John Wall electedto continue his all-star career with the Washington Wizards, agreeing Friday night to a four-year deal with a player option in the fourth year. The designated player veteran extension will keep him as the teams cornerstone and pay him $170 million.

Wall, the 26-year-old point guard who has played all seven seasons with the Wizards, will be tied to Washington for at least the next five years two on his current deal, and three on the extension before he canopt out. By earning all-NBA honors for the first time after a career year in 2016-17 he was third team Wall became eligible to sign the extension that begins in 2019. Through the life of thecontract, Wall will earn 35 percent of the salary cap.

The deal signals Walls long-term commitment to the franchise, as well as his contentmentwith the directionin which the Wizards are heading.

He wouldnt have signed it if he wasnt, a person familiar with Walls thinking told The Washington Post late Friday night.

In a video posted on the Uninterrupted Twitter account,Wall announced his agreementby speaking directly to a handheld recording device.

Yall know I wasnt going nowhere, Wall said intothe camera. Re-signed with the Wizards, man. Signed my extension. You know where I want to be. I love being in D.C. I love the organization. I love my teammates. I love the amazing fans. Just had to think it out with my family and friends. We made a decision. You know where I want to be at.

Im happy Im coming back, Wall continued. Yall know what Im going for. Definitely going to bring yall that championship. Thats my ultimate goal, and I aint going to stop till I get it. Peace. Love.

Though the news broke late Friday night, Wizards majority owner Ted Leonsis made a bold prediction about Walls future Wednesday following the news conference for Otto Porter Jr. and his four-year max deal.

My prediction is John Wall will sign his extension, Leonsis told reporters. He wants to be here, and my goal is to have no drama.

Mission accomplished.

During the Las Vegas Summer league, Leonsis and team President Ernie Grunfeld met with Rich Paul, Walls agent, to discuss a myriad of topics. The extension, naturally, topped the list. Though Wall could have signed the extension at the start of free agency July 1, he waited. Instead of simply signing, Wall and his representatives wanted to structure the deal in ways that bettered his current contract.

For instance, when Wall signed a rookie extension in July 2013, he did not have a player option. Now, not only does Wall get his out but he also has a 15-percent trade kicker in new extension.

Throughoutthe contract discussions, drama was absent as Wall consistently said he wanted to remain with the Wizards.

Im just chillin. Just trying to figure out to negotiate it and manipulate it the way you want it to be, Wall said, updating reporters on the status of the extension July 10. Everybody know where I want to play and where I want to be. Everybody took it the wrong way I wanted to wait. Its a big decision. I love D.C.

Everything I do, I do it for the city of D.C. I do so much in the community. If it wasnt for the love of that, I wouldnt do it.

Last season, Wall averaged 23.1 points, 10.7 assists and 4.2 rebounds while leading the Wizards (49-33) to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. Wallset the franchise career recordfor assists (4,610) and steals(870) and became the first player in league history to average at least 20 points, 10 assists, four rebounds, two steals and 0.5 blocks.

Also during the playoffs, Wall became only the eighth player in NBA historyto average at least 25 points and 10 assists, according to statistics from Basketball-Reference.com. Other players on that list include Hall of Fame point guards Magic Johnson, John Stockton, Isiah Thomas and Oscar Robertson.

Wall joined the Golden State Warriors Stephen Curry and the Houston Rockets James Harden as the three stars to sign the so-called supermax extension.

Excerpt from:

John Wall agrees to four-year, 'supermax' extension with the Wizards - Washington Post

From the Office of U.S. Sen. Tom Udall:

WASHINGTON, D.C. Today, U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, announced that the committee has advanced legislation providing strong fiscal year 2018 funding for New Mexicos national labs, cleanup projects and technology transfer, the Waste Isolation Pilot Program (WIPP), and water infrastructure projects throughout the state.

Udall, a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, which wrote the funding bill, secured a significant increase in funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), as they work to ensure the nations aging nuclear stockpile is safe and reliable, which will boost the Los Alamos and Sandia national labs, as well as the Albuquerque NNSA facility. Udall worked to include full funding for life extension projects (LEP) at the national labs, including the B61 and W80-4 LEP, continuing his fight for the important national security mission and to save thousands of jobs at the labs.

Udall also secured a $23.5 million increase for cleanup at Los Alamos National Lab, as well as strong funding for advanced biofuels and technology transfer to encourage job growth and innovation.

The essential, cutting-edge work that New Mexicans do at our national labs and Department of Energy installations helps keep this country safe and drives our states economy. As a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I am proud to champion our national labs by fighting for the funding needed to keep these facilities strong, Udall said. This bill makes critical investments in New Mexicos economy, including strengthening technology transfer. Tech transfer will energize New Mexicos private sector by harnessing the vanguard research and development being carried out at our national labs helping turn researchers ideas into vibrant, innovative businesses. I will keep working to advance strong funding levels to support New Mexicos priorities and move our state out of the shadow of sequestrations devastating budget cuts."

Udall also worked to include support for Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation water projects in New Mexico.

"As a water-scarce state, New Mexico needs to make the most of every drop. This bill provides strong funding to ensure that communities can make clean water available to local residents, agricultural producers, and to industry. These investments in water infrastructure will grow local economies and strengthen rural communities and Tribes.

The bill is now pending before the full Senate. Today the Appropriations Committee also adopted informal budget levels to guide the preparation of the 12 appropriations bills that make up the federal government's annual spending, since there is no FY 2018 budget in place. Many Republicans in Congress are pushing for large increases in defense spending, but reduced federal government funding overall, which would force billions of dollars in cuts to critical programs in other agencies. Udall joined with committee Democrats in advocating for a bipartisan budget agreement that would allow for billions in additional investments in both domestic and defense-related programs. The larger debate over FY 2018 budget levels will continue as the appropriations bills move to the full Senate in the fall.

The following are details of the provisions for New Mexico that Udall fought to include in the FY 2018 energy and water development funding bill:

New Mexico funding and other highlights of the bill include:

National Labs

The NNSA which funds both Sandia and Los Alamos national labs and the Albuquerque NNSA facility received a significant increase from 2017, funded at $13.685 billion.

Life Extension Projects - The bill includes full funding for several life extension (LEP) projects carried out at Los Alamos and Sandia national labs, including the B61 and W80-4 LEP. Both the B61 and W80-4 LEPs are an important part of the stockpile stewardship program. This funding benefits the important nuclear security work at both Sandia and Los Alamos national labs. The bill's LEP funding levels will allow the labs, if needed, to hire additional scientists and engineers to extend the life of existing warheads. Udall has successfully fought cuts to life extension projects, saving thousands of jobs at the labs, and he remains committed to ensuring it has funding to continue its critical national security mission.

Advanced Biofuels and Technology Transfer - $6.8 million for the Office of Technology Transitions, which was established in 2015 and helps to expand the commercial impact of the Department of Energy's portfolio of research, development, demonstration and deployment activities. The office works with the National Laboratories and other stakeholders to identify high value technological innovations and discoveries, and to inject resources to move them rapidly to commercialization thus enhancing U.S. competitiveness and energy technological leadership. Additionally, the bill sets aside$30 million for the Department of Energys Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) to provide critical investments in research to develop advanced drop-in biofuels from algae.

Cleanup

Los Alamos Cleanup - The bill includes a $23.5 million increase for cleanup at Los Alamos National Lab to $217.5 million.

Waste Isolation Pilot Program (WIPP) The bill funds WIPP at $300.9 million, plus additional funds for security an increase of $8.2 million above fiscal year 2017. An additional $10 million is dedicated for addressing maintenance backlog issues.

A detailed breakdown of the Energy and Water funding for New Mexico follows:

National Nuclear Security Administration

Overall funding for the NNSA increased to $13.685 billion and includes full funding for life extension projects. Lab totals are not broken out in the appropriations bill.

NNSA Weapons Activities

FY17 enacted: $8.872 billion

FY18 Senate proposed funding level: $10 billion

Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation

FY17 enacted: $1.925 billion

FY18 Senate proposed funding level: $1.852 billion

Los Alamos National Laboratory Cleanup

FY17 enacted: $194 million

FY18 Senate proposed funding level: $217.5 million

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

FY17 enacted: $292 million (plus additional funds for security)

FY18 Senate proposed funding level: $300.9 million (plus additional funds for security)

NNSA Albuquerque Complex Replacement Project

FY17 enacted: $15.047 million

FY18 Senate proposed funding level: $98 million

NNSA Stockpile Stewardship Programs

B61 LEP: $788.5 million

W76 LEP: $224.1 million

W88 Alt 370 LEP: $332.2 million

W80-4 LEP: $399.09 million

Directed Stockpile Work: $3.97 billion, which includes $200 million for plutonium pit sustainment.

Inertial Confinement Fusion Ignition High Yield Campaign: $544.9 million, which includes $61.6 million for Sandias Z machine

Advanced Simulation and Computing: $734.2 million, including $161 million for exascale computing which is helping Los Alamos develop the next generation of advanced supercomputers.

NNSA Constructions Programs

Los Alamos CMRR: $180.9 million

Los Alamos TRU liquid waste facility: $17.85 million

Los Alamos Radioactive Liquid Waste treatment facility: $2.1 million

NNSA Albuquerque Facility: $98 million

In addition, the committee supports the request to begin recapitalization of the NNSAs trusted strategic microelectronics capability. The MESA facility at Sandia is currently the only trusted strategic facility for microelectronics and upgrades will be required to continue its vital national security work into the future.

Army Corps of Engineers

The Senate bill includes Udall's funding requests for Army Corps of Engineers operations and maintenance

- Abiquiu Dam: $3,437,000

- Cochiti Lake: $3,178,000

- Conchas Lake: $5,769,000

- Galisteo Dam: $900,000

- Inspection of Completed Works: $652,000

- Jemez Canyon Dam: $753,000

- Middle Rio Grande Endangered Species Collaborative Program: $2,500,000

- Santa Rosa Dam and Lake: $1,583,000

- Scheduling Reservoir Operations: $383,000

- Two Rivers Dam: $592,000

- Upper Rio Grande Water Operations Model Study: $1,300,000

Investigations

- Espanola Valley, Rio Grande and Tributaries: $65,000

Construction

- Environmental Infrastructure: $60,000,000, an increase of $5 million from FY17.

Tribal Partnership Program

The FY 2018 bill includes $1.5 million for the Army Corps of Engineers to collaborate with Tribes to conduct feasibility studies and carry out water resource projects that that benefit Tribal lands.

Bureau of Reclamation

The bill includes Senator Udalls Bureau of Reclamation funding requests:

WaterSMART: $74,035,000

Read more:

Udall Advances Strong Funding For New Mexico's National ... - Los Alamos Daily Post

WEST LAFAYETTE - Purdue Extension has released two new publications in the Protecting Pollinators series: The Complex Life of the Honey Bee and Biology and Control of Varroa Mites in Bee Hives.

These new publications provide information on honey bee biology, how to promote promoting healthy hives and current issues in pollinator research.

Biology and Control of Varroa Mites in Bee Hives focuses on one of the greatest threats to North American honey bees - the pesky varroa mite. These mites cause massive winter losses in hives by infecting brood cells. The publication provides details on the biology of the infestation and methods used to reduce mite populations and prevent honey bee die-offs. The publication is available as a free download from Purdue Extensions the Education Store at edustore.purdue.edu/item.asp?Item_Number=POL-8.

The Complex Life of the Honey Bee is a detailed guide to the species and its management. The publication provides insight on the environmental, biological, and chemical challenges of colony health. It also includes an emphasis on the balance between pesticides and pollinators, an important issue today. Print versions of The Complex Life of the Honey Bee are available for $5.50 each from The Education Store at edustore.purdue.edu/item.asp?Item_Number=PPP-116.

Fred Whitford, director of the Purdue Pesticide Programs and senior author of The Complex Life of the Honey Bee, said the publication is designed to promote deeper discussion and greater awareness of the species.

We want people to be involved in the discussion, understand the circumstances, and take action, Whitford said. The publication tells us how a colony works, how individual bees operate, how they feed and how pesticides are affecting them. We need an in-depth understanding of these topics to tackle the issues.

Nine publications are now available in the Protecting Pollinators series. The series provides practical tips for protecting the habitats of honey bees, mason bees, bumble bees, flies, moths, butterflies and hummingbirds as well as other threatened pollinator species.

Members of Purdues Protecting Pollinators development team were recently honored with the 2017 Entomology Educational Project Award from the Certified Entomologists of Mid-America for their efforts to help educate the public, farmers and agrochemical professionals about vital pollinator species.

Theres an important national debate taking place over threats to our pollinator communities. Lack of food, diseases, and other insects are contributing to their decline, Whitford said. These publications are designed to provide important information about pollinator survival to beekeepers, gardeners, farmers, professional applicators and anyone else interested in the survival of these vital species.

Other publications in the series are:

* Protecting Pollinators in Home Lawns and Landscapes

* Protecting Pollinators in Fruit and Vegetable Production

* Tips for Commercial Agricultural Pesticide Applicators

* Recommended Indiana-native Plants for Protecting Pollinators

* Why Should We Care About Pollinators?

* Protecting Pollinators in Agronomic Crop Production

* Best Management Practices for Indiana Pollinator Habitat

For more information on the series and pollinator issues, visit the Purdue Extension Entomology site at https://extension.entm.purdue.edu/index.html.

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Purdue Extension releases new publications in Protecting Pollinators series - Greensburg Daily News

Head Trips

I am glad that Silicon Valley billionaires are investing money into life extension ("Eternity 2.0," July 12). Big Pharma only wants to make drugs for diseases. We need people with vision and millions to fund researchers. And, yes, freezing heads is definitely too old-school.

Two great fiction books to read on the subject of extending life and ending disease as we know it are Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. I am sure that the pioneer boys in the chip valley all read this when they were younger. It's all about having a copy of yourself and rebooting into a newer body. The other book is Unwind by Neal Shusterman. It's a dystopic teen novel about harvesting parts from young adultsa much darker vision.

Mary LeVesque

Sebastopol

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."Albert Einstein

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."Albert Einstein

So comically sad the tech billionaires chase such a vain and empty fountain of youth. All their wealth cannot conceal their fundamentally primitive, ignorant and arrogant conceits that are too typical of hubris-laden Homo sapiens. Technology is integral to the multitude of crises that surround all 7-plus billion of us, and yet they believe the same technologies will save us? Or at least their own sorry-assed sociopathic selves? They are so barking up the wrong tree.

Humanity's design contains so much inherent untapped potential. A wiser earthling would invest in how to "install the drivers" that will activate so many wondrous yet still dormant faculties built into each and every one of us. Surely a quantum leap in evolution may potentially be nigh, but this sure isn't it!

"Be grateful for death, grasshopper, without death, life has no value." Reverend Ra Rabbi Roshi Rinpoche Ji

Boho Beau

Occidental

Reuniting Courthouse Square has created a magical place in downtown Santa Rosa! I toast the city council members who finally made it happen! Most great cities have a downtown space that people love: Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, Central Park in New York Cityand now the reunited Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa.

Anyone who's been to Wednesday Night Market in Santa Rosa this summer, can see how people are drawn to it. While the homeless have needs for city funds, as well as single moms, addicts, mentally ill, veterans, and the elderly, spending money to create a beautiful public space will have far-reaching returns. It diverts traffic, and humanizes the downtown core, to create a place where people can slow down and enjoy this beautiful place.

Tomas Phillips

Sebastopol

Write to us at letters@bohemian.com.

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Letters to the Editor: July 19, 2017 - North Bay Bohemian

A training program to help community organizations assist members and clients with basic money management is being offered through University of Wyoming Extension.

The Master Money Manager Coach program is Aug. 16 to 17 at the UW Extension office on the Laramie County Community College campus in Cheyenne.

Instructors will train participants how to work with individuals to improve their financial management skills.

The program is recommended for community organizations, nonprofits and agencies that want to help their clients better understand and manage their financial lives, said UW Extension educator Juliet Daniels, coordinator of the program.

Its so important to be exposed to personal finance, she said. I look at the communities I serve, and the reality is that a lot of people could really benefit from having a coaching relationship with a trusted adviser to get themselves on track.

The two-day training introduces coaches to the FDIC Money Smart curriculum, teaches basic adult learning principles and provides tools to use with clients to encourage adoption of positive money management behaviors.

You dont have to be a financial expert to make a difference, Daniels said. Our program will help anyone in a community organization work with their clients on money matters.

UW Extension is an arm of the University of Wyoming tasked with providing non-credit, life-long learning programs in all Wyomings counties.

No knowledge of teaching or money management is necessary, said Daniels. A $125 registration fee covers the class and two lunches and snacks. Scholarships and sponsorships are available, and space is limited.

Open registration ends Aug. 10. For more information and to register, contact Daniels at juliet.daniels@uwyo.edu or 307-633-4383. More information is also available on the registration site at m3c_cheyenne_2017.eventbrite.com.

Partial financial support comes from the John P. Ellbogen Foundation Fund for Wyoming Communities, Agriculture and Rural Living.

Read more from the original source:

UW Extension offers Master Money Manager Coach course - High Plains Journal

SaskPower headquarters in Regina. Don Healy / Regina Leader-Post

SaskPower posted a $46-million profit in 2016-17 and executives at the Crown corporation are confident it will reach its goal of producing 50 per cent of power to the province through renewable sources by 2030.

SAskPowers annual report, released Wednesday, showed it invested$866 million in the provinces electricity system over the past year, largely to sustain an aging power grid.

Coal remains a significant source of power for the province: 32 per cent of available power capacity right now is generated from the non-renewable resource.

Natural gas produces 40 per cent of the provinces power, hydro accounts for 20 per cent and wind for five per cent. Other sources make up the last three per cent.

In the 2016-17 fiscal year, SaskPower spent $112 million refurbishing three power stations in its coal fleet, in large part, according to the report, because the resource remains a cost-effective supply.

The province has an in-principle agreement to ease the economic impact of new federal coal regulations, but will still need to make significant investments in other power sources in order to meet the 50 per cent target by 2030.

SaskPower is planning to add more wind power capacity to its grid. Wind accounts for 220 megawatts of the Crowns total power mix right now. That number is targeted to grow to 2,100 MW (30 per cent) of the total power mix by 2030 .

Each year from now until then, the province is looking to add roughly 200 MWs in order to reach that goal. A 175 MW wind project in southern Saskatchewan is currently in production and SaskPower has a request for proposal out looking to develop another 200 MW.

A $300-million, 50-year life extension project of six unitsat the E.B. Campbell Hydroelectric Station also began in 2016-17.

SaskPower also launched a competitive process for the provinces first10 MW, utility-scale solar project, which once built will be the first Canadian project of its size outside of Ontario.

Despite the annual report stating Saskatchewan has the best potential in Canada for solar power, it is taking a back seat to wind.

SaskPower president and CEO Mike Marsh says this is because the cost of wind is more favourable given current market conditions.

Beyond coal, significant investments continue to be made in other non-renewable resources.

In the last fiscal year, SaskPower started construction of a 350 MW natural gas-fired plant, Chinook Power Station, near Swift Current.

Marsh says that natural gas will be playing a bigger role in 2030, in order to backstop renewable energy sources.

We cannot rely on wind and solar to provide that baseload energy, he said, suggesting a full jump to renewable energy sources may be possible later in the century.

While the federal government has already put forward a plan to phase out conventional coal, there is a growing expectation more restrictions will also be put on natural gas.

Marsh says if that happens it would have an impact on us, in terms of the type of unit we might select for our next gas unit of generation.

Coal is expected to give way to natural gas over the next decade-plus, but during that transition Saskatchewans carbon emissions are expected to reach record-high levels in 2020.

While its going to peak, we have every expectation it will come down after that, said Gord Wyant, the minister responsible for SaskPower.

Marsh says rate increases can still be expected but that the Crown always looks to keep rate increases as moderate as possible.

NDP MLA Carla Beck said she is not terribly confident at all SaskPower will meet its 2030 target and was critical of the Crown increasing rates five times in two years.

It will really have an impact on Saskatchewan people, she said.

dfraser@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/dcfraser

See the article here:

SaskPower makes profit of $46 million according to annual report ... - Regina Leader-Post

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INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.-- Downtown Indy, Inc., is spearheading a campaign to convince residents and property owners in downtown Indianapolis to voluntarily tax themselves $3 million a year to pay for maintenance and services the citys core demands but the municipal budget cant afford.

The first of three public invitation-only meetings is being held at the Columbia Club this evening to introduce the Economic Improvement District (EID) concept to downtown stakeholders.

The intent of the EID is to raise money within the Mile Square of downtown for projects at the heart of the Crossroads of America to be approved by an appointed board of downtown property owners.

Its a place for most of the commerce that occurs in our regional area. Its also a place for millions of visitors to come on an annual basis, said Sherry Seiwert, President of Downtown Indy, Inc. This is the fastest growing neighborhood in all of Marion County. We also probably need to be thinking about all the amenities that need to be provided to those residents.

The Downtown EID would focus on enhanced safety and security, including addressing Indianapolis homeless and panhandling challenges in the central core of the city, improving streetscape maintenance, beautification and cleanliness, enriching the downtown-user experience and developing marketing and planning strategies.

The difference with an EID is that the revenue that is generated within that footprint is employed back into that footprint and not to the remainder of the county, said Seiwert. We think that it would raise just over $3 million annually and the determination for residents themselves, for resident owners, would be a flat fee of $100 and then for commercial property owners it would be 1/8th of one percent of their assessed value on each parcel that they own.

If 51 percent of the property owners and those representing at least 51 percent of the assessed value approve the EID during an upcoming petition drive, the proposal would still require approval by the city county council and the mayor and lead to the naming of a board that would set a budget, file an annual report and undergo a yearly audit.

Seiwert would like the EID to begin work in 2018.

The only other Marion County community to vote itself a tax increase through an EID is the Woodruff Place neighborhood of the near east side.

Residents determined several years ago that the city would not pay for the upkeep and repairs to its 19th century fountains, planters, statuary and ornamental lights.

We got the owners of 76.8 percent of our parcels to approve it so it was pretty overwhelming that people agreed we need to take responsibility financially as well as from a historic statement to take care of our infrastructure, said longtime resident Tom Abeel. I have looked at this always as making life extension investment in the infrastructure.

Abeel said each of the approximately 250 property owners are taxed $165 a year to fund a $45,000 annual budget matched by an equal amount from the city.

The big project for the fountains was we got brand new electricity all the way from the town hall to the middle and the west drive fountains. All brand new electrical. Weve also been able to rebuild the pumps and the pump motors, said Abeel. We kind of knew that at some point it was just a matter of time before another life extending investment would have to be made and the EIDs been a terrific way to do it and the best thing is everybody in the neighborhood participates in it.

Abeel said the greatest challenge to a downtown EID will be setting priorities that reflect both needs of private residents and those of large commercial property owners.

For more information on the Economic Improvement District, click here.

See original here:

Residents in downtown Indy to decide on voluntary tax for maintenance, services - Fox 59

The Trump administration wants to revitalize the coal industry, but they will not do so by imposing regulation on the natural gas industry, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry told reporters July 18 at a joint press conference with International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol.

Would the Department of Energy (DOE) be a participant in putting regulations into place to protect a particular energy sector?, Perry said. The answer is no.

Though he firmly stated that DOE will not increase regulation on energy sources that compete with coal, he was unclear about how the administration intends to make coal competitive again.

He seemed to suggest that exports, either of coal or technology, would play a large role in a revitalized coal industry. Noting that coal still accounts for roughly 40% of worldwide energy generation, Perry stated: Its not like coal has been pushed out of the marketplace, I mean you are going to see coal used in the world. Our goal is for us to use the cleanest technology that we can and generally speaking, that technology is going to come from the U.S.

Investments in Technology Will Continue

Perry also stated that the government intends to continue to invest in technology in an attempt to solve the problem of the dying coal industry. I dont think its necessarily governments role to be picking winners and losers, he said. Are we going to spend dollars on technologies to see if they work, to be gap funders, if you will, in places? I dont have a problem with that.

Interestingly, the administrations fiscal year 2018 (FY18) budget proposal requested only $280 million, for fossil energy research and development, a decrease of 44% from the fiscal year 2017 omnibus funding level.

As congressional appropriators work through the budget process, however, it seems unlikely that cut will take effect. The House FY18 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill, which funds DOE, was reported out of committee on July 12 and would fund the fossil energy program at $635 million, a decrease of $33 million below the fiscal year 2017 enacted level and $355 million above the budget request.

Addressing Loss of Nuclear Should be Priority, Birol Says

While Perry ruminated on the future of coal in the U.S., Birol was more concerned with the future of the nations energy fleet, noting that a loss of zero-emission baseload generation would have a negative effect on the nations emissions track record.

Today about 20% of the electricity in the United States comes from nuclear generation, and the challenge in my view in front of the U.S. government is that a significant amount of them, about 50GW of nuclear power plants, in the next 10 years will come to their time of life extension or not, he said. In the absence of extension of nuclear power plants lifetime, we may well see this encouraging CO2 emissions transformation [in] the United States may take a different shape.

Birol had noted that U.S. emissions have declined more than those of any other nation. The large decline mainly is the result of shale gas, renewables, the [integrated gasification combined cycle] plants, the nuclear power, they all played a critical role here, and as a result of that, the United States brought emissions down by more than 300 million tons, he said.

Abby L. Harvey is a POWER reporter.

Read the rest here:

DOE Won't Increase Regulation on Gas to Boost Coal, Perry Says - POWER magazine

By Ryan Pfeil For the Tidings

The National Weather Service radar system on Mount Ashland will be down for five days this week for system upgrades.

Technicians began installing a new signal processor on the WSR-88D radar dish today, which will improve processing speed and data quality, Weather Service officials reported.

Radar coverage will be available from adjacent radar sites in Eureka, Sacramento, Portland, Pendleton and Reno, but local coverage will be impacted.

"Thats why its good were not expecting a big outbreak of thunderstorms this week," said meteorologist Ryan Sandler. "That would have been bad news."

The work is part of a four-phase, $150 million project spanning five years, intended to extend the life of the 20-year-old dish and 121 other Next Generation Weather Radar NEXRAD facilities across the U.S. into the 2030s. The service-life extension program includes major component replacements on the dishes, including the signal processors, transmitters, pedestals and equipment shelters.

The National Weather Service, U.S. Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration all use the technology.

The Medford NEXRAD system went live in April 1996. The 28-foot dish beneath a white fiberglass globe on Mount Ashland sends out pulses of electromagnetic energy and can gather data from storm clouds that include the intensity and size of rain and hail, air circulation and wind speed.

From 1971 to 1995, the agency used WSR-57, or Weather Surveillance Radar 1957, named for the year the technology was built.

Reach reporter Ryan Pfeil at 541-776-4468 or rpfeil@mailtribune.com. Follow him at http://www.twitter.com/ryanpfeil.

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Weather radar will be down this week for upgrades - Ashland Daily Tidings

BLOOMINGTON Temperatures are expected to reach 85 degrees Monday, but the mercury will steadily rise after that, resulting in highs of around 95 degrees by Wednesday and Thursday.

There is no rain in the forecast until Friday, said forecasters with The National Weather Service in Lincoln. Tuesdays high is expected to be 90 degrees.

The heat index values will range between 100 and 107 degrees Wednesday and Thursday.

It will cool off slightly on Friday, with a high near 90 degrees.

The Doppler radar at the NWS office in Lincoln will be offline on Monday and Tuesday, and perhaps into Wednesday, said NWS.

The $150 million investment is being made by the three organizations that use the radars the NOAA National Weather Service, United States Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration. The three other service life extension projects include refurbishing the transmitter, pedestal, and equipment shelters.

A crew will install a new signal processor, which replaces obsolete technology, improves processing speed and data quality, provides added functionality, and increases IT security, said the agency.

During the outage, radar coverage is available from adjacent radar sites, including Chicago, Davenport, Iowa, St. Louis, Paducah Ky., Evansville Ind. and Indianapolis.

On this date in 1903, several tornadoes moved across northern and Central Illinois during the late afternoon and early evening. The two most significant tornadoes touched down in LaSalle County, affecting the towns of Mendota and Streator. Ten people were killed by the two storms. Five of the deaths occurred at a race track, where people were taking shelter under a grandstand when it collapsed.

Follow Kevin Barlow on Twitter: @pg_barlow

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Heat wave to hit Central Illinois - Bloomington Pantagraph

Ryan Pfeil Mail Tribune @RyanPfeil

The National Weather Service radar system on Mount Ashland will be down for five days this week for system upgrades.

Technicians began installing a new signal processor on the WSR-88D radar dish today, which will improve processing speed and data quality, Weather Service officials reported.

Radar coverage will be available from adjacent radar sites in Eureka, Sacramento, Portland, Pendleton and Reno, but local coverage will be impacted.

"Thats why its good were not expecting a big outbreak of thunderstorms this week," said meteorologist Ryan Sandler. "That would have been bad news."

The work is part of a four-phase, $150 million project spanning five years, intended to extend the life of the 20-year-old dish and 121 other Next Generation Weather Radar NEXRAD facilities across the U.S into the 2030s. The service-life extension program includes major component replacements on the dishes, including the signal processors, transmitters, pedestals and equipment shelters.

The National Weather Service, U.S. Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration all use the technology.

The Medford NEXRAD system went live in April 1996. The 28-foot dish beneath a white fiberglass globe on Mount Ashland sends out pulses of electromagnetic energy and can gather data from storm clouds that includes the intensity and size of rain and hail, air circulation and wind speed.

From 1971 to 1995, the agency used WSR-57, or Weather Surveillance Radar 1957, named for the year the technology was built.

Reach reporter Ryan Pfeil at 541-776-4468 or rpfeil@mailtribune.com. Follow him at http://www.twitter.com/ryanpfeil.

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Weather radar will be down this week for upgrades - Mail Tribune

John Reynolds Staff Writer @JohnReynoldsSJR

LINCOLN The weather radar used by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Lincoln will be down this week for the installation of technological upgrades.

The work is scheduled to begin Monday and could last three to four days. The project will be delayed if hazardous weather is on the way, but the latest forecast does not anticipate any weather problems.

Most of (the) week looks to be dry, so it looks like a good time to do this, said James Auten, a meteorologist in Lincoln.

During the outage, radar coverage will be available online from adjacent radar sites including Chicago/Romeoville; Davenport, Iowa; St. Louis; Paducah, Kentucky; and Evansville, Indiana.

The general public isnt the only group that watches the weather radar out of Lincoln.

Springfield Fire Chief Barry Helmerichs said his department gets daily emails from the weather service on the days forecast and it also goes online to check the radar when storms are predicted.

We watch the radar to see the paths of the storms that are coming toward our area, Helmerichs said.

The upgrade will include a new signal processor, which will improve processing speed and data quality, add functionality and increase IT security, Auten said.

According to the National Weather Service, this is the first of four major upgrades, known as service life extension projects, planned in the next five years to replace and refurbish major components of the radar and keep it operational into the 2030s.

Auten said similar upgrades are taking place at radar sites across the country.

The $150 million nationwide investment is being made by the three organizations that operate the radars, the NOAA National Weather Service, the U.S. Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Auten said the average person watching the radar online at the weather services website shouldnt notice any difference.

What it is, weve already added some new products and upgraded internal software. We are asking the system to do more work, but we havent upgraded some of the mechanical stuff that will allow the system to continue working for the next 15 years or so, Auten said.

Contact John Reynolds: john.reynolds@sj-r.com, 788-1524, twitter.com/JohnReynoldsSJR.

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Weather radar going off-line for upgrades - The State Journal-Register

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Billions of federal dollars are one step closer to coming to the High Plains.

This week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act, a bill on military spending.

It went through, in large part, because of efforts made by the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman Mac Thornberry.

The bill passed by a vote of 344 to 81.

The defense bill would significantly increase funding for Pantex and Bell Helicopter.

At Pantex, the bill will provide more than $10 billion in funding for nuclear weapons activities.

This is $184 million more than the administration's budget request.

All life extension programs at Pantex are fully funded and the bill includes over $5 million to begin design and construction of the Pantex material staging facility.

The bill will also help with repairs and security.

At Bell Helicopter, over $2 billion is authorized for Bell's V-22 Osprey and helicopter programs.

"It's good for the economy of our area, absolutely," said Congressman Thornberry. "It's even better for the national security of the united states because what we see is a growth of nuclear weapons, North Korea being the one that's on most of our minds these days, and so keeping our nuclear deterrent strong and credible is really important and that's what we do at Pantex."

The bill also will go towards military personnel and pay, military families, rebuilding readiness, maintenance, facilities, and missile defense.

The bill supports the full 2.4% pay raise for the military.

This is the largest pay raise in eight years.

Congressman Thornberry says there is a major emphasis on security with Pantex having the best guard force in the country.

The Senate Armed Services Committee approved its version of the annual legislation last month.

Their version has yet to be introduced on the Senate floor.

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Thornberry's Defense Bill Passes House - MyHighPlains

In 15 years Aubrey de Greys reputation among gerontologists has moved from being one of ridicule to one of the most powerful and respected in the industry. (c) Abi Hardwick

Aubrey de Grey, a British gerontologist, has drawn a roadmap to defeat biological ageing.

Aubrey de Grey, an English biomedical gerontologist, claims that humans can live for 1,000 years. Through his foundation he has drawn a roadmap to defeat biological aging.

De Grey first authored research that claimed the indefinite postponement of aging... may be within sight back in 2002. In the 15 years since, his reputation among gerontologists scientists concerned with aging has moved from being one of ridicule to one of the most powerful and respected in the industry.

In 2009, the 53-year-old scientist founded the public non-profit SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) and has enlisted millions in support from a handful of billionaires and entrepreneurs, including Peter Thiel, Jason Hope, and Michael Greve.

Here, he discusses his theories, the challenges, and why he isnt practicing life extension himself.

What have been the major advances at SENS and why havent life-extension programmes gone mainstream yet?

Over the past two years weve had a slew of breakthrough publications in journals such as Science, Nature Communications and Nucleic Acids Research that reported key advances against the most intractable components of aging. Its no exaggeration to say that in at least a couple of cases we have broken through logjams that have stalled key areas for over 15 years.

You may feel that eight years is a long time to be only making such preliminary, step-one breakthroughs, but youd be wrong step one is always the hardest, and that is why nearly all research, whether in academia or in industry, is immensely biased towards the low-hanging fruit and against the high-risk high-reward work that is so essential for long-term progress. We exist as an independent foundation for precisely that reason. But, saying that, I must also stress that we are already showing great success in taking enough steps so that our programmes become investable. The atherosclerosis one was the first of, at this point, five start-ups that have emerged from our projects covering conditions as diverse as macular degeneration, senescent cells, amyloid in the heart, and organ transplantation.

What are the key therapies that will create a 1,000-year-old human?

Its critical to understand, and yet its almost universally overlooked, that my prediction of such long lifespans for people who are already alive divides into two phases. The first phase consists of the therapies that SENS Research Foundation is working on right now, along with parallel initiatives that have achieved sufficient traction that we dont need to be their engine room anymore; most importantly, a variety of stem-cell therapies. The other ones are also one or another kind of damage repair or obviation removing waste products, rendering mutations harmless, restoring elasticity. They combine to restore the molecular, cellular structure and composition of the middle-aged (or older) body, and thereby its function (both mental and physical), to how it was as a young adult.

But thats only the first phase and I have always stressed that I dont anticipate more than about 30 years of additional life arising from it. Thats a lot when compared to anything we can do today, but its not four digits. My prediction of four digits comes from the second phase, which arises from the critical fact that phase one buys time. If youre 60 and you get a therapy that makes you biologically 30, then, yes, you will be biologically 60 again by the time youre chronologically 90. Sure enough, the therapies wont really work any more, because the damage that has made you biologically 60 again is, by definition, the more difficult damage, the damage that the therapies dont repair. But this is 30 years on, and thats an insanely long time in any technology, including medical technology. So, when youre 90 you will have access not just to the same therapies that you had 30 years ago, but to improved ones that can repair a whole bunch of the damage that the first-generation ones couldnt. So they will work. They still wont be 100 percent perfect, but they wont need to be; they will just need to be good enough to re-rejuvenate you so that you wont be biologically 60 for the third time until youre chronologically 150 or whatever. And so on.

Now, I totally acknowledge that I dont know what these second-generation and later therapies will actually comprise. But that is no excuse for denigration for taking the position that such advances definitely wont materialise in time.

What is more important in reducing aging: medical therapies, drugs or lifestyle changes?

Im all for lifestyle optimisation, but you have phrased your question as a comparison and, for sure, the answer is that lifestyle optimisation can only, ever, make a very small difference a year or two to how long we stay healthy and thereby to how long we live. Now, medicines and drugs that we have today are equally modest in their effects, and thats why people die today at ages only slightly older than their parents. But within the next couple of decades we have, I believe, a very good chance to change that scenario completely.

What are you doing personally to extend your life?

Im actually a rather poor example to follow in terms of longevity although for good reasons. In particular, I definitely dont get enough sleep, because I spend my life running around the world educating people about this mission. At the end of the day, Im not driven by the goal to fractionally increase my chance of making the anti-aging cut. What gets me out of bed in the morning is the humanitarian imperative: the knowledge that every single day by which I hasten the defeat of aging saves 100,000 lives.

If we did extend the lifespan of adults by even 100 years, would we have to implement a global one-child policy to avoid overpopulation?

This and many other concerns about the problems that we might create by solving todays aging problem have one big thing in common: they are founded upon the implicit assumption that a post-aging world would be very like todays world in every other way. To use this as an example: the only reason why we might have to curtail the birth rate if we were to reduce the death rate is if we did not simultaneously increase the planets carrying capacity. But we seem to be doing rather well in developing renewable energy, artificial meat, desalination the list goes on. So is it a plausible scenario that in decades to come the population would increase faster than the carrying capacity increases? Of course not.

Is anyone testing your therapies at the moment on humans?

Sure, but only a subset of them. Some of the easiest components of SENS are already in clinical trials, such as stem cells for Parkinsons disease. Others, including ones spun out from SENS Research Foundations research, may get there within a year or two. But some are probably 10-15 years out still. Those ones are just as critical as the easier ones, so we are working as hard as we can to accelerate them, but were devastatingly limited in that regard by shortage of funds.

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Could Human Beings Live For 1000 Years? - Billionaire.com

A new person joins the organ transplant waiting list every 10 minutes, and at least 22 people die each day waiting for a transplant, according to the federal Organdonor.gov website. One person who has had the good fortune to receive such a transplant is using his life extension to educate and encourage potential donors.

Baseball Hall of Famer Rod Carew earlier this month made his first trip back to Minnesota since a heart and kidney transplant last December. He threw out the first pitch at the July 3 Minnesota Twins-Los Angeles Angels game in recognition of his 1977 MVP season and his 1967 American League Rookie of the Year season.

He suffered a massive heart attack in September 2015 and was put on the heart transplant waiting list. A new heart was found after former pro football player Konrad Reuland died at age 28 after a brain aneurysm on December 12, 2016. Carew underwent surgery four days later on December 16.

Im moving slower, Carew told reporters at an earlier press conference at the Twins ballpark that included the MSR. Things are coming along good. Im also trying to push myself to make sure I get my work in, referring to his cardio rehabilitation sessions.

I carry him with me inside me every day so he can help me go out and save some lives, declared Carew of Reuland. I met Konrad when he was about 11 years old at a basketball game. What goes around comes back I havent seen that kid for a long time. He passed away so I can live.

According to Organdonor.gov, Blacks have higher rates of diabetes and high blood pressure than Whites, which increase the risk of organ failure: 25 percent of Blacks on organ waiting lists need a new heart, and 34 percent are waiting for a new kidney.

Asked for his advice to our primarily Black audience about the importance of organ donations, Carew pointed out that too many Blacks dont understand organ donations. Thats a very important statement, because when Michelle [his late daughter who died in 1996 of leukemia at age 18] was in the hospital and she was trying to find a [bone marrow] match to keep her living, the toughest times I felt I went through were when I went into the African American community or the Hispanic community to talk to people about donating.

To them it was a myth Something is going to be taken away from them. The government would take it away and never give it back.

You give [bone] marrow, then in two weeks it grows back, continued Carew. Some believe that the procedure will leave the donor in a lot of pain for a long time. I got into a lot of arguments with African Americans and friends about it.

Since the surgery, Carew and his wife Rhonda have been out and about for more support for organ donations. With the support of the Twins, they started the Heart of 29 campaign in conjunction with the American Heart Association.

Now I am going outto give someone the chance to live. Give someone the chance to go on living and doing the things they love to do. And [the] understanding that the greatest gift you can give is to live, said Carew.

Its been a blessing. I hope that the African American and Hispanic communities understand that what they are doing is helping someone else. It is very important.

Individuals can either sign up online (www.organdonor.gov) or in person at a local motor vehicles department. The site estimates that 119,000 men, women and children are on the national organ transplant waiting list.

August 1-7 is National Minority Donor Awareness Week to educate and encourage more people to register as donors as well as take better care of their health.

We have to understand that weve got to take care of our own body, Carew told the MSR after the press conference. We have to forget about the excuses and realize that God will lead us in the right direction.

The Hall of Famer says he is doing all he can do with his new lease on life: [God] wants me to do this. He wants me to go out and share with peoplehoping that they will listen and understand and do the right thing.

Charles Hallman welcomes reader responses to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.

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Rod Carew counts his blessings with new heart, kidney - MSR News Online

Editor's Note:This piece was written by Michael Provenzano, CEO and founder of VistarMedia, a geospatial technology company.The opinions represented in this piece are independent of Smart Cities Dive's views.

In many ways, we live in Googles world. The companys parent, Alphabet Inc., reported more than $90 billion in 2016 revenue, up 20% from 2015. Most of that almost unimaginable pile of cash a whopping$79.4 billion came from its advertising business.But theres a catch: though the number of ads Google sells is spiking, the amount of money it earns per ad, or cost per click, has been declining for years. Connected cities could change that and bolster the companys bottom line as well as its breakthrough initiatives.

The companyblames the decrease of its advertising businessonthe rapid expansion of YouTube advertising, which is cheaper since results are less customized and not tied to user searches. Prices also decline as competition heats up with Facebooks mobile display ads.

If Google counters this decline in price with increase in ad sales, its fine. But if the volume begins to stagnate, both Google and Alphabet are in real trouble, and will need to turn to additional sources of revenue. That's because the search giants geyser of advertising dollars directly subsidizes Alphabetsso-called moonshots: self-driving cars, virtual reality and life extension projects that may revolutionize society someday but are losing a lot of money currently. Googles founders have been clear that they expect many moonshots to fail. Indeed, one of the projects, its ambitious super-fast fiber optic internet network,has already been curbed.

So if Alphabet wants to be the dominant driver of 22ndcentury life and fuel breakthroughs in a vast array of industries fromartificial intelligencetomedicine,it needs to accept large costs as it nurtures more risky experiments.

To make sure those moonshots have the runway they need to grow and Alphabets overall strategy can succeed, Google must continue to innovate its advertising business. And as cheap prices, ad blocking software and savvy consumers drive its online ad business down, they must look out the window to the outside, physical world where its impossible for us to ignore messages, and where traditional media is rapidly evolving thanks to new technology and connected devices.

Alphabet, in other words, needs to double down on its urban innovation business,Sidewalk Labs.

Out-of-home ads are richly tied to consumer location and intention, and are of an advertising sector that is set to explode: As connected cities grow and internet access in public spaces becomes the norm, digital out-of-home advertising willdrive overall OOH revenue to a projected $42.7 billionby 2020, according to a recent PwC report.

Google executives know this, which is why theyve signed on to one of the most exciting connected city initiatives in the country. Last year, Sidewalk Labs, an urban innovation organization that works with cities to build products addressing urban problems, got involved with LinkNYC to offer free public Wi-Fi across the city.LinkNYC is spearheaded by the City of New York and CityBridge, of which Sidewalk Labs is involved through its investment at Intersection.

Some7,500 kiosksare now in the process of being built to replace old payphones and will deliver the high-speed access that modern consumers now consider a birthright, while also displaying 55-inch ads to pedestrians. The set-up is a win-win-win: attractive for pedestrians, highly targeted for advertisers, lucrative for Alphabet.

As President Donald Trumps administration begins to funnela planned $1 trillion-plusinto infrastructure improvements, programs like LinkNYC will likely become de rigueur across big cities and small towns alike. Connected cities are moving mainstream, and the upshot extends far beyond traditional advertising models.

"Indeed, connected cities can become self-funded hubs of ambitious innovation."

Michael Provenzano

CEO, Vistar Media

As any business person worth their salt will say, steady investment and buoyant revenues can breed the best innovations. Indeed, connected cities can become self-funded hubs of ambitious innovation. Alphabets already making advancements with itsballoon-based internet projectand has hinted at everything from super fast Wi-Fi toautonomous driving vehiclesthat will soon be embedded into Sidewalk Labs. Around the globe, ahead-of-the-curve cities are already embracingfuturistic features, including everything from large-scale, real-time energy and water monitoring to traffic-management algorithms and taxis outfitted with GPS-based touch payments.

Connected cities will require a massive tech upgrade to support the quantity of data streaming from every autonomous train, power line, water tank, taxicab and light pole. But research shows that the benefits in energy use, public safety and quality of life willfar outweighthose upfront investments.

To help fund that future, revenue from out-of-home advertising can provide the seed capital needed to subsidize the initial cost of building the connected cities infrastructure.

Location-based data will allow advertisers to reach their audiences better than ever, which means the value of each ad will increase. That means Alphabet will be able to say goodbye to declining costs per click and hello to a future in which brilliant innovation is funded by smart advertising that gives people what they want, when and where they want it.

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Why Google needs to focus on connected cities for its Alphabet strategy to pay off - Smart Cities Dive

At 11am on a Sunday morning, I slip into a row of seats in front of a podium with flower bouquets on each side. I'm here to listen to an aging white man talk about the afterlife. A woman in a fancy hat arranges a potluck lunch on a back table. Other attendees, mostly gray-haired, pass around a wicker basket and toss in $20 bills and personal checks.

We aren't in church. This is godless Silicon Valley.

The Humanist Society has welcomed Ralph Merkle, a Livermore native, to explain cryonicsthe process of freezing a recently dead body in "liquid goo," like Austin Powersto the weekly Sunday Forum. We all want to know about being re-awoken, or reborn, in the future.

Merkle, who has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford and invented what's called "public key cryptology" in the '70s, makes his pitch to the audience: hand over $80,000, plus yearly dues, to Alcor, and the Scottsdale, Arizonabased company will freeze your brain, encased in its skull, so that you and your memories can wait out the years until medical nanotechnology is advanced enough to both bring you back from a frozen state as well as fix the ills that brought on your death in the first place.

"You get to make a decision if you want to join the experimental group or the control group," Merkle says. "The outcome for the control group is known."

Alcor gained infamy in 2002, when the body of baseball legend Ted Williams was flown to the company's Arizona headquarters, where his head was then severed, frozen and, according to some reports, mistreated.

The Humanist Society is an ideal audience for Merkle's presentation, as its congregants aren't held back by the tricky business of believing in a soul. Debbie Allen, the perfectly coiffed executive director and secretary of the national board of the American Humanist Association, considers cryonics a practical tool. "Religion has directed the conversation for thousands of years," she says. Allen prefers to focus on ethics, and whether cryonics "advances the well-being of the individual or the community."

"Science-fiction," someone whispers behind me, as Merkle talks about nanorobots of the future. He also notes how respirocytes and microbivores can be "programmed to run around inside a cell and do medically useful things like make you healthy."

As one might expect in a room full of humanists, skepticism runs high during the Q&A portion of the meeting. People are wondering exactly what kind of animals the scientists have used to test the cryonics process (answer: nematodes); when Alcor freezes bodies (after one's heart stops, if a DNR, or do not resuscitate, order is requested); whether a frozen brain is any good if the rest of the body deteriorates ("Toss it," Merkle says. "Replacement of everything will be feasible."); and what happens if Alcor goes bankrupt.

"We take that very seriously," the doctor says.

Lunch is served.

"Why would he want to preserve somebody like Adolf Trump?" asks Bob Wallace, 93, who ate salad and cubed cheese with his partner, Marge Ottenberg, 91, whom he met at a Humanist Society event.

"Obviously, the worst possible people are most likely to want to live forever," says Arthur Jackson, 86, a retired junior high school teacher.

Ottenberg seems more open to the idea of coming back from the dead than her golden-year counterparts. "Whatever works," she says.

Silicon Valley is the sort of place where people dream about nanorobots fixing our medical disorders. It's the sort of place where hundreds of millions of dollars are spent chasing that dream.

The last five years have seen an investment boom in what's called "life extension" research. Some of it is straight-up science, such as the Stanford lab researching blood transfusions in mice to cure Alzheimer's. Scientists are in a race against time to help as many people as possible, as fast as possible. They're battling a disease that saw an 89 percent increase in diagnoses between 2000 and 2014; and Alzheimer's or other dementia is currently the sixth leading cause of death. There are also nontraditional sources of cash flowing into biotech, which was once considered a risky investment.

But death itself is the biggest social ill Silicon Valley is trying to solve.

We can build apps to keep track of diabetics' blood glucose levels, to measure how soundly we're sleeping and to access medical records in an instant, but none of this stops the body from wearing out. Alongside the scientists laying the medical foundation to get us to the nanorobots envisioned by Merkle, techie utopians are looking at other ways to cheat death. A cluster of tech companies are attracting far more funding from Silicon Valley than academia, shifting the research landscape with infusions of cash.

Bryan Johnson, an entrepreneur who sold his online payment company to PayPal for $800 million, was the first investor in Craig Venter's Human Longevity Inc., which aims to create a database of a million human genome sequences, including people who are over 100 years old, by 2020. Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who once said "Death makes me very angry" and is one of the oldest of the life-extension investors at 72, has also invested in Human Longevity. Johnson infused even more cash into the biotech field, investing another $100 million of his own money into the OS Fund in 2014, to "support inventors and scientists who aim to benefit humanity by rewriting the operating systems of life."

Such projects are examples of Silicon Valley's extreme confidence in its own ability to improve the world. In an email, Johnson describes his work in grandly optimistic terms.

"Humanity's greatest masterpieces have happened when anchored in hope and aspiration, not drowning in fear," he says.

It takes some serious chutzpah to say you'll extend the human lifespan, and for Johnson, he and his colleagues are venturing where no one has gone before.

"Building good technology is an act of exploration, and that it is very difficult for us to imagine the good that might come from any new technology," Johnson says. "We proceed, as explorers, nonetheless."

Johnson's lofty goals are similar in scale to other giant anti-aging investments in Silicon Valley. In 2013, Google created an anti-aging lab called Calico (for "California Life Company"), hiring top scientist Cynthia Kenyon, known for altering DNA in worms to make them live twice as long as they usually do. Calico is not your local university research lab; it has $1.5 billion in the bank and has remained close-lipped about its progress, like a Manhattan Project for life extension.

For Google co-founder Sergey Brin, 43, Calico may be another way to attack a more personal health concern: Brin carries a gene that increases his likelihood of contracting Parkinson's disease and has already invested $50 million in genetic Parkinson's research, conducted by his ex-wife's company, 23andMe. Brin said in 2009 that he hoped medicine could "catch up" to cure Parkinson's before he's old enough to develop it.

That hope is a common thread among health-obsessed tech investors like PayPal founder Peter Thiel, 49. A libertarian and Trump adviser, Thiel is trying to avoid both death and taxes. His foundation hired a medical director, Jason Camm, whose professional goals include increasing his clients' "prospects for Optimal Health and significant Lifespan Extension." Like Brin, who swims and drinks green tea to prevent Parkinson's, Thiel has changed his daily habits to live longer. He's aiming for 120, so he avoids refined sugar, follows the Paleo diet, drinks red wine and takes human growth hormone, which he believes will keep bones strong and prevent arthritis.

Thiel has also expressed personal interest in a company called Ambrosia in Monterey, where Dr. Jesse Karmazin is conducting medical trials for a procedure called parabiosis, which gives older people blood plasma transfusions from people between 16 and 25. Karmazin has enrolled more than 70 participants so far, each of whom pays $8,000 for the treatment. Much has been made of Thiel harvesting and receiving injections of young people's blood, though Karmazin recently denied that Thiel was a client of his.

Karmazin doesn't call himself a utopian, but he does note that his work requires some faith. "There's always uncertainty about whether it's going to stand the test of time, whether it'll work at all," he says. "That's especially true in technology, and you have to believe in it."

At the same time, the dystopians of Silicon Valley are preparing for the apocalypse. Reid Hoffman, CEO of LinkedIn, told the New Yorker that he guesses up to 50 percent of tech executives have property in New Zealand, the hot new hub for the end of the world. Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit, bought multiple motorcycles so he can weave through highway traffic if there's a natural disaster and he needs to escape. He also got laser eye surgery so he wouldn't have to rely on glasses or contacts in a survival scenario.

Among the dystopians is Elon Musk, whose brand-new Neuralink company is investigating what Musk calls "neural lace," a digital layer on top of the brain's cortex that connects us to computers. Such inventions could eventually lead us to what Google director of engineering Ray Kurzweil calls "technological singularity," or the time when ever more powerful artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence, around 2045.

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Eternity 2.0 - North Bay Bohemian

It is fulfilling for Bridgett Martin to be able to help educate individuals on ways to improve their way of life.

Martin joined the Polk County Extension Office as the new Cooperative Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Science and 4H April 3.

"All and all it seems like it has been a really good fit so far," Martin said. "Basically we are responsible for empowering individuals to improve their way of life.

"Whether it be through parenting classes, child care provider training, nutrition education or family resource management," Martin continued. "We cover a whole great variety of fields."

Martin is married to Mena Police Chief Brandon Martin and together they have seven children. She graduated from Mena High School in 1991.

Martin graduated from Henderson State University with a bachelor's degree in Home Economics. She earned her master's degree in Agriculture and Extension Education from the University of Arkansas in 2005.

Martin worked in the Mena Extension Office shortly after she graduated from Henderson State in 1995 as a Water Quality Agent. Martin then worked in the Scott County Extension Office as a Family and Consumer Science Agent until 1999.

She returned to that same position in 2015 and continued in that role until the opening in Mena became available. Martin worked at Rich Mountain Community College and the Health Department during her hiatus from the extension office.

"Since I was already working in Scott County it just spilled over and made it easier to work in Polk County," Martin said. "I've lived in Polk County the entire time and my children are in school here. I have always stayed connected. I worked this county for a long time."

Martin said her time is divided 70 percent to Family and Consumer Science and 30 percent to 4H.

"We have some very successful programs," Martin said. "We've done a lot of things with Louise Durham Elementary School and we've had some good programs at the library increasing awareness in reading and nutrition education."

She added that they are going to be having more programs coming up including a Diabetes Awareness Event in September.

"The role that we play is informal in nature in that you're not necessarily in a classroom setting," Martin said. "Most of our programs are based with some hands-on training, so that we are able to teach people while they are actually learning it hands-on."

Continue reading here:

Extension Office welcomes new employee onboard - The Mena Star

In a new special issue of Health Affairs focused on health care around the end of life, we see that health care costs rise as patients approach death and/or after they are diagnosed with a life-limiting disease. This relationship holds across many diseases, ages, and types of health care systems and countries. Whether describing the cost-savings associated with palliative and hospice care, training primary care physicians to have conversations about prognosis and care planning, or the need to better understand patients preferences for treatment or comfort, most the papers in the issue take an optimistic stance regarding the impact of informed patient choice and transparency. That is, if only the barriers to real communication could be brought down or the proper incentives established, inappropriate care at the end of life would decline dramatically. As Ill explain, while some optimism may be warranted, there are many forces pulling in the opposite direction.

What all these strategies for better end-of-life conversations have in common is the assumption that if people talked realistically about their prospects and preferences, or if physicians could take the time necessary to explain things clearly, patients and families would come to accept their prognosis and not seek costly treatments; they would avoid intensive care units (ICUs) and accept palliative and hospice care earlier in the end-of-life process. There are significant barriers, however, to shared decision making in the face of unfamiliarity and ambiguity. Simply understanding prognostic predictions requires sophisticated numeracy, which most of us dont possess. Physicians approach to practice and communication style are other important variables that go into the mix.

Over the last few decades, improving advance care planning has been the mechanism widely promoted to ensure that patients receive the type of end-of-life care they want. Whole communities have been the targets of The Conversation Project, a program that encourages families to establish an actionable plan for end-of-life care. Since physicians are so often in the position of explaining to their patients what a diagnosis means and what treatment options are available, numerous programs have been directed at improving their communication skills on these delicate topics, all with the goal of reducing the rate of inappropriate end-of-life care. Increased access to palliative care, concurrent with disease modifying treatment, has also been advocated to allow for patients gradual transition from costly, aggressive treatments with limited chances of arresting disease progression.

However, it is likely that all physicians have had more than one patient caught in a paradox of understanding their prognosis while not being able to internalize its meaning for their own lives. They continue to live with some degree of denial and make choices as if each new sign of worsening disease is a minor setback or side effect from which they will recover. While this is probably more prevalent among younger patients, families of older patients sometimes play the role of denier by proxy continuing to press for treatment long after health care professionals (and at times the patient) think warranted.

Since stated advance care preferences are acknowledged to be unstable over the course of an illness, physicians are likely to be wary of making assumptions about what patients want as they approach end-of-life health care decisions. Many physicians will remember a surprise remission or recovery and may be loath to propose options that preclude that same opportunity to another patient lest they feel responsible for a terminal phase that could have been delayed. Any indication of patients ambivalence might lead physicians to offer treatments that might not be offered were there no ambiguity. Physicians fears of foreclosing options may be as great as those of patients and families, so all conspire to do what the other wants.

This natural ambivalence is amplified by very real changes in the effectiveness of treatments for even advanced disease. Even though small and incremental, there are enough examples to shift the tone of the discussion, engendering doubt about patients resolution to forego further treatment. Personalized medicine, with molecular or genetic targeting, has achieved some tantalizing successes, raising hopes of patients and physicians alike while complicating discussions about palliative and hospice care.

Perhaps in consideration of this discussion, we should be more tolerant of the slow progress advance care planning has made and the difficulty of getting physicians to have in-depth and definitive conversations about care preferences. It may not just be the inadequacy of the financial incentives or the poor training physicians receive in holding such conversations. Nor is it necessarily the fractionated process of referring patients from one part of the health care system to the other that keeps patients from hospice. Ambivalence, hope, and denial may all serve to alter our willingness to make definitive decisions to stop treatment and to embrace palliative care. This combination can undermine patients, families and physicians decisions to pursue palliation and comfort care. This makes it so much easier to fall into the inertia of ongoing treatment, hospitalization, and even ICU admission, particularly in light of the growing availability of such services.

If this is the case, our calculus about cost savings from advance care planning, physician training, and palliative care may not be as large as research suggests. Patients, families, and physicians volunteering to participate in research studies may not be representative of the entire population approaching end-of-life decision making. While research clearly points to a way to reducing inappropriate care at the end of life, in the US, at least, these initiatives are unlikely to put a halt to the relentless rise of disease-oriented treatment at the end of life in the foreseeable future. Financial incentives in our health care system conspire with the legitimate reluctance of patients, families, and physicians to give up hope for life extension.

On the other hand, there is reason to be somewhat optimistic since the changes discussed in this special issue of Health Affairs are prone to make a difference. However, the scope of the difference is likely to leave plenty of room for further interventions, although what types these will be remains to be seen.

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End-Of-Life Policy Solutions: A Cautionary Note - Health Affairs - Health Affairs (blog)

By Erin Brodwin

To Sergio Canavero, Frankenstein is scientific inspiration.

The Italian neurosurgeon told Business Insider that Mary Shelleys classic novel convinced him that he could complete the worlds first full-body transplant. Canavero claims hell complete the procedure on a human next fall in China.

Not only did the book reveal a missing piece in his plan to swap the heads of two humans, Canavero said, it also provided the justification for the dangerous procedure.

Just as the fictional Doctor Victor Frankenstein discovered how to give life to inanimate matter, Canavero aims to cheat death. The surgeon envisions a future in which healthy people could opt for full-body transplants as a way to live longer, eventually even putting their heads on clone bodies.

Im into life extension, he told Business Insider on a recent Skype call. Life extension and breaching the wall between life and death.

In fact, Canavero said that in doing the procedure he wants to create a near death experience actually a full death experience and see what comes next.

As Canavero explained it, the full-body transplant will involve going into the spinal cord of someone with a spinal injury and cutting out the injured segments of the cord. The donors cord would be cut to perfectly replace the missing portion in the injured person, and then the two healthy stumps would be fused together. Canavero plans to attach the cords using polyethylene glycol (PEG), a common laboratory tool used to encourage cells to fuse. Canavero simply refers to it as glue.

He said he will soon complete this transplant procedure with two humans a Chinese national who remains anonymous and a brain-dead organ donor. The head of the former will be attached to the body of the latter.

The full procedure is called HEAVEN, short for head anastomosis venture.

Canavero said that hed been studying the concept of this full-body transplant for more than a decade before he picked up Shelleys book. After reading it, he said he realised his planned procedure lacked a critical component: electricity.

The surgeon has not elaborated on the role electricity will play in the operation, however James FitzGerald, a consulting neurosurgeon at the University of Oxford, told Business Insider that PEG is can be paired with large pulses of electricity to coax fibers into merging. Still, FitzGerald maintains that Canaveros plans to use it to fuse two spinal cords are unrealistic.

Its just too much of a jump, FitzGerald said.

Canavero doesnt think so.

Electricity has the power to speed up regrowth, he said. Bing bang bong you have the solution to spinal cord fusion.

Canavero isnt pursuing this unprecedented medical feat to cure people with life-threatening injuries, despite the fact that spinal cord injuries affect 12,000 Americans every year. Instead, he wants the operation to serve as a way to explore his own ideas about life, death, and human consciousness (though he says it would be a waste not to help injured patients as well).

Im not religious but I dont believe consciousness can be created in the brain. The brain is a filter, he said, adding that the word anastomosis combines the Greek roots ana, meaning to place upon, and stoma, or mouth.

Like a kiss, he said.

Canaveros evidence that the procedure will work rests on a handful of animal experiments that many experts say were nowhere near satisfactory.

In the first of these experiments, Canavero claimed to have severed then reconnected the spinal cord of a dog. Less than a year later, he published a paper detailing how he created a series of two-headed rodents. In June 2017, the surgeon said he severed the spinal cords of a group of mice and then reattached them using polyethylene glycol.

Canavero says these trials are proof that he and his team figured out whats often considered the holy grail of spinal cord research: fusion.

We have so much data that confirms this in mice, rats, and soon you will see the dogs, he said.

However, many experts dont buy his claims, citing a lack of evidence. And its important to keep in mind that the fate of the Chinese man who will be involved in the first procedure hangs in the balance.

I simply dont think the reports of joining spinal cords together are credible, James FitzGerald, a consulting neurosurgeon at the University of Oxford, told Business Insider.

Robert Brownstone, a professor of neurosurgery and the Brain Research Trust Chair of Neurosurgery at the University College London, agreed.

Many great scientific ideas are born out of crazy ideas that turned out to be right so we cant completely turn a blind eye to this, but there has to be some mechanistic aspect to it, which Im not seeing, Brownstone said.

Others, including University of Cambridge neurosurgery professor John Pickard, suggested the journal in which Canaveros studies were published was also a red flag.

I just dont think hes done the science, Pickard said.

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A surgeon aiming to do the first human head transplant says 'Frankenstein' predicted a crucial part of the surgery - South China Morning Post