-African chiropractor, fashion designer, and henna artist, on August 1, 2019. Reem Mohammed / The National

This misses the point. Every new medical discovery is seen by some as "playing God", until the meaning of playing God becomes simply "being an effective Doctor". No one is saying that we should aim to live forever. And we can all agree that human life is sacred and should be preserved. But the quality of life is just as, if not more important, than the length of life.

This is something medics, investors, policymakers and the public should support because poorly managed ageing is a huge drain on global healthcare systems and economies. According to the World Health Organisation, the number of people aged 65 or older is projected to grow from more than 524 million in 2010 to nearly 1.5 billion in 2050.

If those people are economically inactive and hugely dependent on a constant stream of expensive medical procedures, economies will collapse. That strain is already huge. According to a report in the US by the Congressional Budget Office, the US Federal government spent 40 per cent of its budget, a total of $1.5 trillion, on elderly care in 2018. The same report predicts that by 2029, over half of Federal healthcare spend, approximately $3bn, will be spent on elderly care.

When populations grow older and the age of a society becomes an inverted pyramid, older people become increasingly dependent on a shrinking working-age population. That means higher spending and taxes for the young, which disincentivises them from working. The downward spiral caused by the symptoms of ageing is something that must be avoided at all costs.

Elderly people pose in clothes they have made themselves in front of a town hall in Hongseong, South Korea, November 24. EPA

Beyond the demographic and economic statistics lies human tragedy. Ageing and its associated diseases force children to watch their parents and grandparents slowly lose their independence. People who have worked their entire lives are robbed of the opportunity to enjoy their hard-earned retirement or to keep working. A couple can be robbed of their relationship if one of them is lucky enough to have the "good ageing gene" and the other isnt.

Regulators, healthcare providers and investors must work today to close the gap between healthspan and lifespan. While the average human lifespan has increased from 47 to 73 in seven decades, the gap between healthspan and lifespan is growing. It is predicted that the average global healthspan-lifespan gap is approximately nine years. Living for more than 10 per cent of our lives in relative suffering should be consigned to the past.

Health, as the WHO defines it, is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. This definition should serve as a north star. Regulatory bodies like the FDA should create an accommodating environment for anti-ageing patents, including gene therapies, to be developed and licensed.

Similarly, healthcare providers should also look to partner with private longevity providers to get the leading products onto market if we are to have a fighting chance at closing the healthspan-lifespan disparity.

This thinking is already there: The UKs National Institute for Clinical Excellence decides which medicines to fund based on how many "quality life years" they will create.

It is time to set the bar for quality of life much higher, based on the best science available.

Published: December 23rd 2021, 4:00 AM

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Scientists should be allowed to cure ageing - The National

Q: I really want next year to be the year I become as healthy as possible. Can you help me figure out a plan and schedule?

Casey R., Santa Rosa, Calif.

A: Bravo! You are planning ahead and making a public declaration of your intention to live a healthier and happier life! That shows how serious you are about achieving your goals.

By following the lifestyle adjustments suggested in my book What to Eat When and the longevity-extending tips in The Great Age Reboot (due out in 2022), you can put together a plan that is both easy to follow and loaded with great rewards.

The What to Eat When formula says eat only when the sun is up: a window of approximately 12 hours, depending on the time of year. This allows for a resting period (or fasting) and can help you break the habit of bingeing on snacks.

The guide also suggests you eat most of your food for breakfast and lunch. Aim to consume 80 percent of your daily calories before 3 p.m.

As for what you eat during these recommended times: You know the drill: plant-based, free of added sugars, no red or processed meats and no ultraprocessed foods.

Move it to lose it and gain a longer, healthier life. In The Great Age Reboot, I list steps you can take to self-engineer your fitness.

Walk 10,000 steps a day or the equivalent one minute of activity equals about 100 steps.

Get two or three sessions of strength training a week include core-strengtheners to avoid back problems down the road.

Do cardio exercise that increases your heart rate three times a week for 20 minutes. Aim for 80 percent of your age-adjusted heart rate (figure it by subtracting your age from 220 and then taking 80 percent of that).

Take 40 jumps in place a day. This increases lymphatic flow, bone density and spine health.

Q: Cancer seems to run in my family, and I want to do everything I can to help prevent it from happening to me. Can you tell me about cancer-fighting foods?

John Y., Indianapolis

A: You are right to fight! Genetic predispositions do not always mean you are going to develop whatever condition they are affiliated with. Your lifestyle choices can activate that predisposition or help squelch it! And food is a powerful tool when it comes to helping prevent cancer.

Some of our favorites are berries, lentils, kale, spinach, cauliflower, 100 percent whole grains and turmeric.

Berries: Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries contain phytochemicals such as anthocyanins and a powerful antioxidant, pterostilbene, that reduce chronic bodywide inflammation (from obesity, red meats, added sugars, stress and poor sleep habits). Chronic inflammation ups the risk of cancer substantially. Berries also contain something called ellagic acid; laboratory studies show it has antiviral, antibacterial, antioxidant and cancer-preventive properties.

Lentils: High-fiber foods nurture good gut bacteria and may reduce the risk of colon cancer. They also help control appetite and weight being overweight is associated with an increased risk of 12 cancers.

Kale, cauliflower and spinach: Kale and other cruciferous veggies, like broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower, contain glucosinolate, which can cause tumor cells to die. Spinach contains carotenoids that may help fight cancer. It also has glycoglycerolipids certain formulations may inhibit some forms of breast cancer.

Whole grains: They contain fiber, phytochemicals and minerals that help fight cancer. One metastudy looked at the diets of 786,000 people and found that eating 7 grams of whole grains daily was associated with a 20 percent decrease in the risk of dying from cancer.

Turmeric: This tasty spice may do more than add flavor to your favorite foods. Laboratory and animal research indicates it may prevent cancer, slow its spread, make chemotherapy more effective and protect healthy cells from damage by radiation therapy. Confirmation in high-quality human trials is needed.

Contact Dr. Roizen at sharecare.com.

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Launch a new you with the new year - Houston Chronicle

Longevity and mental health biotechs take note: Korify Capital is putting together a $100 million venture fund targeting your space and is looking to build a portfolio of 15 to 20 companies across Europe, the U.S. and Israel.

The targeted $100 million investment vehicle, which is expected to close around the middle of next year, is the first fund of Korify, the international venture arm of Swiss family office Infinitas Capital. Infinitas is active in multiple areas outside of biotech, notably real estate, but has been tracking advances in aging and mental health research and has decided the time is right to enter the space.

There are a lot of opportunities coming from academia. We have made a lot of progress in research that is now hopefully about to get translated into human applications in the coming years, and we've made great progress on the animal front and can actually do quite a lot. They're already prolonging lifespan, Robin Lauber, co-founder and chairman of Infinitas, said.

Lauber and Davide Ottolini, co-founder of Korify, each identify COVID-19 as an accelerant, both because it has increased the interest of generalist investors in longevity and because it could spur innovation in the historically moribund mental health sector. With large biopharma companies pulling back from central nervous system research, Korify sees room for smaller biotechs to build on academic progress, creating investment opportunities for the new VC fund.

RELATED: Cambrian snags $100M for 14 assets, 3-5 trials within 18 months

Theres not like a couple of dominant companies that just own the space, Lauber said. Rather, there's a lot of disruption happening at the smaller scale, in smaller biotech companies, that are very lucrative to invest in and very interesting from an investor's perspective.

Korify plans to invest in 15 to 20 such biotechs, with a focus on later-stage platform companies. That focus is evident in Korifys decision to make Cambrian Biopharma its first investment. Cambrian, which exited stealth in February, has disclosed $160 million in financing this year to advance a pipeline of 14 drug candidates designed to target biological drivers of aging.

We like their approach of being very diversified, with multiple shots on multiple targets, Lauber said. They also are very aware of the current regulatory systems that are in place. We don't really have any solid longevity biomarkers, so their strategy is set up in a way that they can get there with the current FDA framework.

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Aiming to make 70 the new 50, Korify rolls out $100M longevity and mental health venture fund - FierceBiotech

The worlds great civilizations were forged contrary to family instinct. The Chinese created an objective system to select civil servants who would put the states interests above those of their families; the Christian world prohibited marriage among its clergy with similar intent and the Ottomans set up an administrative elite made up of foreign slaves who could not pass on the privileges they acquired during their lives to their children. All of this was designed to limit the impulse to put family interests above general ones.

However, these measures had limited success. There were archbishops who fathered children and the Ottoman Janissaries eventually reversed the prohibition on passing power to offspring. Family always wins out, perhaps because the famiy instinct is so ingrained in human nature.

Children hold incredible potential, but for it to be developed they require a prolonged and intensive care that frequently their parents are unable to meet. We are dependent for many years after birth and it is likely that this has encouraged some typical traits in the species. Recently, the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) published a study carried out by Harvard University researchers that suggested that active grandparenting favored humans maintaining physical fitness long after their prime reproductive years and that also explained why exercise is so beneficial in later life. This role of grandparents as the pillars of parenting could be the reason why women, contrary to what occurs in practically every other animal species, can live for decades after losing their reproductive ability.

The success of species at large is reproductive, but ours achieved success with an increase in non-reproductive time

The grandmother hypothesis was developed through the study of older female members of the Hadza people of northern Tanzania. Kristen Hawkes, of the University of Utah, observed that these women were extremely active in gathering food that they then shared with their daughters. This generosity was conducive to them being given more grandchildren. Years later, an analysis of pre-industrial societies in Canada and Finland reached similar conclusions. At the beginning of the 17th century in Quebec, ecclesiastical records made it possible to determine that women who lived in the same parish as their mothers on average had 1.75 more children than their sisters who lived further away. In Finland, the results showed a similar tendency, as long as the grandmother was not over the age of 75.

Natural selection would have favored longevity in species made up of dependent individuals, says Mara Martinn Torres, director of the Spanish National Center for Research on Human Evolution (Cenieh). Fragile human babies and their huge brains would have had more chance of survival and development thanks to their grandmothers and in turn their efforts would have given our species the reward of a much longer and healthier life span than that of our close relatives, such as chimpanzees. These animals, which remain fertile their whole lives, suffer serious physical decline in their 30s and rarely make it to 40.

The paleoanthropologist Marina Lozano notes that it is estimated this essential function in grandmothers began with Homo erectus, a species that emerged around 1.8 million years ago. It is the first species of our genus to have a similar structure and life cycle to ours, with a more dilated growth in which lactation and childhood are separated and we have another stage, adolescence, says Lozano, of the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution.

It is probable that grandmotherly help began with human species that predated our own, but it seems that around 50,000 years ago cultural transformations occurred that intensified the phenomenon. According to calculations by Central Michigan University researcher Rachel Caspari, based on the fossilized teeth of 768 individuals who lived over the past three million years, among Homo sapiens during the Upper Paleolithic, the number of individuals surviving until an age when they could become grandparents was greatly increased. In that period, for every 10 Neanderthals who died between the ages of 15 and 30, only four lived longer. Among Homo sapiens, that number rose to 20.

Sapiens had already been on the planet for tens of thousands of years, but around 60,000 years ago something happened that increased their capabilities. There is a palpable cultural sophistication; it is the age when hybridization with Neanderthals took place and it also when there was a migration out of Africa that coincided with migrations within the continent, says Antonio Rosas, director of the Paleoanthropology Department at the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid. This period was unique, something was happening and it is clear that it was changing social and cultural organization, something that would also change the value of grandparenting.

This capacity for cultural adaptation increased life expectancy among Homo sapiens, leading to larger numbers of grandparents in the population. Women are born with a number of egg cells that are distributed during their fertile years. On increasing life expectancy, there may have been a change that also increased the number of egg cells to maintain fertility for longer, but the presence of grandmothers without their own children to look after offered other advantages. Human females are among the few animal species that cannot reproduce until the end of their lives. The others are cetaceans with teeth, such as pilot whales, beluga whales, narwhals and orcas, which also have large brains.

During that period of reinforcing cultural and biological transformation, greater life expectancy would have been a driving force for the species, which after many millennia of survival was on its way to an unprecedented global expansion. Increased life expectancy allows for an overlapping of generations that makes it possible to accumulate exceptional wealth. The Australopiths never knew their grandparents. Being able to bring together three generations in one home is a hive of knowledge that other species do not have. Humans do not have to start from zero with every generation. That completely alters the value of older people, says Martinn Torres.

These societies, in which grandparents gained more and more importance, were responsible for artistic creations such as the cave paintings at Altamira in Spain and Lascaux in France. They were able to improve their hunting techniques and survived and prospered during the Ice Age in Europe, during which the Neanderthals disappeared. This peculiar species, that had been so fragile for so long, achieved its success in an almost paradoxical way, says Martinn Torres. The success of species at large is reproductive, but ours achieved success with an increase in non-reproductive time.

The developmental needs of the brain, the organ where intelligence resides, but above all the social skills of humans, changed other traits of human biology that at the same time reinforced cultural changes that transformed the planet. The childcare input of grandparents was one of the traits that defined human singularity. As on other occasions, the strength of the species was to be found among some of its weakest members.

English version by Rob Train.

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The grandmother hypothesis: How humankind owes its success to matriarchs - EL PAS in English

As the final presents are bought and wrapped, and the sherry begins to flow, one question is hot on the tongue of families world-wide this festive season: When will you put down your phone and stop checking crypto?

Little do they understand the woes of a turbulent month of bearish Bitcoin divergence, nor do they understand the endless possibilities of what could happen next only one thing is certain its Christmas and its time to enjoy it.

In the festive spirit, Coin Rivet has compiled a barometer reading of experts crypto market sentiments for 2022 so you dont have to this holiday season.

For many of the experts, Web 3.0 has been veritably left out this year, although the significance of the sub-sector will continue to grow into 2022. Web 3.0 is focused on extending user utility in a decentralised capacity, and naturally this will place users as the central focus within the emergent technology.

Julian Sawyer, CEO of Bitstamp the worlds longest-standing crypto exchange, was keen to assert the viewpoint that customer interaction is a vitally human component of high tech systems.

In crypto especially, we use tech to drive our products and our business, however, our customer service is a space where we can be human, he explained.

The technical jargon in our industry is what causes customers to get confused or frustrated and we strive to be a place where people can enter the market with confidence.

In 2022, the focus should be on innovating products that provide a better customer experience, not to use the technology to separate potential customers out. As more people talk about metaverses, cyborgs and alternative realities, Im betting that people are going to want to talk to real people.

And Matt Zhang, the Founder of Hivemind Capital (a $1.5bn crypto fund built on the back of Algorand), concurs with this opinion adding the decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) will revolutionise user engagement in the future of industry, and the tech sector will be first.

Story continues

In 2022, we will see more companies explore alternative governance models using DAO and blockchain technology, highlighted Zhang.

This trend will be particularly obvious in the consumer tech sector, where consumers feedback on products shapes the longevity of the companies that provide those services in the first place.

Many have been quick to label 2021 as the year of institutional crypto adoption, however, the experts seem to suggest this moment is far from over amid economic concerns and the current state of adoption.

Diogo Monica, President of Anchorage Digital the first federally chartered crypto bank, explained how institutional adoption of crypto represented a generational wealth transfer that is evidenced by a maturing multi-asset class industry.

Its no longer just speculative investing in Bitcoin or Ethereum; were talking about NFTs, DeFi, remittances, capital preservation, and many other verticals, explained Diogo.

Well also see Bitcoin continue to act as a hedge against inflation, which continues to be important as rates rise.

Finally, banks and fintechs will continue to add support for crypto services across the board, as 2021 has shown us that the massive transfer of wealth to the millennial generation is well under way, and their needs are much different than their predecessors.

And Matthew Gould, CEO of Unstoppable Domains, a leading NFT domain name platform, highlighted how the standout performance of stablecoins in 2021 demonstrated the genuine utility of crypto to individuals and banks alike.

Stablecoins had a breakout year in 2021, reaching a market cap of over $152 billion. I predict that by 2024, the total market cap of stablecoins will reach $1 trillion, said Gould.

The biggest thing thats going to win over crypto skeptics is utility, and stablecoins are the best example of this stablecoins represent everything good about crypto without the speculation or the FOMO aspect, especially when you look at regulated stablecoins like USDC.

Kosala Hemachandra, the CEO of MyEtherWallet, believes that 2022 will deliver a new wave of NFT hype as the real use-cases finally emerge and come to fruition.

In 2022, Im looking forward to physical items such as car titles and house deeds becoming NFTs, said Hemachandra.

This will introduce a whole new game to crypto. NFTs are easy to understand, similar to collectibles in the real world.

Every wave of NFTs brings something new to the table, which means we havent even seen the full glory of NFTs yet.

Speaking to the metaverse, Colin Pape (Founder of Presearch), argued 2022 would be a battleground year that would see centralised entities and decentralised networks duke out ownership of online interactions.

Our collective shift towards the metaverse will continue to accelerate. This raises major concerns about privacy, explained Pape.

Its not just your Facebook account, its a shift to everything being online. Centralised companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon will vie for control over our digital lives, so we need to focus on building a future that is a net positive.

The best way to do this is by offering alternatives to big tech platforms. As we shift towards a future in the metaverse, we should prioritise decentralised, open-source platforms, and educate people on alternatives to the centralised big tech platforms they use every day.

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Crypto experts break-down their 2022 industry predictions - Yahoo Finance

Peter Wohlleben manages a forest in the Eifel Mountains of Germany. Hes most familiar with the struggles and strategies of beeches and oaks. And from decades of observing, studying, living, breathing, and walking among the trees, he has come to discover a parallel world that is invisible to most of us.

Modern forestry is principally concerned with producing lumber. It was Wohllebens job to size up hundreds of trees a day with an eye toward the marketplace. It was only when, in the mid-90s, he began to organize survival training and log-cabin experiences for tourists that he began to wake up to the mystery, variety, complexity, and wonder of trees.

He wrote about that awakening in the 2015 bestseller The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World (Greystone Books, $17).

The Foreword by scientist, explorer, and conservationist Tim Flannery sets the tone:

One reason that many of us fail to understand trees is that they live on a different time scale than us. One of the oldest trees on Earth, [Old Tjikko], a spruce in Sweden, is more than 9,500 years old. Thats 115 times longer than the average human lifetime.

Trees, it turns out, are social. Theyre sophisticated communicators. They experience pain, have memories, and live with their children.

Trees can taste and smell. Certain trees release chemicals to alert their neighbors that a threat in the form, for example, of a leaf-eating giraffe is at hand. Others, when under attack by insects, send out chemical signals to attract predators that will eat the insects.

Trees exchange nutrients through their root systems, including with their competitors. The system is to everyones advantage, because a grouping of trees creates an ecosystem that, among other things, can regulate temperature, store water, and generate humidity.

Sick members of the community are nursed and nourished; its as if trees, too, exist as part of a Mystical Body. So strong is the instinct toward collective health that a kind of equalization principle is at work, whereby more robust trees work to strengthen the weak.

As with humans, trees that grow in isolation generally fail to thrive. And as in the human world, hierarchies exist certain trees are favored. A tree will voluntarily curtail the growth of branches that would otherwise impinge upon the light needed by a neighboring friend, but have no problem in crowding out a nonfriend. Roots of friends become intertwined to such an extent that they sometimes even die together.

Trees register pain by means of electrical signals at the site of the wound. Chemical signals are also transmitted through fungal networks that form around the root tips.

Trees know how to conserve energy: They can go through periods where they sleep, then, possibly after several years, wake. Mother trees purposely limit the amount of light available to their children, as slow growth makes for longevity.

Trees store water in order to survive hot summers and drought. Wohlleben considers the mystery of how that water makes its way from the trees roots all the way up to their leaves.

Insects, butterflies, bees, foraging animals, birds: all depend upon and, in a kind of complex, intricate dance, interact with the trees pollen, seeds, leaves, nuts, and flowers.

Old Tjikko is a tree in Fulufjll in Sweden which is claimed to be the oldest tree in the world, by age of its root system. (Wikimedia Commons)

Over time, Wohlleben developed a new way of managing forests that is both more productive and more profitable: more humane, you could say.

He goes so far as to speak of love among trees.

Some may object to such anthropomorphization but universally acclaimed childrens author Hans Christian Andersen took things a step further.

In fact, this is the perfect time of year to read, or re-read his short story The Fir Tree.

Andersens young tree lived in a beautiful forest. The sun shone, the soft air fluttered its leaves, and the little peasant children passed by, prattling merrily, but the fir tree heeded them not.

The tree was so restless, in fact, that it took no pleasure in the warm sunshine, the birds, or the rosy clouds that floated over it every morning and evening. Sound familiar?

In winter, when the snow glittered on the ground, the fir saw that other, bigger, trees were chosen to be cut down and carried away by laughing bands of revelers. Oh, if I could but keep on growing tall and old! the fir tree thought. There is nothing else worth caring for in the world!

After several years, the trees fondest wish is granted. On Christmas Eve, it finds itself in a lavish home, decorated with golden apples, figs, toys, and glowing candles. For one night, the children enjoy their orgy of food and gifts. The next day the tree is relegated to a dark corner of the attic, where it yellows, dries, and is at last hauled out, unceremoniously chopped into tiny pieces, and burned.

Moral: Lets enjoy that warm sunshine, those rosy clouds, and the friends and family with whom the good Lord has graced us now! Wishing one and all a blessed Christmas.

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The hidden lives of trees - Angelus News

TUESDAY, Dec. 21, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Intermittent fasting is all the rage due to its potential health benefits, and now a new review shows this style of eating really does produce weight loss and may even improve certain markers of heart health.

Intermittent fasting is an umbrella term for several diets that alternate between feasts and fasts. The 5:2 diet involves eating normally five days of the week and restricting your calories on the other two days. Alternate-day fasting calls for a fast day-feast day-fast day pattern. In contrast, time-restricted eating refers to eating only during specific time windows each day.

"The new study demonstrates that the different forms of intermittent fasting, i.e., alternate-day fasting, the 5:2 diet and time-restricted feeding, are all effective weight loss interventions for people with obesity," said study author Krista Varady, director of the Human Nutrition Research Unit at the University of Illinois, in Chicago.

"Intermittent fasting may be an effective means of lowering heart disease risk by decreasing blood pressure, low-density lipoprotein [LDL] or 'bad' cholesterol, and triglycerides," she said. What's more, these diets may help prevent type 2 diabetes by lowering insulin resistance and fasting insulin levels.

Most of these benefits likely stem from weight loss.

"All of these regimens induce a calorie restriction of 15% to 30% daily, which results in weight loss," Varady said. "When an obese person loses weight, they almost always see reductions in LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure and insulin resistance."

For the review, the researchers analyzed 11 studies that comprised 130 trials of various intermittent fasting regimens. When the investigators looked at all of the studies as a whole, intermittent fasting did produce weight loss and improvements in risk factors for heart health. However, only alternate-day fasting and the 5:2 diet resulted in a clinically significant weight loss of more than 5%, the study showed.

The findings were published online Dec. 17 in JAMA Network Open.

So, should you or shouldn't you jump on the intermittent fasting bandwagon, and if you do, which method is right for you?

Two experts who were not involved with the study agreed that it's too early to make any blanket recommendations.

"The study provides strong evidence that some, but not all, of the regimens result in weight loss and related decreases in body mass metrics and improvements in cardiometabolic risk factors, such as cholesterol levels, blood pressure and measures of insulin resistance," said Benjamin Horne. He is the director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology at the Intermountain Heart Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The methods in this study that showed the most profound benefits tend to be the most difficult to follow, he noted. "Future studies should evaluate the ability of the average person to adhere to these regimens, because it is unclear that they are sustainable over the long term," Horne said.

The study also could not address if intermittent fasting reduces heart attacks or strokes or extends longevity. "It is unknown whether the average person can adhere to any of the four intermittent fasting regimens for a long enough period of time [years or decades] to affect those outcomes," Horne added.

And importantly, he asked, can weight loss can be sustained without continuing the regimen?

There are also safety considerations. "The hype surrounding intermittent fasting may be leading to harms to unsuspecting people who want to achieve better health," Horne explained, "especially people with diagnosed chronic diseases and asymptomatic health conditions."

New York City dietician Robin Foroutan isn't a fan of the difficult-to-stick-with intermittent fasting regimens that showed the greatest benefits in this study.

"I only recommend time-restricted eating and fasting-mimicking diets," said Foroutan. Fasting-mimicking diets work by tricking your body into thinking that you're fasting even though you're still eating. These methods are easier to follow so people are more likely to stay the course.

The bottom line? Always talk to your doctor before starting a new eating regimen, she said.

More information

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has more on the various types of intermittent fasting.

SOURCES: Krista Varady, PhD, professor, nutrition, and director, Human Nutrition Research Unit, University of Illinois, Chicago; Robin Foroutan, MS, RDN, dietitian, New York City; Benjamin Horne, PhD, director, cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology, Intermountain Heart Institute, Salt Lake City, Utah; JAMA Network Open, Dec. 17, 2021, online

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Big Review Confirms Power of Fasting Diets for Weight Loss - HealthDay News

In a highly commendable move, the Rajapaksa brothers, who hold the reins of power in Sri Lanka, invited the UN Human Rights Council dealing with contemporary forms of slavery to visit Sri Lanka, study the living conditions of the most exploited sections of society like people working in garment firms in export promotion zones, tea plantation workers and migrants. Sri Lanka is the first country in South Asia to take this imaginative initiative. Will other countries in the region emulate the Sri Lankan example?Tomoya Obokata, UN Special Rapporteur, visited Sri Lanka between November 26 and December 3 for an on-the-spot study of the problems and met a cross section of workers, government officials, trade union leaders and NGOs involved in the subject. The rapporteur presented the preliminary findings in a meeting held on November 26. The final report would be submitted to the UN in September 2022.The workers in the tea plantations are of Indian Tamil origin. Apply any yardstickper capita income, living conditions, longevity of life, educational attainments and status of womenthey are at the bottom of the ladder. The UN Special Rapporteur has highlighted: Contemporary forms of slavery have an ethnic dimension. In particular, Malaiyaha Tamilswho were brought from India to work in the plantation sector 200 years agocontinue to face multiple forms of discrimination based on their origin. In 2017, Sri Lanka celebrated the 150th anniversary of its tea industry. The government and the planters organised a number of seminars and conferences to highlight the role of the tea industry in the economy, how to increase production in the sector and how to modernise it. The Institute of Social Development in Kandy was the only organisation that convened a seminar on those who produce the Two leaves and a Bud (novel written by Dr Mulk Raj Anand) that brings cheer early in the morning to millions across the world.The contrasting lives of the planters and workers should be highlighted. Given below are two quotations that describe the contrast. The BBC, in 2005, telecast a documentary titled How the British Reinvented Slavery. The documentary portrays the lives of the planters as follows: You can sit in your veranda, and sip the lemonade and be fanned by a servant and have your toenails cut at the same time by some coolie, and you can watch your labourers working, you could sleep with any woman you wanted, more or less everything was done for you from the time you wake up and the time you went to bed. People looked after you, people obeyed you, people are afraid of you, your single word as a plantation owner could deny life.Vanachirahu, a young poet from Malaiyaham, gave expression to the innermost feelings of his people in times of communal troubles. In a poem titled Dawn, the poet writes: Our nights are uncertain, dear, let us look at each other, before we go to bed. This may be our last meaningful moment. Finally press your lips on the cheeks of our children. Then let us think about our relatives for a moment. Lastly let us wipe our own tears.The most important feature of the Malaiyaha Tamils is the sharp decline in their population. At the time of independence in 1948, they were more in number than Sri Lankan Tamils. Because of the two agreements signed in 1964 and 1974 between Colombo and New Delhi, and repatriation of a large number of people as Indian citizens, their number declined. Today, according to census statistics, they number only 5.5% of the population.For the first few decades after independence, the major problem confronting the Indian Tamil population was the issue of statelessness. With a judicious mix of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles, the community, under the leadership of Savumiamoorthy Thondaman, was able to extract citizenship rights from a recalcitrant Sinhalese-dominated government. All those born in Sri Lanka after October 1964 were granted citizenship, which also included the residue of the Sirimavo-Shastri pact, yet to be repatriated to India. With the introduction of the proportional system of representation under the 1978 Republican Constitution, the community was able to send more representatives to Parliament.The community is now engaged in a struggle for equality and dignity. The living conditions are improving but much more remains to be done before they can enjoy the status of perfect equality. First and foremost, human rights violations continue to take place. Though the political parties representing the Malaiyaha Tamils never subscribed to the demand for a separate state, they were subjected to vicious and savage attacks by lumpen sections of Sinhalese in 1977, 1981 and 1983. I happened to be in Hatton after the Bindunewa massacre in 2006. Indira, a young lady, confided that she was scared to move around Hatton because of insecurity. She contrasted that to her life with her brother in Perambur, Chennai, where she could go without any fear for late-night film shows. Second, the tea workers daily wage is around 1,000 Sri Lankan rupees, which is not even sufficient to meet their daily needs. Many, therefore, absent themselves from the plantations and go to work in vegetable farms where they are able to get double the wages, in addition to breakfast and lunch. Finally, while every boy and girl goes to school, there are many dropouts. Very few enter the university level. I was associated with the University of Peradeniya as a SAARC Professor for International Relations in 2006. In the final-year BA class, in Tamil medium, there were 10 students, of whom eight were Muslim girls, a boy was from Batticaloa and a girl from the plantation area. In the same year, the number of teachers from the Indian Tamil community in the university was less than 10.In his plan of action for three years, Sri Lankan High Commissioner Milinda Moragoda has highlighted that there should be more educational exchanges between the two countries. For instance, the Chennai Centre for Global Studies is very keen to step into the scene and assist the Tamil children, especially from the hill country, to come to India for secondary and college education, and is prepared to meet all their expenditures and also offer them scholarships. The community can come up only if they have good value-based education. Tamil Nadu can play a benign role in this direction.The transformation from Thottakattan (barbarian from the plantations), a contemptuous term used by Jaffna Vellalars, to the noble appellation Malaiyaha Tamil is an illustration of the qualitative change that has taken place in the hill country. But much more remains to be done before they become equal citizens enjoying equality of opportunity. Let me conclude with a poem written by M A Nuhman whom I had the privilege to know at the University of Peradeniya: Where there is no equality, there is no peace, where there is no peace, there is no freedom, these are my last words, equality, peace and freedom.

V SuryanarayanSenior professor (retd), Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Madras(The author was the Founding Director of the Centre in the University of Madras)(suryageeth@gmail.com)

Link:
The plight of Tamils of Indian origin in Sri Lanka - The New Indian Express

The best way to tackle the worsening climate crisis is to slash emissions of greenhouse gases, which are largely released by burning fossil fuels. At the same time, allowing the natural world to recover from spiralling levels of degradation caused by human activity will draw down and store carbon, while also boosting biodiversity, helping to protect the planet.

Getting on with this two-pronged approach ought to be our species number one priority. But while governments and businesses debate how they go about doing this, there have also been many useful developments in science, technology and in government policy that can support this process, or offer parallel assistance to protecting the environment.

With the impacts of the climate crisis looming large over 2021, The Independent takes a look back at some of the most significant climate developments from this year.

Click on the title of each one to read the full article.

The farming of insects for food has been billed as the next sustainable food revolution in western countries many times over in the past few years. One reason for this is, compared with traditional livestock such as beef and lamb, insects require far fewer resources and produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

Ideas for reflecting away more of the suns rays range from painting buildings bright white to sending giant mirrors into space. If they were ever deployed at scale, each of these proposed technologies would come with novel scientific, political and ethical challenges.

Beyond tree-planting, carbon capture technology has not arrived at scale yet, but enormous strides are rapidly being made in the field. It is now possible to put fossil fuels right back where they came from and were safely stored for millions of years, in the interior of the Earth, not flowing and floating around the exterior. In April, The Independents Andy Martin investigated the potential for carbon capture and storage technology to offer a real solution to the climate crisis.

An electric-powered flying taxi, which was demonstrated at a Paris air show earlier this year, will be ready for passengers by the 2024 Olympics in the French capital, its creators said at the time. The VoloCity air taxi looks like a tiny helicopter with two seats and is topped by 18 rotors fixed to a large circle.

The German start-up is working with the French Civil Aviation Authority to bring electric air taxis to the le-de-France region.

Tree planting could play a crucial role in helping European countries adapt to worsening droughts driven by the climate crisis, a study released over the summer found.

The new research suggested that as well as soaking up CO2, planting new forest across agricultural land in Europe would also boost local rainfall levels.

US company Pavement Technology from Cleevland, Ohio, has invented a titanium-based spray which they say acts as a "sunblock" for asphalt roads. The technology acts to scatter radiation from the sun, and also gives roads greater longevity, its creators said.

The UKs heavily degraded peatlands account for around 5 per cent of our total greenhouse gas emissions, but they should be an essential carbon store, not a source. Now, major efforts are underway to bring back this critical resource. A 327-hectare site in Yorkshire is at the forefront of the efforts to restore them to their former boggy glory.

This summer the UK government said it will ban the sale of new petrol and diesel trucks by 2040 as part of plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

A ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030 was announced in November 2020 under Boris Johnsons 10-point climate plan.

Free public transport and schemes to help people green their homes were among actions recommended by a major new report which asked citizens how the UK should get to grips with the climate crisis.

Generating entirely renewable clean energy, from which water would be the only waste product, is feasible and scientists are homing in on the exact means of achieving it, according to research published in July.

A team from Trinity College Dublin is fine-tuning a means of using renewable electricity to split water molecules into their constituent atoms, to release energy-rich hydrogen, which they say could be stored and used in fuel cells.

The process is already possible, and can be done using wind or solar power to generate the electricity required to split the water molecules.

Humanity still has the ability to change course and avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis, scientists said after the UNs latest grim global climate assessment.

In this article The Independent looked at 14 ways individuals can take action.

Food production makes up a third of global greenhouse gas emissions with livestock for beef, lamb, pork and dairy accounting for 14.5 per cent of that. Transforming how we grow food, and what we eat, is a crucial pillar in tackling the climate crisis.

Solutions include: Vertical farms inside supermarkets, using derelict urban sites to grow food close to population centres, and using novel materials such as seaweed for packaging liquids.

The UK government is to spend just over 100m to kickstart a world-leading hydrogen economy, which it hopes will help the fuel become a major energy source and play a significant role in decarbonising heavy industry.

Hydrogen has long been tipped as a clean green fuel that might be used to replace fossil fuels in combustion-based sectors that are more difficult to electrify, such as aviation, shipping, steel and chemical production and other heavy industry.

The worlds first and largest factory to capture and convert carbon dioxide from the air into stone began operations in Iceland in September.

The Orca plant set up by Swiss startup Climeworks AG aims to reduce the effects of the greenhouse gas on the planet and its launch represented a milestone in the direct air capture industry.

Local authorities should not unnecessarily put street lights into rural areas where people could use torches, Lord Deben, the chairman of the Climate Change Committee, said in September.

Light pollution in rural areas has been named as a key reason for the sharp decline in insects across Europe in recent decades, with fears the insect apocalypse could result in a catastrophic collapse of ecosystems across the natural world.

British agriculture could receive a boost worth millions of pounds a year if thousands of honeybee hives were located in solar parks across the country, scientists said in October.

Rising demand for solar power as the UK targets growth in clean energy ahead of its legally-binding 2050 net zero plan, has seen the expansion of large grassy parks covered with solar panels, many of which are situated close to areas of intensive agriculture.

Honey bees living on solar farms could bring major benefits to farmers, researchers say

(Getty)

Speaking in October, the most senior scientific advisor to the UK government, Sir Patrick Vallance, said harnessing the benefits of the natural world is a critical part of hitting net zero by 2050, and must sit alongside innovation in science and technology to tackle the climate crisis.

Sir Patrick warned against relying on magic new technology to solve environmental problems.

This has to be viewed as an all-systems approach, he told The Independent on the role the natural world can play in tackling the climate crisis.

Government scientific advisers from all over the world united in October to call for people to change their personal behaviour in order to help tackle the climate crisis. There will be a move away from the extent of meat-eating weve seen in the past, and I think we all need to think about our flying habits, they said.

Iceland derived 65 per cent of its primary energy from geothermal sources in 2016. Around 85 per cent of all Icelandic homes are heated by geothermal energy. The countrys electricity comes almost exclusively from low-carbon hydropower and geothermal sources.

The UK is not actively volcanic and does not have geothermal reserves on the same scale as Iceland. But there are hotspots across the country with potential for developing geothermal energy. This includes Cornwall, where the countrys first geothermal power plant was commissioned earlier this year.

On the site of the Hellisheidi Power Station, the worlds third-largest geothermal plant located in southwestern Iceland, a world-first experiment has started capturing CO2 straight from air and turning it to stone.

It is a collaboration between Swiss start-up Climeworks, which has created technology to suck CO2 from the atmosphere, and Icelands Carbfix, a company that has developed a technique to turn CO2 to stone in less than two years.

A swathe of Englands biggest land owners and managers signed a joint pact in November, committing them to large-scale habitat restorations and a major tree-planting programme across a portfolio of 10.5 million acres, to help boost biodiversity and tackle the climate crisis.

The organisations, including the National Trust, RSPB and the Duchy of Cornwall have said they will work together to protect and regenerate environments such as peat bogs, woodland and rivers, to help draw down carbon and provide functioning ecosystems in order to help the UKs legally binding goal of reaching net zero by 2050.

This month, the government announced the creation of a new concept aircraft which it says will run on liquid hydrogen and could one day fly to the other side of the world with zero carbon emissions and just one refuelling stop.

The 15m project has put forward a design for a mid-size passenger plane that will be able to accommodate 279 passengers and fly halfway around the globe without needing to refuel, or anywhere in the world with one refuelling stop, the government said.

Australia has been ranked one of the planets worst climate performers in multiple league tables, but now some old coal power stations may be converted to run on hydrogen.

The Liddell and Bayswater power stations in New South Wales Hunter Valley currently account for over 40 per cent of the states carbon dioxide emissions.

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Flying cars and sunblock for roads: The best climate solutions of the year - The Independent