CORNELIUS, North Carolina When Team Penskes Simon Pagenaud won the 103rd Indianapolis 500 in 2019, he joined the likes of such legends as A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Rick Mears, Helio Castroneves and current teammate Will Power.

With this years Indy 500 rescheduled from May 24 to Aug. 23 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pagenaud is part of a group that includes Dario Resta, Floyd Davis and Mauri Rose.

These are drivers who had an extended reign as an Indianapolis 500 winner for reasons that were bigger than the race itself.

Resta won the 1916 Indianapolis 500. The race was halted for two years because of The Great War, later known as World War I. When the race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway resumed in 1919, Howdy Wilcox ended Restas extended reign.

Davis started the 1941 race in an Offenhauser owned by Lou Moore but had to give way to a relief driver on Lap 72 after car owner Lou Meyer was displeased with his driving effort. That driver was Rose, who drove the car to victory. Both drivers were listed as Indianapolis 500 winners in 1941.

That was on May 30, 1941. On Dec. 7 came the attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway was shuttered from 1942-1945. Tony Hulman purchased the decaying facility from former owner Eddie Rickenbacker in November 1945.

The Indianapolis 500 returned on May 30, 1946 with George Robson winning the race.

It has been the centerpiece sporting event on Memorial Day or Memorial Day Weekend ever since, with the exceptions of 1973, 1986 and 1997 when rain moved it to later in the week. In 1986, it was held on Saturday of the next weekend when rain prohibited running it on Memorial Day Monday or Tuesday of that week.

Bobby Rahal was the winner in 86.

Rose became a three-time champion with victories in 1947 and 1948 to supplement his relief driver victory in 1941.

When Pagenaud was told of the reasons his reign as Indy 500 winner would last longer than normal, he didnt find it a reason to celebrate by any means.

After all, whether they are world wars or a worldwide pandemic, the Indy 500 has been delayed by grim events in human history.

Well, those are not very fun events, Pagenaud told NBCSports.com last week from his home on Lake Norman in North Carolina. But Im glad we have been able to find a date for the biggest race in the world. Im glad we are going to be able to run it safely. The health of people was the main focus here. Im glad it was announced because it will take away a lot of stress from the teams and fans on expectations.

Its awesome to see the way IndyCar has rescheduled the whole year. Well go racing in June and in August. Its exciting because its a good time to go racing. Its an exciting day in such a tough time.

Pagenaud is a popular Frenchman who came to the United States after a successful road racing career in Europe to find his next challenge in racing. Since joining IndyCar, he has won a series championship in 2016 and the Indianapolis 500 in 2019.

Pagenaud, his wife Hailey, and their prized son a Jack Russell Terrier named Norman played it safe on March 13 after the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg was canceled (it since has been revived with the hopes of being a season finale in October).

On Friday of St. Pete, I decided to drive home to contain myself to make sure I wasnt going to get the virus or contaminate someone if I was the carrier, Pagenaud said. We went home and have been isolated since. The nice thing is I have a gym set up; I have my simulator here. I have everything I need to stay in touch with my family, and friends and my trainer. Ive been working out just like any other week. Its just a longer one. Its like the race at Indianapolis last year, its a reset.

I know where I need to be and how I need to be mentally and physically.

At this point, Im more ready than ever.

His family, however, remains in France, and he has concern for his loved ones that are fighting the pandemic across the Atlantic Ocean.

Story continues

Im very concerned for my family, Pagenaud said. My sister lives very close to Italy in the south of France. That is a big concern as well as my nephew. Ive been in touch with them. My dad owns a supermarket in my hometown in France, and he is on the frontline as well waking up every day at 4 a.m. and coming home at 8 p.m. to keep his troops in great form.

It was a concern. It still is. My mom is in Paris, too. Hopefully, everybody is in good health and staying in good health. We pray for everybody on this Earth. Hopefully, we get out of it as soon as possible and go on to enjoy our business and our lives.

As much of the world is on lockdown, including major parts of the United States, the dream of one day returning to normalcy is the bright spot that keeps people going. That is why Pagenaud continues his strenuous physical workouts at home with the dream of taking a drink from the traditional Bottle of Milk that goes to the Indy 500 winner.

That milk should taste just as good in August as it does at the end of May.

It might be a little warmer, but the goal is to still try it, Pagenaud said. Im excited to try to get a second crown. At this point, I want to go racing and experience another year like I just experienced. Im ready to go racing, and I know the whole team is ready to go. Its pretty awesome news that we are going to run the race in August.

Once Pagenaud puts on his helmet and flips down the visor, it will be Race Day at the Indy 500, no matter if it is in May or in August.

The approach will be the same, but different temperature might change the car and the way it is going to handle in the heat of August in Indianapolis, Pagenaud said. Its going to be a different race for different reasons, but in May we have had some hot Indianapolis 500s and some colder ones. We will adapt. That is what we do in racing.

Most importantly, we are going to have a great show.

IndyCar officials hope to start the season on May 30 with the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix doubleheader. That is predicated on if the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is under control by then. IndyCar, led by new owner Roger Penske, along with Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles, IndyCar President Jay Frye and Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles, created a revised schedule for 2020.

Its impressive, Pagenaud said. Its a tough situation to be in for IndyCar. There is nothing you can do. The most important thing is the health of people, of our fans and of the population. You are just being a passenger of the situation. When you have to make decisions, its really hard to know which way to go.

If the season begins as planned, IndyCar will be racing nearly every weekend with few gaps in the schedule. If successful, 14 of the 17 races on the original calendar are on the revised schedule.

Its going to be intense, Pagenaud said. This is a very physical car to drive and a very physical race series. Its so competitive. You are fighting 32 other cars that can win the race in Indianapolis and 25 or more cars in the championship this year. Its about preparation. I didnt stop training. Im fully ready for this year.

Its great to get some rest now before a fast-paced season. No problem, Im ready.

The revised schedule also has an IndyCar/NASCAR doubleheader set for July 4 as the GMR IndyCar Grand Prix was moved from May 9 to the same day as the NASCAR Xfinity Series Pennzoil 150 on the IMS road course. The Brickyard 400 will run the following day with Cup cars on the oval.

NASCAR officials have been quiet on the idea of a doubleheader while waiting to unveil their officially revised schedule. If it happens, though, it would be one of the most intriguing weekends in recent motorsports history.

Its great to see the great racing series get together like this in America, Pagenaud said. NASCAR is a huge sport and so is IndyCar. Now we are going to be racing together on the same weekend in the biggest racing location in the world.

There are so many objectives for this situation. It took the leaders of our series to get together, a lot of effort on both sides, and with NBC being our main channel, its a no-brainer. Super excited for the fans.

As the current reigning champion of the Indianapolis 500, Pagenaud has experienced all of the traditions and celebrations that go with the historic achievement. Preserving practice and a full weekend of qualifications on Aug. 15-16 was vital.

For the traditions and being a past winner, its important to keep the traditions alive, Pagenaud said. Its great because we are keeping everything alive, the traditions, everything that goes into the Indy 500. Its our biggest race in the championship and Im so, so glad we are going to run it. I was concerned we werent going to run it this year. Its fantastic news and gives me a lot of motivation because it is my No. 1 goal.

We will come out of this. This is going to change the world.

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500

Simon says longevity of Indy 500 reign will last a few months longer originally appeared on NBCSports.com

More:
Simon says longevity of Indy 500 reign will last a few months longer - Yahoo Sports

Damage (red devils) like drying out, harsh chemicals or heat normally causes proteins to become unstable and lose their proper shape and function (left side, orange). Researchers at the University of Tokyo have characterized Hero proteins (pink, purple, green), long, flexible proteins that protect other proteins (right side, orange). Credit: Illustration by Kotaro Tsuboyama, CC BY 4.0

New study of heat-resistant protein class reveals unusual shape and ability to prevent dangerous clumps associated with neurodegenerative diseases.

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have discovered a new group of proteins, remarkable for their unusual shape and abilities to protect against protein clumps associated with neurodegenerative diseases in lab experiments. The Hero proteins are heat resistant and are widespread in animals from insects to humans.

Most proteins have well-defined folds and twists that form a rigid structure, but the new type has a long, flexible stringlike structure. Researchers found the first of these strange proteins in flies and named it using a combination of an informal Japanese word meaning weak or not rigid and the diminutive suffix normally attached to young boys names, hero-hero kun.

Years later, researchers realized the name also fit the English meaning of hero, a brave defender.

The UTokyo team now reports that Hero proteins can protect other proteins, extend the life span of fruit flies by 30 percent, and protect both fruit flies and lab-grown human motor neurons from dangerous protein clumps, like those observed in patients with neurodegenerative diseases.

The Hero protein was identified by accident in about 2011 when then-graduate student Shintaro Iwasaki encountered an unusually heat-resistant protein that increased stability of Argonaute, the protein at the center of the labs studies. Iwasaki now leads his own lab at RIKEN.

The liquid portion (lysate) of cells is clear at normal temperature (left) but becomes cloudy after boiling (center). After researchers spin the tubes at high speeds (centrifugation), the cloudy liquid separates into a white clump at the bottom of the tube, made of normal proteins that became unstable and misfolded due to the heat, and the remaining clear liquid containing anything that was unaffected by the heat (right). The remarkable Hero proteins are part of the remaining clear liquid and were studied by University of Tokyo researchers. Credit: Photo by Kotaro Tsuboyama, CC BY 4.0

It was kind of cool to know that a strange, extremely disordered, heat-resistant protein improved the behavior of Argonaute, but its biological relevance was unclear and, moreover, the proteins sequence seemed unrelated to anything else. So, we didnt know what to do next and just decided to put it on the shelf until years later, said Professor Yukihide Tomari, leader of the research lab and last author of the paper published in PLOS Biology.

Eventually, Kotaro Tsuboyama saw the hero-hero kun protein in a fresh light, initially after joining the lab as a doctoral student and now as a postdoctoral researcher.

Proteins with similar functions usually have similar amino acid sequences even between different species; experts call this evolutionary conservation.

The lack of evolutionary conservation that Tomaris team encountered when they first identified hero-hero kun seems to be a defining characteristic for Hero proteins, making it difficult to predict their function or even identity.

To uncover the true identities of more Hero proteins, researchers grew human and fruit fly cells in the lab, made extracts from the cells, then simply boiled them.

High temperatures normally weaken chemical interactions that support a proteins structure, causing it to unfold and clump together with other unfolded proteins.

Proteins are generally damaged by heat, but we found that Hero proteins remain intact even at 95 degrees Celsius [203 degrees Fahrenheit] without losing function. It is a bit strange, which is why I think no one has carefully characterized these proteins before, said Tsuboyama.

Next, researchers used an analytic technique called mass spectrometry to identify any proteins that remained in the boiled test tubes.

They found hundreds of Hero proteins in fruit flies and in humans.

Tsuboyama selected six Hero proteins to study in detail.

When some of the six Hero proteins were mixed with other client proteins, those clients kept their shape and function despite high heat, drying, or harsh chemicals that would normally destroy them.

In experiments using lab-grown human motor nerve cells, high levels of Hero proteins stopped cells from developing the protein clumps characteristic of the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and restored their normal growth patterns.

The large, sensitive eyes of fruit flies are often used as disease models, because they are deformed by mutations that cause neurodegeneration in humans. Researchers observed that enhancing Hero activity protected flies eyes from deformation caused by protein clumps associated with ALS. Conversely, eliminating normal Hero activity caused defects in the development of the fly eye.

Moreover, researchers found evidence that Hero proteins can promote longevity when they genetically modified healthy fruit flies to have high levels of individual Hero proteins throughout their whole bodies. Remarkably, some Hero proteins caused flies to live about 30 percent longer lives.

It appears that Hero proteins naturally exist to keep other proteins happy, said Tomari.

We saw many positive effects, but so far, we did not find any superhero among those six Hero proteins that can stabilize all client proteins. Some Hero proteins are good for some clients, and others are good for other clients, said Tsuboyama.

Researchers are planning future experiments to identify any patterns or rules about which Hero proteins assist which client molecules in living organisms.

We hope that, in the long run, Hero proteins can be useful for biotechnological and therapeutic applications, said Tomari.

Reference: A widespread family of heat-resistant obscure (Hero) proteins protect against protein instability and aggregation by Kotaro Tsuboyama, Tatsuya Osaki, Eriko Suzuki-Matsuura, Hiroko Kozuka-Hata Yuki Okada, Masaaki Oyama, Yoshiho Ikeuchi, Shintaro Iwasaki and Yukihide Tomari, 12 March 2020, PLOS Biology.DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000632

The rest is here:
Strange, Extremely Disordered Proteins Are Heroes in Disguise Protect Other Proteins - SciTechDaily

Working in the hospitality industry,one learns over time that one doesnt usually get a second chance to make a first impression.Therefore it becomes imperative to greet a guest warmly when they arrive. It begins with the shaking of hands of a returning guest. A firm handshake speaks volumes about the depth of our friendships.

In Eastern folklore, when you shake hands with a stranger during your travels and feel no bone in his hand with your thumb, you are said to have met a Good Samaritan. One English schoolmaster in Kashmir used to admonish his pupils for what he liked to call a wet-fish handshakewhich is when your fingers limply slip away from the hand of someone who tries to shakehands with you firmly.

I was therefore somewhat puzzled when I heard Morgan Freeman, who played the role of Azeem the Moor in the film Robin Hood,declarethat the hospitality in this country is as warm as the weather. It was Robert the Concierge who once told me that the reason for driving on the left side of the road in the UK is because a horseman keeping to the left could easily shake his right hand with a fellow-horseman riding in the opposite direction.

His explanationseems plausible enough to me. It appears to be a different world now, in which the shaking of hands with your fellows has been forbidden because its too risky. Thanks to the pandemic, the folding hands gesture known as Namaste is nowgaining popularity in the West. It is a dual gesture that, as well as being used as a greeting and a mark of respect, is also used in the Indian subcontinent to ask for forgiveness when someone is accused of any wrongdoing.

However, contact is limited right now as all of us are restricted from roaming the streets or dropping in on old friends. These are despondent times and we can feel guilty even in exchanging glances with strangers lest we spread the contagion. Our world will indeed be a strange place when we reach the end of this crisis. We might have to learn again the ritual of shaking hands with our fellow human beings. Hand is an indispensable word in our vocabulary.

Once, when I asked a colleague to give me a hand, he jokingly repliedthat he couldnt because he only has two of them. The phrase washing ones hands in Kashmiri implies absolving oneself of any responsibility or letting go of a fortune. The Hand of Godmetaphor became infamous after it was used by Maradona to describe his illegal goal against England in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final.

The hand of God in Michelangelos The Creation of Adam is outstretched and doesnt conform to the proportions of a Vitruvian Man by Da Vinci. When I visited Santa Maria Della Grazie in Milan and saw Da Vincis The Last Supper, I was struck by the hand gestures of various apostles in the mural and later related it to Goethes comment, printed in my guidebook, on how very Italian the painting was in that so much is conveyed through the expressions of the characters hands.

When I boarded buses and trams in Milan I experienced the warmth in the conversations of Italians from their ample use of hand gestures. Sometimes a carriage would resound with the laughter of commuters conversing. Italy is one of my favourite European countries. When I travelled to Venice at the end of October last year I was surprised to see how busy the town was, even though the summer had ended. I still felt bewitched walking along its cobbled streets, itspiazzas brimming with life.

A couple of months prior to this, I had to abandon my trip to Srinagaren route,due to the lockdown of the town. In fact lockdown was a new expression to describe the grim reality in Kashmir. Ever since my childhood, we had called it curfew a medieval word denoting a regulation requiring people to extinguish fires at a fixed hour in the evening.

In Venice, I drifted with hordes of tourists through the narrow streets, and wasstruck bya banner tied to the railing of a bridge that stated May you live in interesting times, the first of many sightings around the town. Iremembered my editor telling me once that this apparently benignsaying was actually intended as a curse.However, the organisers of the Venice Biennale playfully deployed the saying throughout the festival as a kind of thematic slogan conveying the complex and threatening times we are living in, in particular with reference to the phenomenon of so-called Fake News.

At the time, what struck me as interesting was the fact that I was able to view the art installations that were part of the Biennale both inside and outside two or three buildings, completely free of charge. Now, several months later, in the midst of a pandemic that has emptied the streets, this suggestive sayingmakes sense more than ever.

I tried to get my head around the fact that Venetians were outnumbered many times over by tourists in the town. In effect, Venice was suffering from over-tourism, and Srinagar, which is also known as The Venice of the East, had been suffering from zero levels of tourism. An Italian acquaintance of mine in London, who had been to Kashmir inthe1970s and stayed in a houseboat on Lake Dal,recently showed me a photograph of her younger self, reclining on the banks of the lake in Srinagar.

She had stayed in Kashmir for 40 days after a 3-month tour of India. She had found the tour exhausting but felt rejuvenated by her sojourn in Kashmir. She told me how much shedenjoyed her stay in a houseboat,doing little else but yoga, accentuating her account with elegant hand gestures. The word quarantine is Italian in origin and means forty.

It was mostly associated with cats and dogs when someone travelled abroad with pets that had to be sequestered for forty days in case of infection. Italy has been unlucky to face one of the worst onslaughts of the coronavirus. One reason for the high number of deaths in Italy is because its people live longer thanthey do in other countries.

Longevity was viewed as a praiseworthyachievementuntil recentlyand the Mediterranean diet was followedby those who wanted to live long and healthy lives. Today its a different story. Longevity is a liability. Covid-19 isegalitarian in the way it can infect anybody anywhere, but brutal in its preference for killingthe old and infirm in our population. We are all in this together. Let us hope that a kinder world for everyone will emergewhen thispandemic has run its course.

(The writer is a London-based author. His latest book An Open Book and Empty Cup was published recently)

Read the original here:
Greetings in these testing times - The Statesman

Altered Carbon has just returned with an eight-episode second season, set in the early 25th century, three decades after the events of first season. For the uninitiated, the sci-fi series is set in a future wherein human consciousness is being digitized and stored in devices called stacks, thereby allowing it to be transferred from one body to another (sleeves). The richer you are, the better sleeve you can buy for yourself depending on your needpleasure, combat, or anything else that you desire. Also, you can have your consciousness backed up on remote servers just in case someone tries to damage your stack. So, practically, the richest of the lot actually enjoy an immortality of sorts. Owing to their Methuselah-like longevity, they are referred to as Meths.

In the second season of Altered Carbon, the storys protagonist Takeshi Kovacs, the last of the Envoys (a rebel group defeated in an uprising against the new world order), who is now a fugitive on the run, gets transferred to a new sleeve equipped with next level combat abilities. Now, Kovacs was essayed by four different actors in the first seasonJoel Kinnaman, Will Yun Lee, Byron Mann, and Morgan Gao, with Kinnaman getting the maximum screen time. With Kovacs getting decanted into the new sleeve this season, Anthony Mackie fills in Kinnamans shoes but not before its briefly essayed by the South Korean singer and actress Jihae Kim. This racial and gender fluidity that Altered Carbon offers is certainly the most fascinating aspect of the Netflix series.

Created by Laeta Kalogridis, Altered Carbon is based on the 2002 novel of the same name by Richard K. Morgan. The series is rife with literary as well as cultural referencesone of the most obvious being an AI character based on none other than Edgar Allan Poe. In many ways, Altered Carbon can be seen as a web extension of the neo-noir world of Ridley Scotts 1982 seminal sci-fi work Blade Runner and its 2017 sequel by Denis Villeneuve, Blade Runner 2049. The series first season which came out in 2018 oozed with cyberpunk detail and easily proved to be the most intoxicating and cerebral stuff available on the web at the time. Although a lot has happened in the web space over the last couple of years there is not much that comes close to Altered Carbon in terms of what it offers in the sci-fi space.

Whenever one talks about the human race, the thought of mortality automatically comes to mind. Perhaps, thats pushes the human race to try and uphold the notions of morality. But in a futuristic world where the humans have conquered even death, does the question of morality even arise? And, having possessed the gift of immortality, can one really escape the sense of guilt? Well, the answer comes from an aging character who tells Kovacs, Immortality means an eternity of living with what we have done. I have lived with enough regret. Havent you? Altered Carbon is not just about fancy gadgets and cutting edge visual effects but it also serves a powerful critique on materialism, class divide, and morality. The series endeavors to make us question the very meaning of life and what it means to be human. While not as explosive as the freshman effort, the second season of Altered Carbon has enough ammunition to keep one hooked.

See the original post here:
Second season manages to keep one hooked - The Sunday Guardian

Good riddance to a grim winter. But although the daffodils are up and the blackbirds are gurgling, I dont want to forget it quite yet. My view from the kitchen window over paving and dormant beds to a pond and shrubs beyond is pleasant enough in a dynamic winter of sun, rain, frost and cloud. But through sodden, grey week after sodden, grey week, it hasnt really been cutting the mustard.

So I am on a mission to add some game-changing shots of colour quickly, before I am floated away on the spring tide. My first port of call for inspiration has been to Wisley, where I had a rummage for early camellias.

Under the Scots pine in the corner of my kitchen-view garden, I already have a young plant of Saint Ewe. Because the ground is rooty, it lives in a half-barrel containers are a good way of sidestepping the problem of dry shade.

It has been out since early February and its single flowers of deep pink are cheery against the grey sky and nearby catkins of garrya. Another pink one across the pond would perk up the scene yet more. I found several candidates, both on Wisleys Battleston Hill and below the rock garden, and Bow Bells is my winner.

I take Kew with a pinch of salt, as it is much milder than here. Would Edgeworthia chrysantha, with its scrumptiously scented yellow clusters of flower, ever make a fat shrub for me? It might be worth a go if I could ever find a sheltered, south-facing spot for it. But itwas towards a more pedestrian plant that I gravitated yellow-stemmed willow, grown as a coppiced shrub by a lake. I wouldnt mind taking the mandarin ducks along with it.

The clustering of red, orange and yellow willows and dogwoods, such as you see in many winter gardens, is too cartoonlike for me. But a solitary stand of yellow glowing through the gloom, as at Kew, would be just the ticket fast-growing too and on my way back north I stopped at Ashwood Nurseries to scoop up one called Golden Ness. It is already installed by the pond, and by next year it will have a drift of February Gold daffs around its amber stems.

Talking of daffodils, I have made a note to have more Cragford next year. This white, orange-centred narcissus (with a delicious scent) has been flowering in pots by my front steps since January, taking the storms in its stride. The potted crocus and little iris I have in my kitchen-view garden are pretty enough, but for impact Cragford is the business.

My third garden visit has been to Borde Hill in Sussex. There is a chirpy winter grouping near the house, of pink Daphne bholua, lilac Rhododendron Praecox, plum hellebores and the mauve creeping toothwortCardamine pentaphylla. I have been wondering about planting another Daphne bholua after seeing the newdark pink variety, Mary Rose, on Pan-Global Plantss Instagram page; teaming it up with this rhododendron would be striking.

Borde Hills tree magnolias have also fired me up. Obviously, garden space and human longevity are against me when it comes to echoingtheir giant specimens of M. campbellii and M. sprengeri var. diva which are now filling the sky with clouds of pink waterlilies. But nowadays there are many selections available, bred to bloom young and stay compact and with equally large flowers. As it happened, themagnolia expert Jim Gardiner was at Borde Hill while I was there, and I was able to corner him and ask which of all these mouth-watering choices he rated the best. Without hesitation, he named Felix Jury. My order has just gone off, and I must now urgently create room for it I am not sure how.

If long grey, wet winters are to be the norm, they do not have to be endured with glum stoicism. Spark up the colour and pump out the scent. Plan for winter. Spring looks after itself, plantswoman Margery Fish once wrote and if it wasnt her it was someone else.

Continued here:
Five plants to brighten up grey days with a shot of colour - Telegraph.co.uk

November21, 201910 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

If you ask Dwayne Clark, founder and CEO of the senior care company Aegis Living, what he is most thankful for in life, he will unabashedly tell you growing up poor.

For Clark, a childhood spent in poverty instilled a compassion-first mentality and a burning desire to help others lead lives of dignity.

Today, Clark is seen as a change-maker in his industry. Aegis opened its 32nd location this year and has eight more facilities in development. The company is on track to have operating revenues of over $300 million in 2020, with real estate holdings approaching $3 billion.

Clark is the youngest of four children raised by a single mother in Walla Walla, Washington. When he was 16, his mother told him they were completely broke and had no money for food.

The youngest of four children, Clark was raised by a single mother who struggled to feed her family.

Image credit: Dwayne Clark

To feed her family, she made potato soup from a bag of potatoes shed stolen from the restaurant where she worked as a line cook. She vowed to replace the potatoes when she had money again. While Clark felt powerless to help his mother, he remembers being in awe of her strength and resilience.

My background truly is a gift to me, he says. It helps me relate to the dishwasher and has given me an affinity for struggling immigrants, for the poor kid, whoever needs help. If I hadnt grown up knowing what being hungry is really like, I would not have created the business I run today.

By the time he was 26 years old, Clark had worked his way up from a correctional officer to shift commander at Washington States Department of Corrections. He was good at it, but he hated the job. He wanted to go back to college (hed dropped out in his junior year) and then to law school, but his sister interrupted these plans with a call out of the blue. She insisted he read a new study about aging in America.

This was before we had the internet and I could just pull it up on a computer; so I went to the library to look up the study, says Clark. It was around 400 pages. I didnt particularly want to read it, but it seemed important to her. So I read the whole thing and realized there was a silver tsunami coming fast.

He learned that life expectancy was on the rise and the elderly population was expected to double. His takeaway: eldercare was going to be a booming industry. Clarks sister was on the advisory board of one of Leisure Cares communities, so he asked her to help get him an interview.

I didn't want this to be a courtesy 10- to 15-minute interview. So when they asked if I could come in for an interview that next week, I said I could come in 30 days, says Dwayne. I wanted to do my research on the company, their competitors, and the industry. I wanted to be the best interview theyd had in 10 years.

Thirty days later, Dwayne went in for the interview, and, as expected, they asked a few cursory questions, spent no more than 10 minutes with him, and thanked him for coming in. Before they could shoo him out the door, Dwayne reached into his backpack and pulled out a three-ring binder and dropped it on the desk in front of him.

Id like to talk to you about where I think the aging industry is going and how I think I could contribute, he told them. Clark says they spent the next 90 minutes going over his manual, and they made him a job offer within the week.

Leisure Care hired Clark as the marketing director in Colorado. Forty-five days later he was put in a manager training program, and two years later he was named VP of Operations.

At age 33, Clark was recruited by Sunrise Senior Living, which would the biggest senior housing company in the world. In less than five years he helped grow Sunrise from an $18 million company to a company with a $3 billion market cap.

Despite his seemingly overnight success in the eldercare industry, Clark wasnt satisfied working for a public company. He decided to quit and make his own way.

It wasnt in my personality, and I didnt like what Wall Street did to the culture of the companies, says Dwayne. I thought I needed to just do it on my own.

You need a significant amount of money to do well in the senior care industry, and I dont mean $10 million; I mean tens of millions of dollars, he says. Today you would need $150 million to start a company like Aegis.

Dwayne spent much of 1996 looking for partners and capital sources and eventually found the right person: a developer in California named Bill Gallaher, whom Clark had built a relationship with during his time at Sunrise.

Together they founded Aegis, were able to raise $10 million, and built their first property in Pleasant Hill, California, in 1998. But it wasnt all smooth sailing.

I underestimated just how capital intensive the process was, says Clark. We burned through that first $10 million in six to nine months.

After two more rounds of capital financing, which yielded another $12.5 million, Gallaher called and told him they were out of money. By this point, Clark had exhausted all his resources except his sons college fund.

My son had just committed to UCLA, his dream school, says Clark. I needed the college money to cover payroll or Aegis could not stay afloat. I had to go to my son and have a tough conversation. I said, You know, that in-state tuition at the University of Washington looks really good.

Thankfully, his son understood and never felt bitter about the decision to abandon UCLA. Clark credits the college fund for saving the company.

In 2007, Clark says he bought out Gallaher due to a difference in philosophies. He took full control of Aegis and set out to grow it into the premier assisted living community on the West Coast.

As the company expanded, Clark became an expert on how to care for people with Alzheimers and dementia. He believed hed learned everything there was to know about how to manage this type of care facility until the day he received a massive blow that challenged him as a CEO and son: his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimers.

Image credit: Dwayne Clark

Imagine the feeling of being the guy leading the industry in this type of care but I couldnt help my own mother, admits Dwayne.

She moved into one of his memory-care communities, and Clark began to have a major shift in perspective. It was a game changer, he says.

His mother loved music; so Clark read studies on the positive effects of music on patients with dementia and Alzheimers and expanded the music programs in his Alzheimers wing.

She also loved doing her hair and make-up, which became harder as her illness worsened. As a result, Clark brought traveling salons to his senior health communities to give all the residents makeovers. This started a long list of improvements throughout his facilities that werent always good for his companys bottom line but he believes improved the lives of the residents. Clark says he created hundreds of longevity aids, including aromatherapy to improve mental clarity, spring-loaded chairs to allow seniors to stand without assistance, and shorter hallways to facilitate walking.

Clark also took action to create a culture where employees feel genuinely invested in and cared about.

I want to be an employee-first company because I truly believe culture is everything, says Clark. We are a service-oriented company that aims to do our part in treating the Alzheimers epidemic by serving the high-risk communities of senior health.

Clark created a program called E.P.I.C. (Empowering People Inspiring Consciousness) to transform Aegis Livings annual meeting from a traditional year-end review to a three-day celebration of the human spirit. It is a seminar for self-improvement with the primary agenda to ignite personal development among the employees. E.P.I.C. attracts celebrities like Michael J. Fox, Carlos Santana, and Dr. Deepak Chopra to teach and inspire his employees.

Clark says one of his lifelong obsessions has been the pursuit of health understanding it and attaining it. As a young adult, he lost sight of that passion and burned the proverbial candle at both ends. He worked long hours, lived on a junk-food diet, partied late into the night, and slept very little.

Everything came to a head one Labor Day weekend with his wife, when he began to experience the most acute abdominal pain of his life. It was so bad that he ended up in the hospital where he was diagnosed with severe gastritis.

Clark says the experience was a wake-up call. Hed learned so much caring for people well into their 100s, but ironically, hed never consciously applied those lessons to himself.

My health crisis inspired me to seek out longevity, study it, achieve more of it, and share my findings with a broader audience, says Clark. While Id been living and breathing questions about the health and longevity of my Aegis residents, Id separated myself from what Id learned. Overnight, my commitment changed.

Dwayne became a longevity explorer, traveling to over 80 countries to interview hundreds of people on what it means to age well into their 80s, 90s and 100s. His obsession with health and longevity led him on a journey of research into finding every conceivable way to live a more vibrant, healthier, and more fulfilled life.

In his latest book, 30 Summers More, Dwayne takes what he has learned about longevity by caring for more than 60,000 residents and writes a new plan for aging in America. He challenges the status quo for people over age 60, using the wisdom of Aegis residents.

Clark, far right, with former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton, and Clarks wife, Terese, after a lunch where the couples discussed politics, business, and longevity.

Image credit: Dwayne Clark

Hes also taken an interest in exploring what makes successful people tick, and Clarks recently launched podcast, Walk This Way, discusses the journey of CEOs, athletes, and celebrities and how they made their way to hit mega-success by not following the traditional path.

Clarks own path was no doubt untraditional.

I have never had a woe is me mentality or seen my background as a drawback, says Clark. Entrepreneurs share one thing: theyre trying to run as fast as they can away from poverty. It creates rocket fuel for them to be successful.

Follow Dwayne Clark on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or visit his website.

Go here to see the original:

The New Face of Longevity: Dwayne Clark's Solution to America's Silver Tsunami Crisis and How Living on Stolen Potatoes Made It All Possible -...

JERSEY CITY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Ceremony to host Bonnie Bassler, molecular biologist and microbe fighter; Robert J. Hariri, stem cell and human longevity expert; and David Rosenberg, world leader in urban vertical farming

Plus a special honoree from California whom LSC is feting because hes a tech badass: AI giant Sebastian Thrun, the godfather of the self-driving car

New Jersey is home to some of the worlds most accomplished innovators in applied science. Three of them who are pioneering research and solutions in antibacterial therapies, genetics, human life extension, and food production are being honored by Liberty Science Center at its inaugural The Genius of NJ celebration on Monday, December 2.

The celebration starts at 5:30 pm with cocktails and unique technology demonstrations: a full-body 3D scanner from Lenscloud that can scan a person in half a second with 120 cameras and create a realistic 3D avatar; bomb-disposing robots and an autonomous fighting robot from Picatinny Arsenal; and Flyer, a personal aerial vehicle from Kitty Hawk, headquartered in Mountain View, CA.

The New Jersey honorees are Bonnie Bassler, Chair of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, who is developing novel antimicrobial therapies to render pathogenic bacteria harmless; Dr. Robert J. Hariri, Chairman, Founder & CEO of Celularity, Inc. who is pioneering the use of stem cells to cure disease and slow aging; and David Rosenberg, CEO and Co-Founder of AeroFarms, the worlds leader in mass-scale vertical indoor farming.

Our inaugural Genius of NJ Award Winners represent the best this state and the world have to offer in harnessing science for the betterment of humanity, said Liberty Science Center President and CEO Paul Hoffman. Each is using his or her exceptional intellect and creative abilities to disrupt and innovate both in their respective fields and in their commitment to making the world healthier and safer.

Bonnie Bassler is the Squibb Professor of Molecular Biology and Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, as well as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Professor Bassler deciphered the chemical language bacteria cells use to communicate by studying a harmless marine bacterium called Vibrio fischeri, known to bioluminesce, or make light, like fireflies do. She is a winner of the MacArthur Genius Grant and is now developing therapies that disrupt communication among harmful bacteria and strengthen communication among helpful bacteria. At a time when an increasing number of bacteria are resistant to traditional kinds of antibiotics, Dr. Bassler offers a promising new approach to antimicrobial therapy.

The Chairman, Founder and CEO of Celularity, Inc., in Warren, NJ, and Co-Founder and Vice Chairman of Human Longevity, Inc., Dr. Robert Hariri is the quintessential renaissance man. Hes a neurosurgeon, a medical researcher, and a serial entrepreneur in two technology sectors: aerospace and biomedicine. Dr. Hariri has advised the Vatican on genetics, and in 2018, Pope Francis bestowed on him the Pontifical Key Award for Innovation. Dr. Hariris path to discovering that the placenta, a temporary organ discarded after birth, was a potent source of stem cells began in the 80s when he viewed a first trimester ultrasound of his oldest daughter and wondered why the placenta was so large. Today Dr. Hariri is working to use placental stem cells to cure disease, slow aging, and augment healthy human lifespan.

Prominent entrepreneur David Rosenberg, CEO and Co-Founder of AeroFarms, set out to reinvent one of the most basic aspects of food production, farming. AeroFarms has grown 800 species of plants indoors and can grow them 365 days a year without sun or soil, achieving yields 130 times greater than conventional farming. His system uses 95 percent less water than field farming and no pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides. Rosenbergs adoption of cutting-edge technology has been a cornerstone of AeroFarms, which set up its first indoor vertical farms in abandoned warehouses in Newark. He employs plant biologists, microbiologists, geneticists, systems engineers, and data scientists. AeroFarms innovations in indoor vertical farming have improved not just plant yields but also taste, texture, nutritional density, and shelf life.

Story continues

Additionally, LSC will honor non-New Jersian Sebastian Thrun, CEO of Kitty Hawk, a company spun off from a Google moonshot effort to free the world from traffic. Kitty Hawk is developing all-electric, vertical take-off flying machines for everyday use. Known as the godfather of self-driving cars, as a Stanford professor in 2005, Thrun led a team that won the $2-million Defense Department Grand Challenge to build an autonomous vehicle which drove itself unassisted on a 132-mile course across the Mojave Desert. His winning entry, Stanley, is now on display at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. While at Stanford, in 2011 he and colleague Peter Norvig offered their Introduction to Artificial Intelligence course online to anyone, for free. Over 160,000 students in more than 190 countries enrolled! The MOOC (which stands for Massive Open Online Course) was born, and Thrun founded the online education company Udacity, with the goal of democratizing education. Thrun relinquished his tenured Stanford professorship to join Google and founded the companys semi-secret R&D division called Google X (now called simply X) to develop breakthrough technologies, such as self-driving cars, that make the world a radically better place.

Ticket prices for The Genius of NJ start at $750 per guest with options for table sponsorship from $12,500 to $50,000. For more details, please visit The Genius of NJ online. All proceeds from this event will support LSCs mission to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.

About Liberty Science Center

Liberty Science Center (LSC.org) is a 300,000-square-foot nonprofit learning center located in Liberty State Park on the Jersey City bank of the Hudson near the Statue of Liberty. Dedicated to inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers and bringing the power, promise, and pure fun of science and technology to learners of all ages, Liberty Science Center houses the largest planetarium in the Western Hemisphere, 12 museum exhibition halls, a live animal collection with 110 species, giant aquariums, a 3D theater, live simulcast surgeries, a tornado-force wind simulator, K-12 classrooms and labs, and teacher-development programs. More than 250,000 students visit the Science Center each year, and tens of thousands more participate in the Centers off-site and online programs. Welcoming more than 750,000 visitors annually, LSC is the largest interactive science center in the NYC-NJ metropolitan area.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191125005713/en/

Read more from the original source:

Liberty Science Centers Inaugural Genius of New Jersey to Honor Innovators Who Make the State a World Leader in Cutting-Edge Applied Science - Yahoo...

In 2011, the Los Angles County Museum of Art announced the acquisition of Cranes, a breathtaking pair of six-panel painted screens by Maruyama kyo (1733-1795), Japans leading 18th century artist. Robert T. Singer, curator of Japanese art at the museum, had spent years negotiating an export license for the exceptional work, which certainly seems worthy of national treasure designation by the Japanese government, and philanthropist and museum trustee Camilla Chandler Frost stepped forward to make the incredible purchase possible.

The immaculately preserved screens display 17 life-size, hyper-real gray and red-crowned cranes arrayed across nearly 23 feet of abstract background in shimmering gold leaf. The crane paintings, publicly shown only twice in the previous 239 years, were instrumental in inspiring a large survey exhibition. Every Living Thing: Animals in Japanese Art is on view through Dec. 8 in LACMAs Resnick Pavilion.

Three years after the stunning acquisition, a colleague at The Times reported some startling and related news, unleashing global pandemonium. Despite common assumptions among legions of fans, the hugely popular fictional character Hello Kitty, drawn by Japanese illustrator Yuko Shimizu, turns out not to be a cat.

Hello Kitty, a blank-faced licensing bonanza conceived by Shintaro Tsuji, founder of the Sanrio Co., certainly exhibits some feline features. Soft and pointy ears, brisk whiskers, button eyes and nose.

But wearing a jumper or a skirt and with a jaunty bow in her hair, shes actually a plush and gentle kitty who has been reimagined as a little girl. The character is a transformation known in Japanese as Gijinka the humanization of a nonhuman object or entity.

The exquisite LACMA screen-paintings of elegant cranes stand near the top of a broad cultural spectrums high-art end, while Hello Kitty takes her place at the pinnacle of the popular-art end. Cats are one ancient symbol for good fortune in Japanese art; cranes are another, overlapping with longevity, since folklore has it that a crane can live for 1,000 years. Its no surprise that Hello Kitty doesnt turn up among the nearly 200 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and other high art objects in Every Living Thing, but cats certainly do.

Maruyama kyo, Cranes, 1772, pair of six-panel screens in ink, color and gold leaf on paper.

(Christopher Knight/Los Angeles Times)

One place is in Cat Amid Spring Flowers, an Edo period hanging scroll by Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754-1799). A languid black-and-white cat is shown intently licking the fur of an extended paw.

Rosetsu has placed the animal in the lower third of a tall, vertical length of silk, which is just over 3 feet high and a foot wide. At the panels left edge, entwined stems of garden flowers rise along the cats back. Rather than a defined landscape, the scene is marked by pale, horizontal washes of gray that create a dreamy, atmospheric space, like a cloudy sky.

This otherwise closely observed bit of naturalism also features something peculiar namely, the cats contour or profile. Stretched out, its body curves around to suggest the form of a sphere. Against the hazy, atmospheric background, the cats black and white patterning dissolves into cloud-like shapes. Its as if we are seeing a sun or moon silhouetted in the sky or perhaps reflected below in water.

The cat becomes a mysterious presence, an animal that occupies an ephemeral space somewhere between heaven and earth. Much Japanese art is infused with Shinto and Buddhist spiritual values, imported to the island through China and Korea, where nature spirits are a focus of worship. Belief in sacred power is often assigned to animals.

Coincidentally and significantly Rosetsu was a student of kyo, painter of the magnificent cranes.

The birds are rendered with keen and perceptive realism. They parade proudly across the flat, horizontal expanse like avian surrogates for the leisurely people strolling a century later in Georges Seurats A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.

Direct observation of nature, partly informed by the artists interest in Western painting, merges with deep Japanese traditions of symbolic subject matter and graceful stylization. Rosetsu does the same, except he trades kyos dramatic sense of grandeur for a quieter, more lyrical mood. Its instructive to see the two, a generation apart in age, in the same show.

Creatures large and small turn up in Every Living Thing: Animals in Japanese Art.

(LACMA)

One other notable feature of these two works of art is that both are in LACMAs own collection as are many of the shows greatest examples. Around half of the exhibition is from the museums impressive holdings, normally housed in the Pavilion for Japanese Art, which is closed for renovation.

In addition to kyos Cranes, theres a 12th century pair of sacred monkeys from a Shinto shrine, hunched and curious in a disconcerting fusion of human and animal instinct, installed next to a rare screen painting that shows monkeys cavorting on a shrines roof; a 10th century pair of carved-wood lions, their expressive, almost human faces mouthing the Sanskrit equivalents for alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, life and death; and a 6th century earthenware horse, a large funerary animal equipped for use in the afterlife by a long-gone noble. The exhibition provides welcome context for some of the museums most powerful and important works.

Negotiations have been underway for possible acquisition of one of the most dynamic objects, which commands the shows entrance. A monumental carved statue of Bishamonten: Guardian King of the North blankets the Buddhist warrior-god in ferocious animals, real and imaginary.

Dragons wrap his arms, a lions head growls at his waist, a tiger drapes down his back and an undefinable, mythic creature with fierce fangs crowns his head. These are beasts chosen simply (and effectively) to crank up a power image. Eight and a half feet tall, the magnificent, larger-than-life sculpture is a rare example of an exactly dated work, its hollow interior identifying its dedication for an event known to have taken place in 1124.

Spanning more than a thousand years, the show also includes some contemporary works, including playful dog sculptures by Yoshitomo Nara and Yayoi Kusama. Polyester never looked better than it does in three white, pleated dresses designed in 1990 by Issey Miyake, held together by grommets and leather straps but inspired by the fluttering of doves.

Pair of Sacred Monkeys, Japan, Heian period, 11th century; wood with traces of pigment.

(photo Museum Associates/LACMA)

To give such a wide-open roster of works some shape, the show is divided into a dozen sections. It starts with the animals of the Japanese zodiac, based on Chinas, and includes sections on religion and philosophy: Buddhism, Shinto, Daoism, Zen. Animals of earth, air and water get sorted out, as do those of myth and foreign origin creatures of the faraway.

The exhibition was jointly organized by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where it was seen over the summer, the Japan Foundation in Tokyo and LACMA, with Singer and scholar Kawai Masatomo as co-curators. It ranges far and wide, featuring marvelous loans from scores of public and private collections in the U.S. and Japan.

If theres a shortcoming, its only that the exhibition was trimmed by nearly a third for presentation here, perhaps a casualty of the museums truncated gallery space as LACMAs planned building program gets underway. Thats a shame, given the surprisingly unprecedented subject, but there is still plenty to see. Youll leave wondering: Do animals play such a pervasive role in the art of any other culture?

'Every Living Thing: Animals in Japanese Art'

When: Through Dec. 8; closed Wednesdays and Thanksgiving Day

Admission: $10-$25 (see website for discounts and free periods)

Info: (323) 857-6000, http://www.lacma.org

Read the original post:

Beyond Hello Kitty: The beauty of 'Animals in Japanese Art' - Los Angeles Times

Know a startup we should feature on Startup of the Week ? Email us at editors@motherboard.tv

The pitch

In 2154, the Earth is an uninhabitable shitworld, and ultra-rich people live on a utopian space colony. This is the movie Elysium.

In 2020, you can mail in a spit sample and in return see how fast your cells are aging, then get prompted to buy some pills in the hopes of slowing down the process. This is the pitch for the company Elysium Health, which offers its co-called Index test for $500.

The Index test purports to provide customers with a cumulative rate of aging and biological agethe age at which their body is expected to perform. The report also includes general recommendations for healthy living and lifestyle factors that have been shown in clinical research to impact the clock, although theres no guarantee that these changes will impact your biological age, a company spokesperson said to Motherboard.

If you do take the $500 test regularly, the spokesperson said, you can determine how your rate of aging changes over time and to see if lifestyle and other changes made can impact how you age in the future.

Terrific! And what do you do with that information? As the bottom of Elysium Healths website disclaims, Index should not be used to determine or alter any age-related health or medical treatments based on your chronological age, unless directed otherwise by a doctor.

Elysium Healths main business is selling Basis, a nicotinamide riboside (NR) supplement that increases nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), which is involved in many of the bodys day-to-day cellular processes. Basis costs $60 for a months supply, or $50 per month as a subscription.

What problem does it solve?

Elysium Health seeks to address the age-old problem of old age. Elysium Health claims that clinical trials in humans, including our own trial, demonstrate that supplementing NR can increase the body's supply of NAD+.

Whether this actually slows aging in humans is not yet proven. NAD+ has shown to be an effective anti-aging component in mice and yeast. But as New York comedian Sheng Wang noted, we don't really care about rat news. Especially if it's positive. We don't want to hear about how their population can thrive further. I'd rather read about rat plight." Elysium Healths short human trial shows the NAD+ increase, but not the metabolic or overall health improvements. Another human study from Elysium Healths main competitor, ChromaDex, indicated NRs ability to raise NAD+, but doesnt mention any anti-aging effects.

In short, though NAD+ has anti-aging effects for mice, mouse studies are often overhyped. Just because something works in a mouse does not mean itll work in humans. In fact, cancer researchers are interested in NAD+ as a possible suspect for fueling cancer growth in humans, as a May 2019 article from Scientific American notes.

Despite the lack of evidence or FDA approval, Elysium Health has millions in funding and genuinely impressive resumes in its orbit.

The leadership team at Elysium Health has five PhDs, and touts a Scientific Advisory Board with more than 25 world-renowned researchers and clinicians, including eight Nobel Prize-winning scientists, who are tasked with guiding the scientific direction of the company.

Are you confused, and thinking, these people clearly know more than I do, given their academic credentials, Nobel Prizes, and lab coats?

That might be part of the plan. They are part of a marketing scheme where their names and reputations are being used, former Harvard Medical School dean Jeffrey Flier told the MIT Technology Review in 2017.

Several of Elysiums scientific advisory board members said their involvement should not be seen as an endorsement of the company or its pills, the Review story goes on to say.

In the same way companies sometimes greenwash their image to appear more environmentally-friendly, perhaps a company attaching itself to as many PhDs and Nobel Laureates as possible could be trying to brainwash its image.

Who is giving them money?

Elysium Health has raised $31.2 million since its founding in 2015. Investors include Silicon Valley Bank, which led its last $5 million round of debt financing in 2017, and Cambridge, Mass-based VC fund General Catalyst, which led its $20 million Series B round in 2016. Robert Nelsen, who Forbes once described as Biotechs Top Venture Capitalist, has also personally invested in Elysium Health.

What are The Experts saying?

The companys first product is Basis, a supplement that combines compounds designed to increase NAD levels and activate sirtuins, boosting cellular health and longevity." -TechCrunch

Researchers are still working to prove that NR can actually improve human healtha sticking point for critics and an issue acknowledged by the companies themselves. -Scientific American

A Fountain Of Youth Pill? Sure, If Youre A Mouse. -Kaiser Health News

If I had paid $500, I would likely be disappointed -FastCompany

Theres no guarantee that Elysiums first product, a blue pill called Basis that is going on sale this week, will actually keep you young. -MIT Technology Review

I take that Elysium stuff...I take that stuff every day. I like it. Um, but-I guess. I dont really know. I take a lot of things. I dont really know. -Joe Rogan

Should you buy it?

If you have $500 laying around that you might end up spending on things that will hyper-age you, like tanning sessions or a cigarette and cocaine smoothie, this is a foolproof way of ridding yourself of that harmful money.

If regular $500 saliva tests and $50 per month pills for a chance at longevity seem appealing, then this is your chance to make it to 2154. If you join their affiliate program, you can also make 12 percent commission on sales.

Should we even want to live longer, if we dont address the biological age of our planet first? If you flush a bunch of these pills down the toilet, will they help heal the Earth? Like Basiss efficacy with humans, the results here are currently inconclusive.

If youre simply interested in your chronological age, there are some very exciting and affordable products on the market. Elysium Health links to one cloud-based chronological age calculator, no spit required.

View post:

Startup of the Week: A Subscription for Anti-Aging Pills... for Mice - Free

It has been more than 50 years since the ancient dry lake bed of Mungo revealed human remains which corroborated a truth Indigenous Australians already knew. When a geologist found the remains of Mungo Lady in 1968 and then Mungo Man in 1974, the findings showed that people had been living on the continent for more than 40,000 years.

If you want to walk in the footsteps of an ancient culture at the very spot where proof of their longevity was found, then Mungo national park is the place to do it.

The lake bed is still giving up its mysteries. A walk across the white sand to spot an artefact is the highlight of our trip to the Willandra Lakes region world heritage area in south-west New South Wales.

Once a month, you can take a Full Moon tour of Mungo national park to experience the thrill of watching a full moon rising over the Walls of China, a 17km stretch of sand and silt deposited over tens of thousands of years. These layers have been eroded by wind and rain to form a crescent-shaped lunette on the eastern shore of the lake.

Once in the restricted area of the lunette, our tour guide points out a midden with scattered shells and animal bones recently uncovered by the shiftings sands. The find indicates the inhabitants had cooked abundant seafood from the once-thriving lake before it dried up some 20,000 years ago.

When the lake was full it was a haven for wildlife and vegetation. Megafauna such as the diprotodon, a hippopotamus-sized relative of wombats and koalas, strolled the foreshore. As the lake dried up due to extreme climate change, much of the fauna and flora became extinct.

To stand in that vast, eerie landscape at sunset is to gain a tiny window into the ancient history of the continent.

The artefacts in this area are unique. They have been exposed not by archaeologists but by erosion, making it one of the best places on Earth to study ancient human life.

The areas three tribal groups, Mutthi Mutthi, Paakantji and Ngyiampaa, have given permission for guided tours of some restricted areas. Our guide advises us to look, not touch, and certainly not to remove anything.

Not everyone heeds this warning. In the museum at the Mungo visitor centre, which houses a life-sized model of a diprotodon, there are letters from apologetic travellers who decided to send back the sand, leaves, shells or bones theyd collected.

Aside the visitors centre sits the Mungo Woolshed, an extraordinary 200-year-old building which documents the regions pastoral history.

The highlight of the visitors centre is a collection of human footprints said to be 20,000 years old. They were uncovered in 2003 during a routine survey of archaeological sites and carefully transported to where they now stand, preserved as they were found. They are the oldest footprints ever found in Australia and afford scientists rich clues as to how people lived at the time.

Flora and fauna youll meet: Red kangaroos, emus, wedge-tailed eagles, pink cockatoos and the stunning green-and-gold mallee ringneck parrot all inhabit the park. The arid landscape is speckled with saltbush, providing nourishment for the animals with its spear-shaped, succulent leaves.

Dont miss: The star of this region is the lunette, or Walls of China. Outback Geo Adventures offer a monthly full moon tour of the area, starting at sunset. In February and March of 2020, the moon will be at its closest distance to Earth called a super moon. The eight-hour tour includes meals, and is priced at $160 per adult.

If you cant time your visit with a moon rise, the National Parks and Wildlife Service offers several guided tours of the Walls of China, including sunset tours, with prices starting from $50 per adult.

Where to sleep: Mungo Lodge is a comfortable ecolodge and restaurant on the edge of the park, with its own landing strip for those who want to fly straight in. It offers a range of accomodation from deluxe cabins to a budget bunkhouse, caravan and camping sites. Prices start from $45 per person per night for budget accomodation, and from $295 per night for self-contained twin cabins. Inside the main building, which was constructed from local materials in 1992, you can relax in front of the fire or enjoy a meal in the large dining room and bar. The lodge also organises scenic flights and tours.

The main camp in Mungo national park has 30 spots for caravans, trailers and tents, but you must come prepared with drinking water, cooking water and firewood because it is a remote site with scarce mobile coverage and no power. It costs $8.50 per adult on top of the park entry fees.

Nearest hot meal: The Mungo Lodge bar and bistro is open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Good pub meals can also be had en route to the national park, at the Crown Hotel, some 130km away in Wentworth. The charming old pub opened in 1861, and the historic photographs on the walls tell some of the story of the town.

When to go: The best time to visit Mungo is during the cooler months as the temperature climbs well over 30C in the summer. The perfect time would be autumn or spring. Mungo Lodge closes over the Christmas period, from the 22 to 27 December.

Logistics: Mungo national park is a 9.5 hour drive from Melbourne, a 13 hour drive from Sydney, or an 8.5 hour drive from Adelaide.

The nearest airport, Mildura, is a 90-minute drive from the park on unsealed roads (although your sat nav or maps app will tell you it takes four hours). Mildura has direct flights from Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Broken Hill, and there are car rental options at the airport.

Bring a topographic map and a compass if youre camping or exploring on foot or bicycle. If self-driving, a four-wheel drive is recommended.

Take your best camera for unforgettable landscapes. A quick drive to Mungo lookout is a must as it offers the best views across the lake bed.

Read this article:

Mungo national park: where alien landscapes reveal ancient culture - The Guardian

Antony Gormley's Iron Baby at the Royal Academy

Forty-six countries around the world have shrinking populations, and this number is set to rise to 67 by 2040. Some 60 years after the invention of the contraceptive pill, women are voting powerfully but silently with their wombs.Peter Drucker wrote that the impact of technological innovations often doesnt appear until decades after their invention. This is certainly true of the Pill. A long, heart-wrenching article in the New York Times titled The End of Babies asks whether late capitalism has killed our reproductive instincts. Id argue instead that the revolution of womens rapid rise demands more adaptation from countries, companies and men if we want the human race to continue.

The past half century has seen women flood into education and labour forces around the globe. Women now represent more than 60% of global university graduates from Brazil and Iceland to the United Arab Emirates. Government and corporate policies have struggled to keep pace with the revolution that women (and the men they marry, birth, or work with) have wrought on all our lives. A generation ago, in countries and companies where conciliating work and family was difficult (eg. Japan or Germany), women opted to prioritize family. Now, they prioritize work. And financial independence, freedom and marital choice.

Nowhere is this more glaring than in Asia, where men and the systems that hold them hostage to inflexibly workaholic cultures seem particularly resistant to change. Thats why so many Japanese and South Korean women are refusing to marry, and so many men find themselves involuntarily single. This trend is sweeping through much of Asia. Japanese Prime Minister Abe has made encouraging women to work a top macroeconomic priority. Hes managed to fuel an impressive rise in the labour force participation rate of women (now surpassing the U.S.). But he probably hadnt predicted that the professional emancipation of women would lead them to reject marriage and children. Today a quarter of women between 35 and 40 remain single and the birth rate is at all-time lows. That wasnt the goal.

You may say this is good news if you agree that children are the number one climate change impact on the world. But is it? Fifty years ago, the average woman had five children, a number that has now been halved. In the United States, writes Anna Louie Sussman, the gap between how many children people want and how many they have has widened to a 40-year high. U.S. birth rates just hit a 32-year low, while the percentage of the population over 60 continues to rise. Are we ready for the aging populations, shrinking labour forces and pressures on pensions that are emerging? Surely there is a more human-friendly way to manage the overlapping disruptions of gender shifts, climate change and longevity? One that doesnt leave us childless and increasingly loveless.

Demography is destiny, and the world is looking increasingly unbalanced. Speaking recently at the Global Peter Drucker Forum in Vienna on the Power of Ecosystems, I suggested the health of our human ecosystem depends on a more strategic prioritization of gender issues. A sustainable birthrate, one that keeps national populations stable, is 2.1 children per woman. Few countries are anywhere near that level anymore. The richest countries are well below it, reflecting the lag in adapting to dual income parents and modern womens priorities. While the poorest countries (mostly in Africa) are too far above it, reflecting the lack of education and accessibility to birth control women need to have a real choice. In China, the one-child policy (recently abandoned) has decapitated countless families, created a frightening surplus of men who will never marry, and created a country that will grow old before it grows rich. Our continual underestimation of the revolutionary impact of the rise of women on countries and companies means we arent profiting from the potential miracle of having educated and employed the other half of the human race.

Not to mention our lack of attention on how the rise of women has landed on men both at home and at work. The obvious gusto with which women have entered almost every sphere of professional life has not always been matched by their mates or their bosses reactions. While the 20th century saw the rise of women around the world, the 21st century has seen a growing focus on the impact of that rise on men and masculinity. The male backlash Susan Faludi presciently wrote about 30 years ago, is now being played out politically around the globe as men fear a related loss of power and status and elect macho strongmen defending traditional gender roles. Unless we are able to create a win/ win narrative for both men and women, we are likely to see the sexes separate further. More strategic support for happy unions and families would help.

Some countries have tried to keep pace with the parallel pressures of two good-news trends: more gender-balanced parents and increasing longevity. But they will need to deploy far more care - both childcare and eldercare. While recognizing that men are carers and parents too and increasingly intent on actually investing the role.

Its coming slowly. The spread of shared parental leave is the next big generational adaptation. Sweden led the way, although they had to force initially reluctant men to take parental leave by introducing a use it or lose it system for fathers. The U.K. introduced shared parental leave a couple of years ago, but fewer than 2% of men take it. All OECD countries (with the bizarre exception of the U.S.) offer paid maternity leave, and now half of them also offer significant paternity leave (over two months).

Public policy is a key driver of birth rates. Germany under Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Ursula Van Der Leyden (who has seven children and is the new President-elect of a gender balanced European Commission), has managed to increase its birthrate over the past few years with a range of policies aimed at recognising the changing roles of women. Italys remains rock bottom by ignoring them. Leadership of countries is key both to gender balancing labour forces and empowering parents to conciliate work and family. Doing one without the other takes its toll on demographic sustainability.

Its not all up to national policy. As work becomes more central to both men and womens lives and identities, balancing two jobs, let alone two babies, becomes increasingly complex. That doesnt stop people wanting them. In the MBA classes I taught at HEC business school, 80% of every class of multinational students said they dream of dual career marriages with two children.Their ability to fulfill those dreams will depend, far more than they realize, on the country in which they live and the company for which they work. Young men and women are increasingly attracted to employers with good parental benefits, which is why leading companies, from Goldman Sachs to Google, are announcing shared parental leave policies, to compensate for lagging national systems.

Countries and companies that dont support parents will find they dont have many. When men and women, (as well as a rainbow of non-binary parents and care-givers) are supported in balancing work and families by both countries and companies, expect birth rates to rise (and fall) to near the magic 2.1 number. And economies to be healthier, happier and more sustainable. That doesnt require the end of capitalism, but the true beginning of gender balance at country, company and couple level.

The rest is here:

The Cost Of Underestimating The Rise Of Women: No Babies - Forbes

Ecclesiastes was not accurate when he stated that there is nothing new under the sun. In about a billion years the sun will brighten up so much that it will boil off Earths oceans. This raises concerns for people who think long-term, such as the BBC radio reporter who asked me recently for my thoughts on how to mitigate this risk for the future of humanity.

The simplest solution that came to my mind is to spray a blanket of particles into the stratosphere that would reflect sunlight and cool the Earth, in a way similar to the effects of a natural volcanic eruption, a nuclear war or an asteroid impact (the same technique has been proposed to limit anthropogenic global warming). Blocking sunlight this way serves the same purpose as using sunglasses to moderate the impact of harmful UV radiation on our eyes.

Billions of years later, however, when the sun will brighten even more and eventually inflate to become a red giant star that will engulf the Earth, there would be no option left for our civilization but to relocate further out in the solar system. Since the natural real estate of planets and moons is available only at specific locations, however, and because the sun will change its brightness continuously, it would be prudent to manufacture a gigantic structure that will be able maneuver to the optimal orbital distance at any given time.

Being able to adjust our distance from the furnace based on its changing brightness would be most helpful towards the end, when the sun will reverse course and dim considerably, turning into a white dwarf. The solar systems habitable zone will shrink by a factor of a hundred relative to the current Earth-sun separation, down to a scale that is comparable to the size of the sun today.

Needless to say, the movable industrial complex of metal rods and equipment that would make up our future habitat would represent a very major upgrade to the International Space Station. This artificial world might not look as beautiful as the pale blue dot we now live on, with its green forests and blue oceans. But since modern humans needed merely 100,000 years to adapt from living in the savannahs and forests of Africa to squeezing into a tiny apartment in Manhattan one can reasonably expect them to transition from Manhattan to living in space over a time span that is ten thousand times longer.

Ultimately, we should contemplate space travel out of the solar system. The longer-term solution to our existential threats is not to keep all of our eggs in one basket. We should make genetically identical copies of the flora and fauna we hold dear and spread these copies to other stars in order to avoid the risk of annihilation from a single-point catastrophe. Our destinations could be habitable planets around nearby stars, such as Proxima b, or other desirable environments. The Breakthrough Starshot project represents the first well-funded initiative to traverse interstellar distances over a short time.

The transition to spreading multiple copies of our genetic material would resemble the revolution brought about by the printing press, when Gutenberg mass-produced copies of the Bible and distributed them throughout Europe. As soon as many copies of the book were made, any single copy lost its unique value as a precious entity. In the same way, as soon as we learn how to produce synthetic life in our laboratories, Gutenberg-DNA printers could be distributed to make copies of the human genome out of the raw materials on the surface of other planets so that any one copy would not be essential for preserving the information.

The BBC reporter did not let me easily off the hook, however: But what about our personal lives as individuals? Most people care about themselves. Your solution will not secure their personal safety so as to give them a peace of mind.

My reply was simple. In our daily life, we worry about protecting our own skin because we are focused on timescales much shorter than our lives. But when dealing with timescales that are far longer than a century, it is not the individual that counts but rather the genetic information of the human species as a whole. Despite what some insist, people we know right now will not be around within a century in any case, so there is no reason to focus on preserving them individually when strategizing our future over a billion years.

On such a long timescale, we better stay focused on preserving our species. The instinct of any parent is to care for the offspring and secure longevity this way; nature enabled us to extend the lifetime of our genome well beyond our own life span in this way. As an extension, modern science might enable us to construct printers that are capable of mass-producing copies of ourselves on other planets by merely exporting our genetic blueprint without requiring that our bodies will physically travel the distance. We should be satisfied with this renewed sense of security and retire happily when our mission is accomplished.

The reporter insisted: But would we truly be satisfied if we will not be around to see it happening? To which I replied: Frankly, this may not matter. Perhaps we already are one copy out of many in existence, so it is not essential for this copy to survive. But after reading this mornings newspaper, I am inclined to believe that our civilization will disappear as a result of self-inflicted wounds long before the sun will pose its predictable threat. Why do I believe that? Because the dead silence we hear so far from the numerous habitable exoplanets weve discovered may indicate that advanced civilizations have much shorter lives than their host stars.

Read more:

What Will We Do When the Sun Gets Too Hot for Earth's Survival? - Scientific American

Bud Blacks exploits as a player are fairly well-known to Rockies fans, as the southpaw-turned-manager pitched in the majors from 1981 to 1995 and won the 1985 World Series with the Royals.

How does Blacks playing career stack up against the rest of the Rockies staff? Heres a look at the professional careers of all eight Colorado coaches.

While Black won 121 games and accumulated a 3.84 ERA over 15 seasons, hes not the only the only one on the staff with a decade-plus service time. Hitting coach Dave Magadan spent 16 years in the big leagues as a corner infielder for the Mets and six other teams. He slashed .288/.390/.377 over his career with 42 homers. And bench coach Mike Redmond was also a big-league veteran, playing 13 seasons, mostly between the Marlins and Twins. He slashed .287/.342/.358 and averaged one homer per year, and was a backup to Ivan Rodriguez on Floridas 2003 title team.

Pitching coach Steve Foster and assistant hitting coach Jeff Salazar didnt have near the longevity of Black, Magadan or Redmond, but they both made a splash in the big leagues. Foster made his debut in August of 1991 for the Reds and pitched across three seasons for Cincinnati. The right-handed reliever posted a 2.41 ERA in 59 games (one start) before his career was derailed by a shoulder injury. Meanwhile, Salazar made his MLB debut for the Rockies in September 2006 and the outfielder played parts of seasons in Arizona (2007 and 2008) and Pittsburgh (2009).

Bullpen coach Darryl Scott, first base coach Ronnie Gideon and third base coach Stu Cole all played professionally but didnt have any lasting success at the big-league level, if they got there at all. Scott, a right-hander, pitched one season for the California Angels in 1993, posting a 5.85 ERA in 16 relief appearances. The left-handed Gideon was a two-way player as a first baseman and reliever in the Phillies and Mets systems, but never cracked higher than Double-A. As for Cole, the middle infielder played nine games for the Royals in 1991, recording one hit and two walks.

Kyle Newman, The Denver Post

Like what youre reading? Share this with a friend and tell them its easy to sign up for the Rockies Insider here.

RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post

In these uncertain, often-disconcerting times to be a pro athlete, a die-hard sports fan or merely a human being trying to get through another tough day, this happy Gray Wolf is about the best thing Ive seen in sports all year. Read more

RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post

During an intrasquad scrimmage at Coors on Wednesday, Kemp ripped two hits off the right-center field wall against right-hander German Marquez, Colorados best pitcher. Read more

RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post

Start with 6-foot-3, 221-pound Charlie Blackmon. Add two inches of height and about 15 pounds of muscle. Now, take away seven years of big-league experience, trim the mullet, shave off the gnarly beard and what have you got?

Answer: Rockies rookie outfielder Sam Hilliard, a 26-year-old left-handed power hitter with good speed who enters the shortened 2020 season with lofty expectations. Read more

+ Nolan Arenado Q&A: Rockies star on love of game, coronavirus, feud with front office and expectations for 60-game season

+ Rockies podcast: Answering questions big and small about Colorados chances to contend in 60-game 2020

+ Rockies Mailbag: Will Sam Hilliard or Brendan Rodgers make a big splash in 2020?

+ Rockies release 2021 schedule, will open season at Coors Field for first time in a decade

+ Door remains open for Rockies fans to attend games at Coors Field

+ Ubaldo Jimenez surprised Rockies cut him loose, does not plan to retire

+ Rockies Carlos Estevez poised for big leap forward in 2020

+ Rockies: Teams that handle coronavirus best have best chance to win in 2020

+ Rockies 2020 schedule opens on July 24 against the Rangers at Globe Life Field

+ Newman: MLBs COVID-19 testing stumbles to start summer camp a red flag for 2020 season

If you see something thats cause for question or have a comment, thought or suggestion, email me at jbailey@denverpost.comortweet me @beetbailey.

Visit link:
Rockies Insider: Reminiscing about the playing careers of Colorados coaching staff - The Denver Post

This article is about myths related to the mythology of humans or other beings living to mythological ages. For validated specific supercentenarian claims by modern standards, see List of the verified oldest people. For modern, or complete, unvalidated supercentenarian claims, see Longevity claims.

Longevity myths are traditions about long-lived people (generally supercentenarians), either as individuals or groups of people, and practices that have been believed to confer longevity, but for which scientific evidence does not support the ages claimed or the reasons for the claims.[1][2] While literal interpretations of such myths may appear to indicate extraordinarily long lifespans, many scholars[3] believe such figures may be the result of incorrect translation of numbering systems through various languages coupled by the cultural and/or symbolic significance of certain numbers.

The phrase "longevity tradition" may include "purifications, rituals, longevity practices, meditations, and alchemy"[4] that have been believed to confer greater human longevity, especially in Chinese culture.[1][2]

Modern science indicates various ways in which genetics, diet, and lifestyle affect human longevity. It also allows us to determine the age of human remains with a fair degree of precision.

Several parts of the Hebrew Bible, including the Torah, Joshua, Job, and 2 Chronicles, mention individuals with lifespans up to the 969 years of Methuselah.

Some apologists explain these extreme ages as ancient mistranslations that converted the word "month" to "year", mistaking lunar cycles for solar ones: this would turn an age of 969 years into a more reasonable 969 lunar months, or about 78.3 solar years.[6]

Donald Etz says that the Genesis 5 numbers were multiplied by ten by a later editor.[7] These interpretations introduce an inconsistency: it would mean that the ages of the first nine patriarchs at fatherhood, ranging from 62 to 230 years in the manuscripts, would then be transformed into an implausible range such as 5 to 18 years.[8] Others say that the first list, of only 10 names for 1,656 years, may contain generational gaps, which would have been represented by the lengthy lifetimes attributed to the patriarchs.[9] Nineteenth-century critic Vincent Goehlert suggests the lifetimes "represented epochs merely, to which were given the names of the personages especially prominent in such epochs, who, in consequence of their comparatively long lives, were able to acquire an exalted influence."[10]

Those biblical scholars that teach literal interpretation give explanations for the advanced ages of the early patriarchs. In one view, man was originally to have everlasting life, but as sin was introduced into the world by Adam,[11] its influence became greater with each generation and God progressively shortened man's life.[12] In a second view, before Noah's flood, a "firmament" over the earth (Genesis 1:68) contributed to people's advanced ages.[13]

Chapter 2 of Falun Gong by Li Hongzhi (2001) states, "A person in Japan named Mitsu Taira lived to be 242 years old. During the Tang Dynasty in our country, there was a monk called Hui Zhao [, 526815[16]] who lived to be 290 [288289] years old. According to the county annals of Yong Tai in Fujian Province, Chen Jun [] was born in the first year of Zhong He time (881 AD) under the reign of Emperor Xi Zong during the Tang Dynasty. He died in the Tai Ding time of the Yuan Dynasty (1324 AD), after living for 443 years."[17]

Like Methuselah in Judaism, Bhishma among the Hindus is believed to have lived to a very advanced age and is a metaphor for immortality. His life spans four generations and considering that he fought for his great-nephews in the Mahabharata War who were themselves in their 70s and 80s, it is estimated that Bhishma must have been between 130 and 370 years old at the time of his death.

Ibrahim () was said to have lived at 168169 years. His wife Sarah is the only woman in the Old Testament whose age is given. She was 127 (Genesis 23:1).

According to 19th-century scholars, Abdul Azziz al-Hafeed al-Habashi ( ) lived 673674 Gregorian years, or 694695 Islamic years, from 5811276 of the Hijra.[23]

In Twelver Shia Islam, Hujjat-Allah al-Mahdi is believed to currently be in occultation and still alive (age 1150).[24]

Extreme lifespans are ascribed to the Tirthankaras, for instance,Neminatha was said to have lived for over 10,000 years before his ascension,Naminatha was said to have lived for over 20,000 years before his ascension,Munisuvrata was said to have lived for over 30,000 years before his ascension,Mllntha was said to have lived for over 56,000 years before his ascension,Aranatha was said to have lived for over 84,000 years before his ascension,Kunthunatha was said to have lived for over 200,000 years before his ascension, andShantinatha was said to have lived even for over 800,000 years before his ascension.[25]

These include claims prior to approximately 150 AD, before the fall of the Roman empire.

A book Macrobii ("Long-livers") is a work devoted to longevity. It was attributed to the ancient Greek author Lucian, although it is now accepted that he could not have written it. Most examples given in it are lifespans of 80 to 100 years, but some are much longer:

Some early emperors of Japan are said to have ruled for more than a century, according to the tradition documented in the Kojiki, viz., Emperor Jimmu and Emperor Kan.

The reigns of several shahs in the Shahnameh, an epic poem by Ferdowsi, are given as longer than a century:

In Roman times, Pliny wrote about longevity records from the census carried out in 74 AD under Vespasian. In one region of Italy many people allegedly lived past 100; four were said to be 130, others up to 140. The ancient Greek author Lucian is the presumed author of Macrobii (long-livers), a work devoted to longevity. Most of the examples Lucian gives are what would be regarded as normal long lifespans (80100 years).

Age claims for the earliest eight Sumerian kings in the major recension of the Sumerian King List were in units and fractions of shar (3,600 years) and totaled 67 shar or 241,200 years.[35]

In the only ten-king tablet recension of this list three kings (Alalngar, [...]kidunnu, and En-men-dur-ana) are recorded as having reigned 72,000 years together.[9][36] The major recension assigns 43,200 years to the reign of En-men-lu-ana, and 36,000 years each to those of Alalngar and Dumuzid.[35]

This list includes claims of longevity of 130 and older from the 14th century onward.

Details

Details

Details

Details

Details

Details

Details

Details

Details

Details

Details

[113][114]

Details

Details

Details

Details

Details

The idea that certain diets can lead to extraordinary longevity (ages beyond 130) is not new. In 1909, lie Metchnikoff believed that drinking goat's milk could confer extraordinary longevity. The Hunza diet, supposedly practiced in an area of northern Pakistan, has been claimed to give people the ability to live to 140 or more,[137] but such claims are regarded as apocryphal.[138]

Traditions that have been believed to confer greater human longevity include alchemy.[4]

The Fountain of Youth reputedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks of its waters. Herodotus attributes exceptional longevity to a fountain in the land of the Ethiopians.[142] The lore of the Alexander Romance and of Al-Khidr describes such a fountain, and stories about the philosopher's stone, universal panaceas, and the elixir of life are widespread.

After the death of Juan Ponce de Len, Gonzalo Fernndez de Oviedo y Valds wrote in Historia General y Natural de las Indias (1535) that Ponce de Len was looking for the waters of Bimini to cure his aging.[143]

Read more:
Longevity myths - Wikipedia

Ever since the Human Genome Project began in the late 1980s, genetics and DNA have become topics of mass interest. The book Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 chapters states that the genome is a book that wrote itself, continually adding, deleting, and amending for over four billion years.

For Dr Surendra Chikara, who has been working in the field for over 20 years now, the idea of founding Bione, a healthcare startup, was a no-brainer.

Monitoring the present coronavirus outbreak scenario in the country, we have included new parameters to our Longevity Plus kit. The new updated kit provides information about the susceptibility of a person to viruses like coronavirus, SARS-like viruses, HIV, Hepatitis C virus, etc. This could be based on an individuals genetic makeup or the patterns of living, Surendra says.

Dr Surendra, Founder of Bione

Surendra says a recent addition to the Bione Genetic test can check an individuals susceptibility to coronavirus. He adds that the platforms microbiome test, combined with its predictive analytics tools and artificial intelligence, can provide tailored recommendations to individuals to strengthen their microbiome and improve their immunity.

A research paper titled 'Evidence of gastrointestinal infection of SARS-CoV-2 revealed that 23.29 percent patients infected with SARS CoV-2 showed positive results in stool after showing negative in respiratory samples. Hence, the gut microbiome test is the only way to know when a virus is no longer in your system, Surendra says.

Surendra started his career with recombinant DNA technology and worked with Dr Gita Sharma, who had created the first r-DNA vaccine for Hepatitis-B in India.

My journey in genomics started under her support and guidance. It was the time when human genome sequencing and next-generation sequencing were starting to gain importance. We were in discussions to bring D2C technology to India, but the Indian healthcare market was not ready for direct-to-consumer genetic testing," Surendra says.

This is a huge problem that all my networks were aware of. We all know that the future of the global pharmaceutical industry lies in developing precision medicines tailored for individuals based on their genes, and clinical risk for developing a disease. Indian genetic data is highly diverse and a number of breakthroughs can happen. At Bione, we are doing our part to be part of this bigger picture of making India disease-free, Surendra says.

The different types of kits depend on the number of tests covered, and include Longevity kit, Longevity Plus Kit, and MyMicrobiome kit. The Longevity Plus kit covers over 415 parameters, including health, personalised medicine, fitness, and wellness.

The team claims that it also covers a parameter that determines specific gene variants that may contribute to enhance resistance to viruses like coronavirus, HIV, Hepatitis C, and many others.

The MyMicrobiome kit identifies and quantifies the microbiome in the gut, based on which a personalised diet is recommended.

Surendra says scientific research has shown that the gut microbiome plays an important role in the function and maintenance of our immune system. In ideal conditions, this microbiome-immune system alliance allows the initiation of protective responses against germs.

The platform also offers sample collection, with samples collected from an individuals homes. A pick-up is arranged as per your convenience by Bione. The DNA sequencing is done in a well-equipped lab by expert scientists, after which a detailed report is prepared.

Bione gXplore is a user-friendly, informative, and interactive app-based platform. On it, you can go through your report and easily understand the results of DNA analysis.

Slots with genetic or food and nutrition counsellors are provided as a free-of-cost service. The expert team of counsellors guides you to proactively plan your and your familys health and lifestyle choices.

The Bione team consists of experts from global institutions and scientists domains of genomics, genetics, bio-IT, genome informatics, quality assurance, sales, marketing, genetic/nutrition/fitness counselling. The startup has a total team size of 39 people.

The startup also runs a lab with scientists, bioinformaticians, and genetic counsellors. The team is applying for ISO 9001:2015, followed by CAP and CLIA accreditation to follow global standards.

Bione is projecting to test 20,000 to 30,000 samples in the first year of operations. Tests are priced between Rs 5,000 to Rs 20,000, with the option of paying in EMIs. Customers can choose the package based on their needs.

The startup has raised angel funding from a clutch of undisclosed investors. Gourish Singla, the Founder of blockchain startup Project Shivom has invested in Bione.

Currently, startups like The Gene Box and Hyderabad-based MapMyGenome work on providing preventive solutions based on an individuals genetic makeup.

He says the startup's high tech lab is using advanced technologies, including whole genome sequencing, while the competition is still working with array technology with limited markers.

(Edited by Kanishk Singh)

How has the coronavirus outbreak disrupted your life? And how are you dealing with it? Write to us or send us a video with subject line 'Coronavirus Disruption' to editorial@yourstory.com

See the rest here:
How healthtech startup Bione aims to use genetic testing in the fight against coronavirus - YourStory

Adam Kleczkowski and Rowland Raymond KaoGlasgow and Edinburg, Scotland, March 26, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has already caused several thousand deaths, widespread health problems, massive anxiety and economic losses.

Most people are concerned with what happens day by day as we wait for control measures to work.

But we should also be concerned about whether or not we will be living with the virus for a long time. Will we be able to eradicate COVID-19, as we did with Sars? Or will we need to learn to live with it like we do with the common cold? We have been experiencing epidemics and pandemics for centuries, so there are lessons we can draw from these examples.

The virus in the long run

To understand what happens to the virus in the long term, we need to look at how large epidemics work, starting with patient zero.

If there is significant human-to-human transmission, the virus begins to spread, causing a fast increase in the number of cases (illustrated in the figure below). At the same time, those who overcome the disease and develop resistance are henceforth immune, at least for a while.

The people who are newly infected will increasingly have contact with these immune people, rather than with those who have not yet had the disease. This process effectively protects the susceptible population and causes the initial fast growth to slow and eventually stop.

The level of immunity

The level of herd immunity needed to stop the spread depends on both the number of contacts an average person has and how infectious the disease is. If highly contagious, this can be as much as 95%. This protection can be achieved by a combination of reducing infectiousness through immunity, either natural or acquired, or vaccination, or by reducing transmission.

Quarantine and mass restrictions on travel have proved effective, as shown in China, where the number of COVID-19 infections outside of Hubei province, where it started, have been few.

What happens next depends on the disease characteristics and human actions.

The 1918 flu virus did not persist after the early 1920s probably because enough people became immune to it. However, many pathogens are difficult to eradicate globally, although local success is possible. For example, foot-and-mouth disease, which affects sheep and livestock, survives in many countries.

The outbreak in the UK in 2001 was reduced to local islands of infection by an animal movement ban and then eradicated by massive culling.

But it took a long time and high costs to finally bring it to an end (figure below). Like many countries, the UK now has strict rules of animal imports, aimed at stopping the disease from arriving again.

Vaccine for coronavirus

It is possible that we will eradicate COVID-19 in selected countries or regions, but not necessarily worldwide. Although there are hopes that a vaccine will be successful within the next year, this is not certain. If it happens, very stringent travel checks may need to be imposed for at least a substantial time such a restriction, added on to concerns of the impact of air travel on climate change, may mean that the tourism industry may never recover.

Some diseases prove impossible to eradicate even in the long term and will persist following the first outbreak (figure below).

Diseases originating in Europe and Africa were brought to North America for the first time in the late 1400s and early 1500s. Encountering a population with little immunity, smallpox and other diseases spread rapidly causing the collapse of indigenous communities.

Subsequent outbreaks were lower, but smallpox and measles persisted until the 20th century.

Seasonal ailments

In temperate climates, seasonal influenza spreads rapidly through winter but mostly dies out in summer, only to come back the following year. In between outbreaks, the flu virus survives in Asia from where it emerges every year.

Large measles epidemics, before vaccines were available, occurred every two or three years, interspersed with small outbreaks (figure below).

The recurring pattern was caused by people being born all the time without vaccine protection.

Next winter, when children went back to school, there were enough susceptible ones to create a large outbreak. With mass vaccination of children, this influx was slowed down enough to create herd immunity and almost eradicate the disease.

However, measles is returning because vaccination levels are falling below the herd-immunity threshold.

The future of Covid-19

So what is the future of COVID-2019? While we cannot be sure, mathematical models help us explore scenarios and identify potential outcomes, building on our experience of past outbreaks.

The governments are hoping that a combination of social distancing, border closures, isolation of cases, testing and increasing immunity in the population will slow down the spread of the coronavirus and will hopefully open up successful eradication strategies.

Yet, past experiences suggest that we may need to learn to live with the coronavirus for years to come.

Adam Kleczkowski is Professor of Mathematics and Statistics. University of Strathclyde based in Glasgow, Scotland; Rowland Raymond Kao is Sir Timothy OShea Professor of Veterinary Epidemiology and Data Science at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. The above article and charts have been published under Creative Commons Licence.

Like Loading...

Link:
Longevity worldwide is the scary part of Covid-19 - Indian NewsLink

New research among more than 7,000 business executives, HR leaders and employees across sixteen geographies has identified the four most important global HR and human capital trends for 2020 and 2021.

According to the research by Mercer, the four top trends have already increasingly been shaping the face of the human resources landscape for a number of years, but these are now accelerating in importance amid the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on economy and society. The trends are ramping up changes in the way organisations globally are working and will continue to work into the future, stated the report.

With a new, more responsible mandate emerging, the challenge for business is to rethink what makes corporations successful. Although 85% of executives agree that the organisation's purpose should extend beyond shareholder primacy, only 35% deliver on a multi-stakeholder model today.

The majority of the C-suite agrees more needs to be done: 68% of executives want to accelerate progress on environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics in 2020, and 69% believe HR should update its success models to reflect the experience economy. However, with responsibility for many ESG metrics and culture change outcomes sitting primarily with HR (71% of CHROs shoulder the responsibility for culture change, compared with between 16% and 29% of other executives), more shared responsibility is required.

Much of an organisation's success depends on employees trusting that their company is taking a holistic view of their careers, wealth and well-being. Yet career pipelines have tightened in recent years. As many as 72% of older workers say they plan to work past retirement age and 55% of Gen X say longevity in the workplace is limiting progression. Gen Z also want more transparency on the effect of career choices and the long-term outlook.

An intriguing finding of the 2020 HR Trends report is that employees who know the lifespan of their skills feel more positive about the future. Employees whose companies are transparent about which jobs will change are more likely to be thriving (72% versus 56%).

As the Covid-19 pandemic impacts productivity, better management of older workers and good financial advice for all generations will be part of creating shared value. More than three-quarters (78%) of employees want long-term financial planning initiatives. Meanwhile 75% of employees who feel in control of designing their retirement say they are thriving, compared with 29% who lack the control they desire.

Yet, with just 23% of companies providing financial education for employees today, there is a long way to go. Pandemic-driven disruption demands that organisations urgently rethink financial support and ensure that decisions include both economic and empathetic considerations (a balance that only 37% of employees say their company is currently well equipped to do).

With 99% of organisations saying they want to embark on transformation in 2020, and almost all reporting significant skills gaps, the C-suite regards reskilling as the top talent investment capable of driving business success. Workforce capability and lack of future skills are seen as primary reasons why transformations fail, and reskilling is one of the investments they hope to maintain in a downturn. Just 28% identified cutting back on reskilling initiatives as a tactic to mitigate economic softening.

Employees also see reskilling as an emerging part of the deal (rising in importance as an attraction and a retention driver this year). And although more than three-quarters of employees say they are ready to learn new skills, two in five say they lack the time to take advantage of reskilling. In this respect the Covid-19 pandemic may offer the opportunity required to kick-start reskilling. Some business areas will have more time to spare, and firms can take advantage by directing those employees toward online learning courses and career exploration.

However, just 34% of HR leaders are investing in workforce learning and reskilling as part of their future of work strategy. Moreover, 40% of HR leaders do not know what skills their workforce possesses. This can be regarded as a worrying lack of insight, given executives gut feeling that less than half (45%) of their workers are capable of adapting to the future of work.

Without redesigning roles and career options for those at risk of displacement, HR cannot address firm-wide needs to fill new roles with reskilled internal talent. The concern is that without an integrated approach to strategic workforce planning (which takes account of how skills may change) and limited data on existing skills, companies may inadvertently lose valued talent. Long-term planning would enable firms to imagine brighter futures for their employees and boost their competitiveness once economic conditions improve.

The good news is that the workforce science discipline is gathering momentum. The use of predictive analytics has nearly quadrupled in five years, from 10% in 2016 to 39% today, and the use of metrics on pay inequities and total rewards usage has more than doubled.

That said, insights into workforce management could be adopted more widely. Only 43% of organisations use metrics to identify employees likely to leave, 18% know the impact of pay strategies on performance, and just 12% use analytics to correct inequities and prevent them from recurring. Moreover, in the current disruption are companies looking in the right places to ensure sustainability? Only 24% have data on who is at risk of burnout and only 15% can determine whether it is better to buy/build/ borrow employees.

The next wave of maturity requires HR to lean in to structure analytics such that it can answer key strategic questions, like: In a downturn, which strategy offers the best chance of maintaining performance? Which departments could deliver a similar level of output with more contingent staff? Where should we locate talent hubs to take advantage of skilled talent pools?

In parallel, advances in machine learning continue to filter through departments, including HR. Although machines outperform humans at tasks related to scale and speed, humans still outpace machines in sense-checking and judgment Sixty-seven percent of HR leaders are confident they can ensure AI is not institutionalising bias. However, ethics codes about the collection, application and implications of data analytics are still in their infancy.

Talent assessment is an area where human intuition is needed alongside psychometrics to qualify findings. Today, only one in two employees have a positive assessment experience. This is just one example of data collection that will attract more scrutiny as data-informed decision-making becomes common. Leading companies are on the front foot sharing data-driven insights with employees to help them make health, wealth and career decisions: 38% of organisations today apply intelligent nudging technology to help employees make better choices. Further, exploring relevant metrics and sharing them with employees shows how the new climate of remote working affects productivity.

Delivering on the employee experience is a top priority for HR in 2020. Fifty-eight percent of organisations are redesigning their structures to become more people-centric. Yet only 27% of the C-suite believe their investment in the employee experience will yield a business return. Why? Because executives are yet to be convinced of the link between the employee experience and productivity.

Almost half (48%) of executives rank employees' well-being as a top workforce concern, but only 29% of HR leaders have a health and well-being strategy. Feeling depleted is a worrying trend (particularly for employees in Japan and the UK), and two-thirds of employees globally feel at risk of burnout in the year ahead. Burnout risk will only be exacerbated as employees now balance work with social distancing, remote working, closures and quarantines.

The Mercer study shows that action is vital, given that energised employees are four times more likely to report a healthy, flexible and inclusive workplace. Employees who are energised by their job are essential to transformation agendas: Energised employees say they are more likely to stay, more resilient and more ready to reskill. Energised employees work in cultures that are empathetic, in environments they find enriching, and in work cultures that are both efficient and embracing.

Seamless interactions and better enablement of digital working in times of social distancing have a clear role to play, yet only two in five companies say they are mostly or fully digital, the same proportion as in 2018. This will remain a C-suite priority.

Focusing on the desired interactions between HR and the business is key to unlocking energy and enhancing the employee experience. Delivering on this aspiration requires HR to step out of its traditional functional silos. Despite the benefits associated with a more joined up approach, just 40% of HR leaders say they have an integrated people strategy today.

The good news is that 50% of HR respondents have moved away from traditional structures to meet their businesses' escalating need for agility and 26% say they have built a fluid team to respond to different business priorities. Grappling with stability and agility will be a key theme in 2020.

According to Mercers 2020 Global Talent Trends study, the talent landscape will be disrupted in the coming years as jobs are replaced, new skills enter the labour market and the demands of workers changes. As employers transform to tackle these matters, they should reconsider their companys purpose and their responsibilities to employees and employees future earnings. And, they need to do so while facing unforeseen challenges like the current coronavirus.

Originally posted here:
The top HR and human capital trends for 2020 and 2021 - Consultancy.eu

Sudden shocks to a system are never good. Things break under stress, sometimes permanently, sometimes with unforeseen consequences.

In the oil world, things could start breaking in a matter of weeks. Here in Canada the situation is likely to be acute, because of our concentrated exposure to one customer, the United States.

Oil markets worldwide are under extreme stress. First, theres the price war waged by The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries a deluge of barrels thrown into markets opportunistically during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The massive glut in oil still unknown in magnitude, but potentially over 10 million barrels per day globally has pounded the price of a premium barrel to near US$20. At that price, very few producers make enough money to sustain their longevity.

Prolonged financial stress, measured in months not years, will lead many oil producers to become distressed and some to die. Its easy for people to be dismissive about this situation from an armchair, far away from where the oil and its petroleum products originate. Consumer detachment from our many supply chains leads to a lack of awareness about what goes on behind the scenes.

While the oilfields of OPEC and Russia are a world away, the COVID-19 pandemic is here and the problem is a lot closer than you think. Oilfields are the starting point of our biggest energy system, a multi-trillion-dollar grid of pipelines, refineries and distribution systems that plug into airports, gas stations and manufacturing plants that give us our modern amenities, including medical supplies and equipment.

Free-market oil companies and their related infrastructure partners have dealt with price wars and geopolitical shenanigans on the supply side in the past. But they havent experienced a catastrophic collapse in demand due to a sudden paralysis of human activity. The latter, closer-to-home problem is potentially more consequential to stressing North Americas energy system than decisions being made in Moscow and Riyadh. And these proximal stresses are about to ripple right up to Canadas oilfields.

Here is the problem: In the past week, big cities, provinces and states across North America have ordered their citizens to leave their workplace and stay at home with varying degrees of enforcement.

So, the big loss is in the use of transportation fuels, for flying and daily commuting. Fuels for light-duty vehicles represents some 40 per cent of the volume that comes out of a refinery, while jet fuel is 10 per cent.

We dont yet know how much of North Americas oil demand will be impaired over the coming weeks, but estimates suggest in the range of 30 per cent across the continent is possible, and greater in the hardest hit areas such as the U.S. Northeast.

So, where do you put the surplus petroleum products if nobody is using the stuff?

Some of the big refineries in the American Midwest are 80 per cent or more reliant on heavy oils, with much of that coming from the oilsands region.

Refineries in Ontario and Quebec are also dependent, receiving western Canadian oil through U.S. pipelines. With limited space in storage tanks, the refinery complexes are starting to turn down their volumes. And that means they need far less oil from Western Canadas oilfields.

Soon, large Canadian producers will likely shut in their production. Preliminary estimates suggest in the range of over one million barrels per day of oil supply could be turned away, mostly the heavier grades of oil. For scale, the Alberta governments 2019 curtailment order was for a mere 325,000 barrels per day.

The exacerbating issue is that not all oilfields are the same; some cant be turned on and off like a hairdryer. For instance, the steam-assisted heavy oil reservoirs can be damaged by shut-ins, as can operations that have corrosion concerns.

In a prolonged scenario, there are potential knock-on effects. Financial contracts, backed by creditors and counterparties, are potentially impacted with unknown aftereffects that can ripple into the banking system.

Pure capitalists would suggest letting the free market decide the fate of these vital supply chains across the continent. Yet, mere low oil prices are a reckless arbiter of who shuts in production and who doesnt. Price regulates volume, but it doesnt consider factors that range from permanent supply impairment to unexpected system failure.

A societal disruption of this magnitude affects the suppliers and consumers of energy, and everything in between. Because everything in between spans the continent, this looming system-wide issue isnt exclusive to Western Canadas oilfields. The entire system is affected.

If major shutdowns begin, its desirable to have a triaged, holistic process, managed from the most vulnerable segment to the least.

State-owned, integrated oil companies can manage such a task, yet in a free market like North America thats called collusion. During this exceptional crisis, maybe we can think about multiparty collaboration instead?

Our personal health is paramount, followed by putting food on the table and shelter over our heads. After that comes the protection of essential infrastructure and services necessary for our modern society to function well.

Canadas oil and gas industry remains an integral, real-time supplier of energy to some of the most populated U.S. states and eastern Canada. Annual oil, gas and petroleum exports last year tallied close to $120 billion.

Right now, in a time of crisis, this is about more than incomprehensibly large dollars in an industry that has historically polarized our society.

Canadas energy industry serves us all it heats our homes, it fuels the trucks that bring food to our tables and its relied upon to create critical medications in our cabinets. And right now, the industry is on the verge of a system-wide crisis.

Without care and consideration, the effects wont just be experienced in some far-off oilfield, we could feel them in close-to-home ways.

We need to think outside the barrel. Industry, government and all stakeholders should proactively work together to minimize damage to our energy systems. Because this isnt an industry issue anymore, its now societal.

Peter Tertzakian is Executive Director of the ARC Energy Research Institute in Calgary, Alberta.

See the original post here:
Peter Tertzakian: The crisis facing Canadas oilpatch isnt just the industrys problem, its everybodys problem - Financial Post

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / March 26, 2020 / "Crises are in the eye of the beholder" says Dr. Joshua Klapow, a clinical psychologist . And that's in part how he got the nickname Dr. Disaster.

Crises come in all shapes sizes and degree of impact. For some it's the down turn of their company in a struggling economy, for others it's a relationship on the rocks. Sometimes crises affect many hundreds or thousands, natural disasters, mass shootings, terrorist attacks. Sometimes they can even be global like a pandemic. In any of these scenarios the psychological and emotional toll on individuals can be devastating. Communities, cities, states, nations can suffer from global distress, a sense of helplessness, and difficulty making decisions and choices that can help them carry on. In any crisis what people do or don't do and how they do or don't do it determines in some cases whether they survive or not, and in all cases whether they thrive or not.

So where can we turn? Where should we turn? Dr. Josh believes that at the heart of every crisis is human distress that needs guidance to see it through. And for years, Dr. Josh has served that role to individuals, companies, cities, states and even nations. And that's how he came by the nickname Dr. Disaster. From his presence across media outlets when "disaster strikes".

As he says "Unfortunately I have taken on this nickname. When bad things happen you will often see me on television, hear from me on radio or read my words in print. The good news is that when bad things happen to you, your company, your city or state, you can count on me to be there with the tools, and the experience to help people tap into their psychological resiliency and work through a crisis. So I guess Dr. Disaster isn't that bad after all".

Dr. Josh has been working for decades with people in a variety of crisis situations: A CEO in the middle of a contested divorce trying to compartmentalize the stress divorce while maintaining the functioning of a multimillion-dollar business. An elite athlete who has just seen their season end due to a catastrophic injury and now must face the transition to a next life chapter. A start up company that fell on a tough economy and now is faced with massive downsizing while looking after their employees well being. A multibillion-dollar company that is struggling with the retention of high performing individuals who are leaving in droves because of a punitive management culture. Or maybe it's a tornado, or hurricane or earthquake that has decimated a city or state. Or a global pandemic that has struck fear in the hearts of frankly the world. Dr. Josh is usually there. It may be for a one on one series of consultations out of the media's eye. It may be as an advisor helping leadership making tough decisions about layoffs. You may see him on television; hear him on the radio, read his quotes in print as he tries to get the messages out to the masses.

Dr. Josh is there to help people navigate . He explains:

"In times of crises, big or small, at the individual level or global, as a general rule we, humans experience levels of distress that impact every aspect of our functioning. Crises change the way we think, the way we process information, the way we `function. Having the right tools to reduce our anxiety, focus our concentration, regulate our autonomic nervous system is critical. Even then, when people are undergoing prolonged stressful situations, they need someone who can point out the cognitive errors, the irrational beliefs, and the self-defeating actions that come with being under immense pressure. I see it at the individual level but I also see it at the group and population level. A distressed management team makes human resource decisions that often are focused on relieving their own distress but not focused on maximizing the productivity or longevity of their employees. A distressed community engages in a series of actions typically aimed at reducing individual anxiety but not looking at the interconnectedness of their interactions. Crisis does bring out the best in some people but it also brings our weakest psychological characteristics to the forefront. My job is to help guide people through the crisis of their lives. "

Story continues

While having significant life and/or business experience is a great backdrop to helping people, it doesn't formally prepare a person to manage the intense emotions, the erratic decisions, the fear, anxiety and at times irrational behavior that happens when people are experiencing a life crisis. Understanding how stress, anxiety, perceived danger, escape preferences, cognitive biases and psychophysiological deregulation impact every aspect of an individuals life is critical to help them navigate crisis situations.. There are many untrained or poorly trained individuals in the marketplace providing high-priced services to people and organizations in very high profile, high scrutiny, and high-pressured positions. Watching this happen in everyone from start-up CEOs to executives in publicly traded organizations to professional athletes and entertainers to entire communities is what motivated Dr. Josh Klapow to step in.

Joshua Klapow, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist. He has a specialization in behavioral medicine and disaster mental health. He trained at UCLA and UC San Diego and spent nearly 20 years researching the role of human behavior in health, well being and the impact of disaster and crisis on human functioning as an Associate Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has taught hundreds of graduate students and professionals the principles of psychological first aid, disaster communication and psychosocial crisis managing. He has served as a behavioral science consultant for individuals and organizations across the country as well as the World Health Organization. He has spent his entire career trying to help people thrive in situations where there are significant challenges to their physical and mental health and overall well being.

"My clinical training was specifically focused on helping people change their lives during times of challenge, strife and crisis. It was also designed to help people understand how situations and environmental settings either helped people to thrive or served as a barrier. My training was designed to help people navigate the life changes in front of them and to help people design businesses and systems of care that were much more person centered." Dr. Josh says.

Dr. Josh's traditional research and clinical work have been supplemented by a collaboration with media outlets to provide the public with the psychological first aid tools during times of crisis. From 9/11 to the variety of mass shootings, to SARS, to tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, the financial crisis of 2008, plane crashes, Ebola, and COVID-19. His passion to get the message out to help people navigate fear anxiety, distress, and frustration have resulted in products such as "The Preparedness Minute", A CDC funded series of videos that have been disseminated to public health organizations and first responders across the country help people prepare and cope with national disasters. He has been called on by media outlets across the country after natural disasters, mass shootings, and disease outbreaks to help address the social and psychological impact these events have on people. From multiple appearances on The Weather Channel, to the BBC, NBC Weekend News and local affiliates across the country. To digital outlets ranging from the HuffPost, Buzzfeed, Elite Daily, Men's Health, Today.com, US News and World Report and more. Dr. Josh has been a media partner and a psychological first aid expert for nearly two decades.

He has also worked extremely closely with the business community to address the human resource impact of difficult and life changing scenarios. He has consulted on continuity planning, employee engagement, crisis communication, executive impairment, leadership transition, and psychological first aid for organizations ranging from startups to multibillion-dollar public companies. His unique expertise as a public health academician and a clinical psychologist allows him to shift from focus on the individual to groups and populations as is needed. Sophisticated technology and a deep understanding of psychology and behavioral science.

This blend of expertise in behavioral science, disaster preparedness, crisis communication and business along with his presence in the national media has positioned Dr. Josh as a sought after resource for companies and individuals across the US helping them leverage psychology and behavioral science in crisis situations. He is called on to help people survive and thrive when high levels of pressure and stress are present. He has become a public and private "go to" for those who need his input in any crisis situation or capacity.

"I know that crises will vary greatly in terms of how many people are impacted. I also know that in crisis situations there is a need for guidance that is not always delivered in a traditional "mental health" format. People need messages that are being delivered via the media, companies need guidance to make the best decisions possible for their employees, individuals need to know there is someone on the other end of a call, video conference, or text that can offer psychological tools and resources immediately to help make critical decisions. I am not a physician or an economist. My role is to know as much as is possible about how to navigate the psychological, cognitive, emotional and behavioral challenges that arise before, during and after a crisis situation. My role is to be there to make sure that you as an individual, a company or a community or nation have the right strategies to work with the impact of humans in a state of distress.

I serve as a trusted "psychological correspondent" for media outlets nationally and internationally and I work with businesses and individuals to help them bring behavioral science and psychology to the forefront of their organizations and their personal lives in the context of crises and disasters. I am here to consult and coach, to develop and support. I am here when you need an individual who can help you or your company thrive in times of crisis, change, decision making or growth. I deeply understand human behavior and I have lived the real-life experiences. Look, in my opinion it comes down to this, if you need to understand how thoughts, emotions and behaviors impact your life during some of the most critical situations and times. If you need to understand that in the context of your company, or the life of others around you, it is important that you get it right, you have to go with someone who has training and experience. Be careful, because intuition, and experience with life strife is not what you want if you need someone to help you get it right. A high level of specific training and experience is critical, because your life is critical. I've worked my whole career to prepare me to help. And I'm here to help." Dr. Josh says.

For Dr. Josh, mindset is critical because you must be willing to look at a crisis situation that may have everyone around you deregulated, distressed and convinced there are no options or their options are the only options. Being able to sit in periods of crisis and guide people through he array of emotions and actions without getting pulled down in is a skill that has to be honed and refined if you are to be at the forefront of crisis management. You have to trust your training and trust that in the middle of chaos you can hold steady as a voice of reason.

"My advice for those who are trying to help in crisis and disaster situations is to make sure you check yourself first. Do you have the tools to be strong, to know when you are exceeding your bandwidth, to join with individuals, organizational, communities while keeping yourself psychological strong. If you haven't had this kind of training you run the risk of becoming a psychological liability versus as n asset. Dr. Josh advises.

Dr. Josh is admant about pushing the message that psychological well being is a science, with specific tools an methods that ere desperately needed for individuals and groups during times of strife. He will also tell you that the larger the crisis, the more people it impacts and the longer the duration the more we need to rely not just on being tough, but rely on the assets that come with specific and targeted experience and credentials in psychology, behavioral science and human performance

"If you are someone who is experiencing a personal life crisis, an organization that is trying to navigate a crisis or a community that is trying to contain a crisis. I have the training and understanding to help you. If you are in a high-pressure situation and need to make sure that you are getting the most out of your own psychological, emotional, behavioral and physiological resources, I can guide you through. ." Dr. Josh states.

To learn more about Dr. Josh's work or how you can reach out, go here.

CONTACT:

Paula Henderson202-539-7664phendersonnews@gmail.com

About VIP Media Group

VIP Media Group is a hybrid PR agency. Their diverse client base includes top-class entrepreneurs, public figures, influencers, and celebrities.

SOURCE: VIP-Media

View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/582719/His-Nickname-is-Dr-Disaster-and-at-Some-Point-You-May-Need-Him

More here:
His Nickname is Dr. Disaster and at Some Point You May Need Him - Yahoo Finance

When you look at the footage of so-called Yemeni special security forces attacking Aden airport five years ago today - gaunt young men in sandals and shorts gingerly approaching their target - the only thing that appears to match their billing is their military hardware.

Creeping behind powerful armoured cars, with machine guns and rocket launchers slung over their shoulders, they wait to break cover and storm the gates.

That morning, they lost the battle, but the war they started continues to rage, albeit under new management.

Originally, those special forces were fighting alongside Houthi rebels to oust President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and reinstall his predecessor, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

That seems a world away now. Salehs double-dealing eventually got him killed in 2017. Hadi is exiled and largely irrelevant in Riyadh.

If the last five years in Yemen have taught me anything ... it's the need to take other people's power struggles out of our equations, and take politics entirely out of our arms trade

Now what matters is the power struggle between the megalomaniacal Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, keen to add military genius to his list of precocious talents, and the fanatical Houthis, whod rather see Yemen destroyed than surrendered.

That explains both the longevity of the Yemen war, and also the sheer level of devastation it has caused. Put simply, neither side cares.

For Mohammed bin Salman, his indiscriminate air strikes and crippling blockades are yet to force a surrender, but not for the want of effort.As for the thousands of civilians blown to bits in the bombing, and the millions of children suffering malnutrition and disease, his Western allies dont seem bothered, so why should he?

The Houthis have their own long record of war crimes - child soldiers, torture, human shields, and random missile strikes on Riyadh.But the PR war has never bothered them; only the real one. And if you said it would last another five years, theyd probably count that a success.

So do we think either Mohammed bin Salman or the Houthis care about the imminent spread of coronavirus among a severely weakened population with an already shattered healthcare system?

If I sound in despair, forgive me.But what really gets me about Yemen is the sheer amount our Tory government actively chooses not to do when it comes to bringing the war to an end.

As the official UN penholder on Yemen, we could demand a comprehensive, nationwide ceasefire to allow proper peace talks and the mass distribution of humanitarian aid.We could demand a full, independent UN investigation into all alleged war crimes, and impose - with no exemptions - a total ban on all UK arms sales for use in Yemen until that investigation is complete.

Ive made those three demands of all four Tory foreign secretaries Ive faced, and everyone has refused - not for reasons of high principle or substantive policy, but just because of the naked politics that Mohammed bin Salman is in a power struggle, and they must be seen to back him up.

Watching all that across the dispatch box has changed me.It has taught me to hate the Catch-22 contortions of an unethical foreign policy - one where we accept that British arms have enforced blockades used to starve Houthi-held areas into submission, and deny children essential medical treatment.

Theyve been used to bomb weddings, funerals, school buses, food markets, homes, schools and hospitals. An impartial observer might therefore conclude there is a clear risk UK arms are being used to commit war crimes, and block their export accordingly.

But not the UK government.Instead, they applaud Saudi authorities for taking these concerns seriously and investigating all allegations, both - they argue - clear examples of good intent, and signs of positive UK influence.

Furthermore, because these investigations have supposedly only revealed a series of unfortunate accidents, not deliberate war crimes, the Tories say Riyadh deserves praise for admitting the former, not an unjustified arms ban to prevent the latter.

We must stop outsourcing UK foreign policy to Donald Trump

That, the Tories conclude, is consistent with the licensing rules put in place by former foreign secretary Robin Cook, even though Cook would have been appalled to see them applied in this way.

It was after hearing this crazed Conservative logic that I told Labour colleagues it would not be enough for us to simply operate the current arms export regime more stringently. I said we should scrap it entirely and introduce a Bank of England-style model, removing politicians from the decision-making process entirely.

Instead of ministers, an independent panel would make objective assessments of each export application, based solely on the risk to international law, free from any external interference, lobbying or personal prejudice.

Anything short of that, I argued, would allow a future Tory government simply to return to the old system, in a way they could never do on bank independence.

But my proposal met with resistance from some quarters.After all, some people like a bit of political subjectivity, so long as theyre the ones making the decisions - and especially if there are jobs at stake represented by our arms manufacturing unions.

I accepted a temporary compromise at the time, but vowed not to let it rest, and I wont do so under the new Labour leader.

Because if the last five years in Yemen have taught me anything - especially watching Tory ministers over that time - its the need to take other peoples power struggles out of our equations, and take politics entirely out of our arms trade. Only then can Britain conduct itself as an unequivocal force for peace.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Link:
UK and Yemen: The Catch-22 contortions of an unethical foreign policy - Middle East Eye