Category Archives: Life Extension

It's no secret at all that South Londoners feel huge parts of London south of the river are not particularly well served by the London Underground.

There are big big gaps in the coverage which mean in many areas, Londoners have to still rely on cramming onto buses or hiring an Uber to get around and there are very limited connections between north and south.

The results is that the Tube stations that do exist in key areas tend to get absolutely packed.

READ MORE: The lonely Trombone player who serenaded his dream girl on a stuck Tube train

Speaking to MyLondon, South London commuter Dan Shepherd, said: "It's just ridiculous.

"Down here people have to go by bus which means more traffic on the roads and the overland stations are closed late at night.

"If I want to go from Streatham to say Wandsworth it's very complicated.

"North of the river you have the choice to get on just about any line you like but people down here can't do that.

"Brixton Underground station is always packed because everyone goes there.

"If I want to go to Croydon I basically have to drive."

Yet many of these problems could - and arguably should - have been solved years ago.

Back in the 1980s London Underground carried out studies into four proposals that would have seen Northern Line trains currently terminating at Kennington continuing on southwards to new destinations.

Two of these - a route to Streatham and one to to Peckham Rye were seriously looked at.

The plans for the Streatham route would have followed the A23, running deep down to pass beneath sewers and the Victoria Line at Brixton.

It would have meant new stations at Brixton Hill, Streatham Hill and Streatham but some of these could have been developed inside overground stations that already existed.

The Peckham Rye route would have followed the A202 Camberwell New Road, to Camberwell Green, then on to Peckham Rye.

But the routes never happened leaving many Londoners bemoaning the lack of a decent connection between North and South London.

In 2009, when the Mayor of London was asked a question about the possible extension to Streatham, he made it clear this idea had been put to bed.

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But he did suggest another alternative could be looked at.

He said: "London Underground is not currently considering any proposals to extend the Tube system to Streatham.

"LU has undertaken preliminary work in the past to look at the feasibility of southern extensions to the network, including identifying some route options and looking at their technical development.

"Of these, extending the Bakerloo line south from Elephant & Castle emerged as the option with the most potential.

"A Bakerloo southern extension would allow the line to serve inner and outer southeast London, creating a new southeast to northwest strategic route through the Capital, serving areas with poor transport accessibility and freeing up National Rail capacity at London Bridge for other service improvements."

This Bakerloo Line extension is now some way closer to reality.

Consultations in 2019 cake back with an overwhelmingly positive response to it.

The plan is to:

But the coronavirus pandemic hit TfL hard causing many projects to be put on hold and The Bakerloo line extension will now not see the light of day until at least the 2030s.

Transport for London (TfL) has said recently it "remains committed to delivering the Bakerloo line extension", but it is dependent on a "viable funding package being put together" by the Government".

A similar fate befell the Crossrail 2 project which could have solved some of South London's problems by connecting Wimbledon, Clapham, Balham and possibly Tooting Broadway with Euston and Epsom, Chessington and Shepperton in the south and as far as Broxbourne in Hertfordshire in the north.

But although detailed plans have been drawn up, this again has been put on hold due to funding constraints.

Instead what we have seen recently is the Northern Line extension to Nine Elms and Battersea.

An expensive project which not all Londoners are convinced is helping the parts of London most in need.

Which new underground routes would you like to see developed? Email martin.elvery@reachplc.com

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The abandoned London Underground routes that would have made life much more rosy for South London commuters - My London

image:The Mouse Brain Atlas is a multi-year, multi-institutional effort to parse the genomics underlying form and function of the mouse brain, which serves as a model for related human research. Photo credit: Allen Brain Institute view more

Credit: Allen Brain Institute

The circuits of the human brain contain more than 100 billion neurons, each linked to many other neurons via thousands of synaptic connections, resulting in a three-pound organ that is profoundly more complex than the sum of its innumerable parts.

In recent years, however, transformative advances in imaging, sequencing and computational technologies have opened the possibility of mapping a human brain truly at the resolution of its molecular and cellular components. While that ultimate goal remains to be achieved, researchers have steadily progressed with a smaller, but no less momentous, effort: an atlas of the mouse brain.

In a special issue of Nature, publishing online October 7, 2021, researchers at the University of California San Diego, with colleagues across the country, describe their progress in collection of papers. Two of the papers, in which UC San Diego scientists served as senior authors, further refine the organization of cells within key regions of the mouse brain and, more critically, the organization of transcriptomic, epigenomic and regulatory factors and elements that provide these brain cells with function and purpose.

To truly understand how the brain functions, and from that knowledge develop new drugs and therapies to improve human lives and health, we need to see and quantify brain structure, organization and function down to the level of single cells, said Bing Ren, PhD, director of the Center for Epigenomics, professor of cellular and molecular medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine and member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at UC San Diego.

Depth and specificity are essential, agreed Eran A. Mukamel, PhD, director of the Computational Neural DNA Dynamics Lab and associate professor in the Department of Cognitive Science at UC San Diego. We want a comprehensive parts list for the brain, including not just the locations and connections of the neurons, but also the molecular and epigenetic fingerprints that give them their specialized identity.

Gene regulatory elements

Since 2006, there has been a concerted, international effort to create a three-dimensional atlas of the mouse brain, which is roughly the size of a pea and comprised of approximately eight to 14 million neurons and glial cells. Though the mouse brain is not a miniature version of the human brain, it has proven to be a powerful model for studying many human brain functions, diseases and mental disorders, in part because the genes responsible for building and operating both human and rodent organs are 90 percent identical.

In their paper, senior author Ren, colleagues and collaborators at the Center for Epigenomics focused on creating an atlas of gene regulatory elements in the mouse cerebrum, the evolutionarily youngest region of the brain that supports high-level sensory perception, motor control and cognitive functions.

Recent surveys of mouse and human brains have revealed that the cerebrum contains hundreds of neural cell types distributed in different regions, but the transcriptional regulatory programs the directions responsible for each cells unique pattern of gene expression, and hence its identity and function remain unknown.

Rens team probed accessible chromatin the stuff of chromosomes in more than 800,000 individual cell nuclei from 45 locations in the adult mouse brain, then used the data to map the state of 491,818 candidate cis-regulatory DNA elements in 160 distinct cell types. Cis-regulatory elements are regions of non-coding DNA that regulate transcription (copying a segment of DNA into RNA) of neighboring genes.

They found that different types of neurons are located in distinct areas of the mouse brain, and the specificity of their spatial distribution and function is correlated, and likely driven, by the unique set of cis-regulatory DNA elements within each cell type. Indeed, some of the cell-type-specific elements identified by Rens team were independently shown to be sufficient to drive reporter gene expression in specific sub-classes of neurons in the mouse brain.

Surprisingly, most of the mouse brain cis-regulatory elements mapped by the researchers have homologous or similar sequences in the human genome that may act as regulatory elements, and therefore could be used to annotate gene regulatory elements involved in human brain cell type specification.

Ren said the findings provide a foundation for comprehensive analysis of gene regulatory programs of the mammalian brain, including humans, and can assist in interpreting noncoding risk variants that contribute to various neurological diseases and traits in humans.

Transcriptomic and epigenomic elements

Each cell or population of cells produces a unique pattern of RNA transcripts strands of RNA transcribed from DNA that convey genetic instructions for the proteins that direct and sustain life. Its estimated that millions of chemical reactions occur within mammalian cells every second. That complexity, combined with growing datasets describing the functions of genes, fats, proteins, sugars and other players in cell biology, have complicated efforts to understand how the brain is organized and functions.

Mukamel and colleagues brought together advanced sequencing techniques to focus on the mouse primary motor cortex, a brain region fundamental to movement. They generated more than 500,000 transcriptomes and epigenomes comprehensive listings of all of the RNA molecules and modifications of DNA that make each mouse brain cell unique.

Using novel computational and statistical models, they created a multimodal atlas of 56 neuronal cell types in the mouse primary motor cortex that comprehensively describes their molecular, genomic and anatomic features.

Mukamel said the study showed that each brain cell has a coordinated pattern of gene expression and epigenetic regulation that can be recognized with high fidelity using different sequencing techniques. Just as an individual has characteristic handwriting, facial features, vocal patterns and personality traits, the authors found that the RNA and DNA signatures of cell types in the motor cortex differentiate each cell from its neighbors.

And just as our human individuality contributes to the strength and diversity of our communities, said Mukamel, the unique patterns of gene expression and regulation in brain circuits support a highly diverse network of cells with specialized roles and interdependent functions.

By combining both epigenomic and transcriptomic data from an unprecedented number of cells, Mukamel said the study demonstrates the potential of single-cell sequencing technologies to comprehensively map brain cell types a lesson that will help in understanding the more complex circuits of the human brain.

An atlas of gene regulatory elements in adult mouse cerebrumCo-authors include: Yang E. Li, Sebastian Preissl, Xiaomeng Hou, Ziyang Zhang, Kai Zhang, Yunjiang Qiu, Olivier Poirion, Bin Li, Joshua Chiou, Naoki Kubo, Rongxin Fang, Xinxin Wang, Jee Yun Han, Yiming Yan, Michael Miller, Samantha Kuan, David Gorkin, Kyle J. Gaulton and Eran A. Mukamel, all at UC San Diego; Hanqing Liu, Jacinta Lucero, Antonio Pinto-Duarte, Michael Nunn and M. Margarita Behrens, Salk Institute; Xiaoyu Yang and Yin Shen, UCSF; and Joseph R. Ecker, Salk and Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

A transcriptomic and epigenomic cell atlas of the mouse primary motor cortexCo-authors include: Zizhen Yao, Darren Bertagnolli, Tamara Casper, Kirsten Crichton, Nick Dee, Olivia Fong, Jeff Goldy, Mike Hawrylycz, Matthew Kroll, Kanan Lathia, Delissa McMillen, Thuc Nghi Nguyen, Thanh Pham, Christine Rimorin, Kimberly Smith, Josef Sulc, Michael Tieu, Amy Torkelson, Herman Tung, Bosiljka Tasic , Hongkui Zeng and Cindy van Velthoven, all at Allen Institute for Brain Science; Hanqing Liu, Andrew I. Aldridge, Anna Bartlett, Chongyuan Luo, Joseph R. Nery, Sheng-Yong Niu, M. Margarita Behrens, Jacinta D. Lucero, Julia K. Osteen, Antonio Pinto-Duarte, and Joseph R. Ecker, all at Salk Institute; Fangming Xie, Wayne I. Doyle, Rongxin Fang, Xiaomeng Hou, Olivier Poirion, Sebastian Preissl, Xinxin Wang and Bing Ren, all at UC San Diego; Seth A. Ament, Jonathan Crabtree, Heather Creasy, Michelle Giglio, Victor Felix, Brian R. Herb, Ronna Hertzano, Anup Mahurkar, Joshua Orvis, Hctor Corrada Bravo, Jayaram Kancherla, Owen R. White, all at University of Maryland; Koen Van den Berge, Sandrine Dudoit, Elizabeth Purdom, Hector Roux de Bzieux and John Ngai, all at UC Berkeley; Tommaso Biancalani, Elizabeth L. Dougherty, Naeem M. Nadaf, Eeshit Dhaval Vaishnav, Aviv Regev, Charles R. Vanderburg and Evan Z. Macosko, all at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Yang Eric Li, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research; Sina Booeshaghi, Valentine Svensson and Lior Pachter, all at California Institute of Technology; Carlo Colantuoni, Johns Hopkins University; ; Qiwen Hu and Peter V. Kharchenko, Harvard Medical School; Vasilis Ntranos, UCSF; Davide Risso, University of Padova; Angeline C. Rivkin, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Kelly Street, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Z. Josh Huang, Stephan Fischer, Jesse Gillis, Megan Crow, Cold Spring Harbor; Joshua D. Welch, University of Michigan.

# # #

7-Oct-2021

Ren is a co-founder and consultant of Arima Genomics Inc. and co-founder of Epigenome Technologies. Gaulton is a consultant of Genentech and shareholder in Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Ecker is on the scientific advisory board of Zymo Research, Inc. Kharchenko serves on the scientific advisory board to Celsius Therapeutics, Inc. Regev is an equity holder and founder of Celsius Therapeutics, an equity holder in Immunitas, and a scientific advisory board member to Syros Pharmaceuticals, Neogene Therapeutics, Asimov and Thermo Fisher Scientific.

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Mapping the mouse brain, and by extension, the human brain too - EurekAlert

Truman saw in a womans projection of beauty an assertion of a life force, a mystical, magical thing that transformed all who touched it. He liked to be near such women, and he collected his swans the way others did Faberg eggs.

In those two sentences, author Laurence Leamer does much to explain what drew Truman Capote to a coterie of ultra-privileged women known for their beauty and their trend-setting sense of fashion. They dont explain what drew the swans to him, nor do they explain the sheer clumsiness of his eventual betrayal, which cost him the friendships he had so carefully cultivated while gaining him nothing. He might as well have been a spoiled princeling smashing jeweled eggs to bits on the floor in a tantrum.

In Capotes Women, due for release Oct. 12, Leamer delves into the rest of it. Capote, who had spent his early youth in the Monroeville area and who would go on to become one of Alabamas most famous and oddest literary exports, was still climbing toward fame when he begins cultivating relationships with the women he calls his swans. They were wealthy -- usually as the result of a series of strategic marriages -- and renowned for their ability to create their own fashion or to wear the works of top designers with unmatched self-assurance. Their homes were frequent subjects of magazine photo shoots, their dinner parties provided grist for the high-society gossip columns, their travels made international news. They seemed to enjoy having an outlandish creature from Alabama in their midst. He was young and beautiful and frequently outrageous, he was a male friend who could adore them without triggering their husbands jealousy and he was a wickedly clever purveyor of gossip.

The seven at the center of this book include Babe Paley, wife to CBS executive Bill Paley; Marella Agnelli, a bona fide Italian princess; Pamela Churchill, who married a son of Winston Churchill and rapidly became famous for pursuing affairs as eagerly as any of her male counterparts; and Lee Radziwill, younger sister to Jackie Kennedy Onassis, who like Churchill cut a swath through British society in her youth. Upper-class Brits are a randy lot, Leamer drolly notes, though it is considered good form for a wife to bring forth an heir before she starts having affairs. Lee had no use for such formalities.

Leamer is a capable guide to this world, and though Capotes Women doesnt spend a lot of time on Capotes Alabama boyhood or on his mutually influential friendship with Harper Lee, its not Leamers first visit to the state. His previous works include The Lynching, a keenly reported account of the Michael Donald murder in Mobile and the subsequent trial that resulted in a groundbreaking verdict against the Klan.

There might have been a question from the beginning of who was using whom, the ambitious writer or the trophy wives in need of amusing companionship. Leamer makes clear that while Capote began enjoying the company of swans before establishing his own fame, he also came up early on with the idea of using the tales he heard from such women as the basis of his grandest literary accomplishment. By mid-1958 -- before Breakfast at Tiffanys was published, before Capote even conceived of In Cold Blood -- he had the title and the general concept of the novel Answered Prayers.

From that point on, there might have been a real component to his friendship, but he also was collecting material. It might indeed have formed the basis of the book he wanted to write, a Great Work that encapsulated an ephemeral bubble of contemporary aristocracy. But that would have required him to be in full command of his powers, and after inventing novelistic true-crime storytelling with In Cold Blood and shaking up high society with his Black & White Ball, he began to squander those gifts.

Like a Marvel ensemble superhero movie that struggles to get all the origin stories out of the way before setting up its final battle, Capotes Women takes a long time to arrive at its moment of crisis. As Leamer tracks the twin arcs of Capotes accomplishments and his capacity for self-destruction, warning signs pile up: Capote blows deadlines, makes increasingly vague promises about when Answered Prayers will be complete. Friends whove seen excerpts are horrified; one swan, given a sneak preview, cuts him out of her life.

There are indications that after a lifetime spent knowing just how far over the line he can get away with going, Capote has forgotten theres a line. He even loses his knack for dinner parties: After falling for a particularly brainless lover (Leamer describes him as the man who came to his rented house to service the air conditioner and ended up servicing Truman as well) he imposes the dolt on his high-society friends, to their dismay.

His fantasy comes crashing down in 1975, when Esquire publishes an 11,000-word excerpt of Answered Prayers full of nasty gossip, with characters constructed so artlessly that any knowledgeable reader can easily guess which story belongs to which real-world swan. Capote has deluded himself that everyone, the swans included, would love it. They cast him out. Answered Prayers was never published in completed form.

Related: Truman Capotes unfinished work at center of new documentary The Capote Tapes

Leamer includes an observation from Joanne Carson that in the aftermath Capote looked like a baby who had been slapped. Indeed, Carsons involvement as one of Capotes last friends brings several tragically comedic moments into the tale.

The break is so complete that there was little left to tell, just a few years in which Capote becomes a dissipated caricature of himself on the way to a lonely and pitiful death.

Capotes Women is a very full book, in many ways. Capote himself comes to life as an ambitious writer whose flamboyant talent is inseparable from his outsider persona and high-society aspirations. He was openly gay because he had no choice, and as Normal Mailer famously observed, that took bravery. But the signs of his capacity for self-destruction were evident early on in his sexual voraciousness and his willingness to be a pet of the rich. Leamer provides detailed mini-biographies for the swans, and by extension gives a sense of the bygone world that made their lives possible.

For all that, the book is infected by the emptiness of the lives it describes. Capote neither knew how to be fulfilled by the success he achieved, nor how to exert the discipline necessary to maintain it. When the time came to follow up on his breakthroughs, Leamer writes, Truman should have been writing as he always did, penning passages into a notebook. But he had become addicted to the easy pleasures of the rich.

As for the women, what made them special wasnt really their style. They had the status they did because they were so entirely committed to being what a certain class of entitled man wanted them to be: Stunning, flawless, pursuable, obtainable. But when it came to accomplishments of any actual substance, they tended to be dilettantes at best. Upon divorce (or with one impending) their singleminded mission was to once again marry up. The rarified circles they moved in were so small that some of them were married to one anothers exes.

Lee Radziwill exemplifies the problem: Leamer portrays her as eternally overshadowed by her older sister, long before Jackie becomes First Lady and long after. Radziwill also exemplifies the poor-little-rich-girl problem: Because shes never had to work for anything, she cant work hard enough at any of her desires, such as becoming an actress, to get any satisfaction from her attempts. (If her story seems to pop a little more than the others, it helps to know that Leamer has written three books about the Kennedys, including The Kennedy Women.)

Were the swans really superior in some meaningful way to the Kardashians and their contemporary hyper-privileged counterparts, famous for being famous? Its not an argument this reader can make. Whatever one might think of the current bunch or the proportion of pop-culture influence they wield, they do have their own brands and their own wealth. Divorce doesnt leave them scrambling to find their next keeper.

But thats not the point.

The swans existed for a short time, exemplifying an ideal that couldnt last. Truman Capote, a gifted misfit from Alabama, found an unlikely place among them, and on some level he found them genuinely inspiring. Leamer includes a tantalizing suggestion that, in some ways, Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffanys was the first swan, or at least a swan in the making.

The published fragments of Answered Prayers fell far short of the book Capote hoped to write, but he did from time to time succeed at putting into words what made that ephemeral world so captivating for so many. The book lives up to its subtitle: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era.

This is the story of an Icarus. You know how its going to end, but you know that for a while the protagonist is going to soar. Capotes Women is about the flight.

Capotes Women by Laurence Leamer will be released Tuesday, Oct. 12, by Putnam.

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Capotes Women: Understanding the doomed love of Truman Capote and his socialite swans - AL.com

By Josh Marsh - 11 October 2021

Principal and Chief Executive of The Chesterfield College Group, Julie Richards, has welcomed the news that the Government plans to extend the apprenticeship incentive and Kickstart schemes.

Following Rishi Sunaks announcement last week, she has pledged to continue to help and support employers in the area who wish to take advantage of the incentives available before they end in 2022.

Since the incentive schemes were announced last year, as part of the Governments Covid recovery plans, the college has supported over 300 employers to access bonus payments of up to 4,000 to recruit almost 400 apprentices.

Speaking about how the college was best placed to help more local employers take advantage of the incentives, Julie Richards said:

Apprenticeships have always offered a fantastic opportunity to fill skills gaps and develop people. The bonus payment is designed to help employers feel more secure in their ability to cover the cost of recruiting an apprentice. Apprenticeships provide our young people with specific opportunities to develop their skills and secure meaningful employment which supports their financial independence and prepares them for adult life and a successful career.

As a local college we are committed to matching the needs of employers with the skills and talents of young people. I urge employers to contact the college to understand how the scheme may work for them. Our team are experts in supporting employers to develop a programme of skills development which will have long lasting benefits both for them and the local economy.

The experienced team are helping organisations, large and small across Derbyshire and the East Midlands, to find the best candidates for their apprenticeship vacancies. They have a talent pool of students and applicants ready to find their next step in the world of work and are supporting businesses to navigate the recruitment process to secure their new apprentice.

Matt Cryans, Director at Crytec Ltd, a company based in Clay Cross, which sells machinery for construction, forestry and manual handling, told us about his experience of recruiting his first apprentice and making the most of the incentive scheme with the support of the college.

He said: The scheme covers a decent proportion of an apprentices wages so it gives you confidence to recruit. The extra funding certainly helps you to make the move to grow the team when things feel a bit uncertain. The team at college made it easy to apply for the funding and supported me through the steps of taking on an apprentice.

Find out more about the apprenticeship bonus scheme and the support available for Kickstart here https://www.chesterfield.ac.uk/extension-to-4000-apprenticeship-incentive-and-kickstart-scheme/

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College to support employers following extension to the apprenticeship incentive scheme - Destination Chesterfield - Destination Chesterfield

Welcome to Facing the Speculative, where I will be discussing some crucial speculative fiction novels and their implications for modern society. This is an extension of the project Imagining Adaptive Societies with Earth systems associate professor Jamie Jones and political science professor Margaret Levi under the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences.

Attending school at Stanford can sometimes feel unreal with the Universitys endless list of opportunities and activities and relentless sunshine. Life on campus can almost feel like a simulation though beautiful in many ways, it is an atmosphere that has enabled me to distance myself from the real world.

It wasnt until I began to read Octavia Butlers Parable of the Sower that I was struck with how far removed I was from reality. Written in 1993, Parable of the Sower is a speculative fiction novel set in California, year 2024. Fires, some that are caused by climate change and others that are caused by drug-hungry pyromaniacs, ravage the state. Excessive amounts of money are being spent on space exploration as it transitions to privatization. Police forces fail to help fleeing refugees, oftentimes only adding to the chaos and violence. Politicians promise a return to glory while suspending laws of employee protection, environmental regulation and economic supervision. Post-modern capitalism has evolved into a form of debt slavery, where employees live paycheck to paycheck, forever tethered to their jobs.

As I read this novel, I couldnt help but connect the fictional plot to the very nonfiction reality we live in today. Record-setting fires are burning through California right now. Richard Branson, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are spending billions of dollars in this new-era space race to colonize Mars and pioneer space tourism. Wealth inequality pervades. Afghan refugees are finding themselves caught in chaos, unable to find asylum. The list simply goes on.

Weve come to an apex of history where the fictional narratives we once regarded as otherworldly are in fact very worldly. They are beginning to play out in real time right here, right now. Speculative fiction is no longer just an escape from reality; its fictional plots often bounce you back to the nonfiction plot playing out in our timeline.

But while Butlers Parable of the Sower and other speculative fiction novels are driven by conflict and catastrophe, their plots are resolved by resolutions that are yet to be realized in our world. This right here is my fascination with speculative fiction. Authors are allowed to speculate resolutions that we as readers can try to implement in the real world.

In Butlers Parable of the Sower, 15-year-old protagonist Lauren Olamida zealously endeavors to unearth her own religion that is illuminous of her lived experience. One of the verses of her religion Earthseed is:

Ignorance

Protects itself.

Ignorance

Promotes suspicion.

Ignorance

Protects itself,

And protected,

Ignorance grows.

Answers to real-world problems can be found both in reality and in the fictional dimension. Lauren, and Butler by extension, are begging that we not remain ignorant to the fictional world, let alone the world that exists outside of our bubbles, for that ignorance will only flourish upon itself and grow. The most pressing solutions for problems like climate change and political injustice may be right there, at the touch of a novel.

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Facing the Speculative: 'Parable of the Sower' as a parallel to our society - The Stanford Daily

For all who live with, love or work with families are invited to attend a Mental Wellness Conversation from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Oct. 22 at Trinity United Methodist Church, 838 N. 25th St. The workshop is free, but preregistration is required by Oct. 20 at https://bit.ly/MW18497.

Topics and speakers for the event include:

Hope and Healing: My Walk with Mental Health Lyndsey Fennelly, mental health advocate

The keynote speaker is Lyndsey Fennelly. As a college student, she was a standout on the Iowa State womens basketball team and was drafted into the WNBA in 2007. She married Billy Fennelly, assistant coach for the ISU womens team. Not me was her first thought in 2013 when she was in the middle of a two-week hospital stay following a mental breakdown. She didnt want to believe it. A lot has happened since that first hospital stay. Fennelly is using her high-profile voice to reduce the stigma of mental illness and raise awareness of the services available. Mental illness touches one in five Iowans, but mental health touches every single human being. We all have the capacity to improve our mental wellness.

Mental Health Discussion: Make it OK Kim Bodholdt, social-emotional-behavioral health consultant, Prairie Lakes AEA

Question.Persuade.Refer. Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Training Demi Johnson, behavioral health program specialist, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. Say Yes to saving the life of a friend, colleague, sibling, or neighbor. Just as people trained in CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver help save thousands of lives each year, people trained in QPR learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade, and refer someone to help.

UnityPoint Health Berryhill Center: Behavioral Health Urgent Care Jennifer Pullen, executive director, Berryhill Center

Community Health Center of Fort Dodge, Catholic Charities, Children & Families of Iowa, Community & Family Resources, UnityPoint Health Berryhill, NAMI,CICS and Webster County 4-H will be sharing information during the noon hour.

The workshop is sponsored by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Webster County, Trinity United Methodist Church, UnityPoint Health Berryhill Center, Community Health Center of Fort Dodge and Webster/Calhoun Youth Wellness Coalition.

For more information, contact Linda Cline, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Webster County program coordinator, at 515-576-2119 or lcline@iastate.edu.

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Community conversation focuses on mental wellness | News, Sports, Jobs - Fort Dodge Messenger

AMES, Iowa When youre busy juggling work, family, social life, health goals and other obligations, balancing these competing areas of your life may seem exhausting or impossible, says Danielle Day, a human sciences specialist with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach.

Weve likely heard about work-life balance over this past year, but how many of us can say we have taken the opportunity to stop, breathe and evaluate our own work-life balance goals? asked Day, who specializes in family wellbeing.

October is National Work and Family Month in the United States. Established in 2003 by U.S. Senate resolution, it was meant to promote more flexible work environments and encourage better balance in work-life commitments.

While some stress can help in driving our successes, the key to managing stress is finding balance, Day said. Without balance, our stress levels can continue to rise, decreasing our productivity, increasing moodiness and wreaking havoc on our immune systems and overall health. Its easy to let more and more stress creep into our lives as we strive to achieve perfection; however, the side effects of too much stress are too detrimental to ignore.

National Work and Family Month is a good time for a work-life balance self-check. Lets take this month to check in with ourselves and perhaps hit the reset button as we determine what work-life balance looks like for us individually, Day said.

Day offers the following tips for exploring optimal work-life balance.

Ask yourself, Are my goals realistic? You are more likely to succeed if you set attainable goals in all areas of life. There are only 24 hours in each day; be realistic about the workload you can manage along with your personal goals.

Identify essential tasks; eliminate unessential tasks. Do you really need to accomplish all the tasks on your to-do list? If your list includes should do tasks, are they essential to your wellbeing? Do they add value or undue stress? Could someone else handle these tasks?

Take an electronic break. "Technology is great, but many times we feel the need to always be on and readily available to everyone. Schedule some regular time for you and your family to unplug from your devices and reconnect with enjoyable hobbies and with nature, Day said. During the workday take a 15-minute break away from the office, without your cell phone, and go for a walk with a coworker.

Schedule time for you. When theres an open block of time on our calendar, its easy to fill it with something that may not add to our wellbeing. If you have a hard time seeing open blocks of time on your calendar, then schedule regular me time and use that time to refill your energy bucket by doing an activity you enjoy, Day said.

Get moving. Being physically healthy helps to reduce stress levels. Find time each day to do something physical. It doesnt have to be the same each day go for a walk one day and play basketball the next. Make sure to choose a physical activity you enjoy. Youre more likely to make a habit when you enjoy what youre doing, and it doesnt feel like work.

Be flexible. Establishing new habits takes time, and sometimes after awhile a new habit isnt right for you. Its important that goals be flexible, and you give yourself some grace. Were all human and were all trying to navigate life with no road map. If a goal needs to change or you find something isnt working for you, reset yourself. Ask those around you to help you on your journey, Day said.

Identify your resources. Do not be afraid to ask for help. That might mean asking your employer whether a flexible work schedule is possible or if there is an Employee Assistance Program. Help also can mean reevaluating household chores and redistributing responsibilities across the family. There are helplines, blogs and other resources available to help you find a balance that is right for you.

Iowa State University Extension and Outreach offers a series of Stress: Taking Charge resources in the online Extension Store to help you navigate your stress at various stages of life. Iowa Concern Hotline is a resource available to all Iowans, offering 24/7 support for individuals seeking stress counseling, legal education and those with financial concerns. Call or text 800-447-1985 to access Iowa Concern.

If remote work is an option with your employer, and you could benefit from this flexibility, consider setting yourself up for success by participating in the Remote Work Certificate Course offered through Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, Day added.

For additional information on mental health, visit Mental Health America, https://mhanational.org/.

Photo credit: MarekPhotoDesign.com/stock.adobe.com

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Examine Work-Life Balance during National Work and Family Month - College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Courtesy Dover Kohl and Partners

A re-envisioned downtown Lake Wales will be a leafy and inviting urban oasis. Buildings in white are existing. Buildings depicted in yellow are potential infill construction opportunities.

A 30-year extension of the life of the Lake Wales Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) will guarantee a continuing flow of revenue for community improvements, including street and sidewalk construction, lighting, street trees and more.

Community Redevelopment Agency funds are being used to pay for the Lake Wales Connected plan reconstruction and landscaping of Park Avenue and First Street, expected to begin shortly.

The CRA is funded by capturing about 90% of the City and County shares of "tax increment" created by rising property values and new construction. The Lake Wales CRA presently generates about $2.4M annually, a number projected to rise significantly in future years.

The CRA is expected to enter in a loan or bond agreement that will provide $18.5 million in ready funds to pay for the street improvements of the Lake Wales Connected plan. The action was essential to assure lenders that revenue will continue to come to the CRA to pay back loans expected to mature over a 20-year time frame. The present CRA would otherwise sunset in 2029.

The action came during Tuesday's City Commission meeting at which the enabling ordinance was adopted. The new lifetime was made possible by an act of the Florida Legislature, which recently created a general sunset of 2039, unless "the governing body of the city which created the agency approves its continued existence by a majority vote," according to a memo prepared by City of Lake Wales staff.

The Lake Wales City Commission also sits as the board of directors of the CRA under long-standing city policy.

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Suncor Energy Inc. and Cenovus Energy Inc., two of Canadas largest oil companies,have announcedplans to restart stalled offshore oil projects and boost job prospects in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Calgary-based oil majors announced agreements to restructure both the Terra Nova FPSO and West White Rose projects off the provinces coast. The agreements, supported by $205 million in funding from the provincial government, mean work will restart on the Terra Nova project this fall and the companies will evaluate the feasibility of restarting work on West White Rose by the middle of 2022.

Suncorsaid in a news releasethe agreement is expected to extend production life at Terra Nova by approximately 10 years, providing an additional 70 million barrels of oil. The floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel has not produced oil since late 2019. Most of the more than 1,000 jobs linked to the oilfield have been lost.

Suncor president and CEO Mark Little said in the news release the Terra Nova life extension provides strong economic returns and will provide long-term value for investors.

The project is expected to return to operations in 2022 and will continue operating until 2033.Suncor will increase its ownership stake in the project to 48 per cent from 38 per cent, the release states.Cenovuswill increase its stake to 34 per cent from 13 per cent and El Dorado, Ark.-based Murphy Oil Corp. will boost its ownership to 18 per cent from 10 per cent.

The concentrated ownership structure will lead to four international oil companies Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Norways Equinor SA and Mosbacher Operating LLC exiting the project.

Suncor is also boosting its ownership interest in the West White Rose project to 40 per cent from 27.5 per cent in exchange for a cash payment from Cenovus, which is reducing its stake to 60 per cent from 72.5 per cent.

The FPSO will undergo maintenance work at the Bull Arm Fabrication site in Trinity Bay, N.L. starting in September prior to sailing to dry dock in Spain later this year, according to the news release. Since beginning production in January 2002, the Terra Nova has produced 425 million barrels of oil.

The two agreements are cause for celebration in the Atlantic provinces struggling offshore oil industry and for a province which had been expected to face the slowest economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source(s) and Image(s): Suncor Energy Inc., Cenovus Energy Inc, Atlantica Center for Energy

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Oil majors to restart stalled offshore projects | OUR GREAT MINDS - The OGM

Ticks transmit Lyme disease. (Photo Provided)

By Marcus McCartney

OSU Extension Educator

Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States. Lyme disease is caused by a specific bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi. It is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected blacklegged ticks, commonly known in our area as deer ticks. Here in the mid-Ohio valley, we are experiencing an outbreak of Lyme disease. Currently, 1 in 12 dogs test positive for Lyme. My little dog, Bella, is one of these dogs and she is how I contracted Lyme disease. Sometimes Bella sleeps at the foot of my bed. A tick crawled off her and onto my foot, biting me and injecting the bacterial disease into my bloodstream, changing my life forever. My experience with Lyme disease had a detrimental effect on me and my family. I contracted the neurological disease in late 2018. Even though I have fully recovered, my family dynamics were forever changed.

Towards the end of 2018, I started to feel off or sick. At first, I dismissed how I felt and thought it was nothing more than a cold or virus. However, as time went by, I never recovered from the initial sickness and slowly my health deteriorated. My symptoms included: severe fatigue, increased blood pressure, weak muscles, extreme light-headedness, and it was hard to sit up for extended periods of time. I felt disconnected, like my head was in a constant state of fog. I never developed the bulls-eye rash associated with Lymes disease nor could I recall even having a black legged tick on me. Before I was able to get an accurate diagnosis the standard Lyme disease test kept coming back as negative and my supposedly diagnosis kept coming back as the same thing, a sinus infection. After I personally took antibiotics for seventy-six days, I was finally given a prescription of doxycycline, the antibiotic for Lyme disease, for a 28-day cycle. Towards the end of my 28th day, I finally started to feel better after four months of barely functioning. Being able to function again was such a huge relief and blessing. Life seemed normal again.

During my ordeal with Lyme Disease, this is when I learned there was an outbreak in our area. Now when I am outside, I make sure I take preventive measures, so I do not contract this disease again. This experience has given me a tremendous respect for tick vector diseases as well as those animals who consume these ticks, like opossums. My advice is whenever you are outside, especially in wooded or high grass areas, please protect yourself from ticks and always check yourself when you come back inside. My experience with Lyme disease is, no matter how healthy you are, this disease will bring you down rapidly and affect every aspect of your life; potentially life changing as in my case.

If you have been outside working on your garden or lawn, even this time of year because black-legged ticks (deer ticks) are active almost year-round, and find a tick attached on your body, you should not throw it away after you properly remove it. You should identify which tick species was attached to you because certain species of ticks carry certain diseases. You can bring your tick to the OSU Extension office for an accurate identification. After identifying the tick, you should keep the tick in case you to feel ill. Stored ticks in your refrigerator or freezer for a few months or send it to a lab to test for disease. In conclusion, protect yourself as tick-vector diseases are significantly increasing.

Marcus McCartney is the OSU Extension Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator for Washington County. He has been with extension since 2014. Marcus received both his bachelors and Masters degree from West Virginia University Agriculture Education.

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Before You Grow: Educator gives first-hand account of Lyme disease - Marietta Times