Category Archives: Human Longevity

Before the Beirut Port blast last August that killed hundreds and destroyed entire neighborhoods, Lebanons economy was already under enormous pressure due to long-standing political challenges and the Covid pandemic. Amid all of this, Lebanons LGBTQ+ community has been particularly hard hit. Social entrepreneurs like Tarek Zeidan are building a better economic future for Lebanon that elevates queer voices.

We are publishing this story on March 31, in honor of the International Transgender Day of Visibility.

Tarek Zeidan, CEO of Helem, says "We have to convince people that changing their attitudes towards ... [+] LGBT people is not a betrayal of who they are, who their parents were, and what our culture represents."

Zeynep Meydanoglu: You head-up Helem, the first LGBTQ+ organization in the Arab World. Tell us about it.

Tarek Zeidan: We provide services and protection to the LGBT community in Lebanon and the region. Whether it means representing people in court, getting them out of jail, providing assistance around domestic abuse, suicide prevention. Whatever it is, you call our hotline, and we're there to help you.

The community center is where it gets more interesting. Anyone can join Helem, as long as they respect our rules, rights and responsibilities. In the center, people can start all sorts of projects for and with the LGBT community. As an organization we provide the space, the resources and the technical know-how. Some of our best ideas have come from these convenings of people that come together and debate solutions to our biggest challenges.

For example, we have a committee of trans* sex workers. They prioritize their work around the communitys needs. Many of them want to start small to mid-scale businesses that support trans* people. Some want to learn computer skills because working online feels safer and it would make them more competitive on the global job market. Our job is to listen to their dreams and help to make them happen.

Meydanoglu: How did 2020 impact your work?

Zeidan: 2020 has been a hard year for everybody, and particularly in Lebanon, because of the political and economic crisis, followed by the pandemic; and then, of course the Beirut Port blast. So many of the things that we knew for sure last year are not necessarily what we know for sure now. All of a sudden, we have 40 to 50 percent of the LGBT community that has been plunged into poverty, into homelessness. This isn't something that we had six months ago. Direct aid, economic empowerment, workplace equality, and labor law reform are our top concerns right now.

Meydanoglu: Can you give us an example of how you are responding?

Zeidan: Growing LGBT inclusive businesses can boost Lebanons tourism in staggering ways. Its a multi-billion dollar industry that the government is not letting into the country because of their archaic mindsets. This is the kind of information and action our movement needs to have in our arsenals, not just shaking our fists in the street. That's amazing to break the ice, but if we don't also have a long-term vision, it's a missed opportunity.

Meydanoglu: You mentioned labor law as well. When does that come into the picture?

Zeidan: Before being able to change labor law, we have to change the behavior. Many people in the global North generally believe that law reform comes first, but in places like Lebanon, where the rule of law is contested, thats not necessarily the best first step.

So, we are starting by creating a critical mass of young, entrepreneurial LGBT individuals that are trying to solve problems on the ground. For example, instead of handing out food boxes for people affected by the blast we created a community kitchen, which can become self-sustaining. It also creates an opportunity to get people together to learn and mobilize, rather than just receiving a food box.

But if we don't also work on the labor law, were actually just throwing people into the jaws of the wolves. Workplace equality and economic empowerment for queer people is the carrot, but it requires shifting values in the workplace and beyond. Thats something even a robust anti-sexual harassment and inclusion policy cant do. A reformed and inclusive labor law can be the stick that gives queer employees recourse to justice. The amounts of abuse and exploitation of LGBT people by the private sector is astonishing, so we need to approach it from both ends in order to ensure prosperity and protection simultaneously.

Meydanoglu: How do you bring people along?

Zeidan: We have to convince people that changing their attitudes towards LGBT people is not a betrayal of who they are, who their parents were, and what our culture represents. Were retaining what's important in our values system, and were choosing to let go of what no longer is relevant to the times.

That's easier said than done but, for example, when it comes to accepting trans* individuals working with you in your company. Weve found that it is not simply about countering all of the misconceptions and the phobias that people have. It's also about the fact that people have no idea how to communicate with people that seem so different from them. Theres a deep anxiety there. People tend to hire people that look like them, that are from the same religious or educational background. This is really detrimental to a place of business, because were not prioritizing the work itself, were prioritizing people that reinforce our world view and assuage our anxiety.

So we as queer and gender non-conforming people bring ourselves to the table and engage with employers directly. Everything changes once we are face to face in the same room, because so much of the phobia and the hate is based on mythologies that feed on estrangement. We use what we call compassionate and courageous confrontation.We never use guilt or shaming as a tool. We recognize that people dont resist change, they resist loss. Paradoxically, queer people represent a certain sense of loss to those who oppress them. We help them see that by releasing old habits or views (like homophobia) they are not losing who they are. They can thus see that our community is not responsible for their sense of loss.

Meydanoglu: Have you found some surprising allies along the way?

Zeidan: What has been surprising is the amount of people who agree with us but have not found the space to express that agreement and support. The parameters of what constitutes support have been incredibly narrow. If your only option to support LGBT rights is to become an activist, the vast majority of people who agree with you cannot express their support. The more we diversify how people can come and join in, the stronger we will be.

Meydanoglu: What are some of these new entry points?

Zeidan: We've been trying to work with youth for a very long time, but parents were simply not going to let us onto high school campuses. So, we werent able to deal with critical issues like bullying or sexual health. Some of the most elite schools in the country are still doing conversion therapy on LGBT youth, even though the Lebanese Psychological and Psychiatric Association has banned the practice. So, how on earth could we reach the kids? The scouts became one of our answers. We are now able to reach the same kids through a different venue! Interestingly, our meetings and events take place in the basement of a church, because the priest who runs it wants to support queer kids with his actions even if he cant do it with his sermons.

All we have to do is find these people that makes all of the difference! That's how we've been able to get legal and security information to youth, as well as workshops on how to counter bullying and hate speech. Were helping young queer people feel better about themselves and make things better for others who share their challenges.

Meydanoglu: You bring up the Church. How important has it been to bring these large institutions along?

Zeidan: Engagement with institutions, like the church or our government is nearly impossible to do here. People may be privately sympathetic, but publicly won't touch this issue. This is not just about LGBT people, but about any controversial topic. Where we've had a lot of success is precisely in ignoring the top hierarchies and identifying instead the layers of power within them that can shift. For example, we don't talk to Ministers, who are political appointees. We talk to the permanent staff of each ministry. Senior and junior staff across multiple key ministries have proven to be very LGBT inclusive, so we've been able to facilitate funds and access for HIV medication, aid for gender affirmation surgery, access to social security and more. We did not need to go through parliament to make the lives of LGBT people easier in the short and medium run.

Weve also worked this way with priests and sheikhs. We werent trying to find people who would publicly challenge the church on LGBT inclusion. We simply wanted individuals who believed faith and sexuality are reconciled to come and speak with LGBT people of faith, to help them reconcile their own internal struggles. We started by addressing the problem that the community was facing, as opposed to the problem that we as activists were facing.

That allows these clerics of both Christianity and Islam to gradually expand and evolve their role into something that's a lot more political, in terms of their actual support of the cause. And it also requires us as a secular organization to change our own inner culture to allow LGBT people of faith a safe space, to be heard and to be seen, to organize and be part of the solution.

Tarek Zeidan leads Helem, the first LGBT rights organization in the Arab World, founded in Beirut in 2004. He was an ELI fellow at the Harvard Center for Public Leadership and an emerging human rights fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard. Tarek joined Ashokas network in 2020.You can follow him on twitter @tarekzeidan @HelemLebanon

Zeynep Meydanogluis the Country Co-Director of Ashoka Turkey, and the field leader of Next Now/Gender. Prior to Ashoka, Zeynep led civil society strengthening initiatives and contributed to Turkey's womens movement in organizations like TUSEV, KAMER and Purple Roof Foundation.

Next Now:Ashokas Next Now highlights innovations in areas ripe for transformation, including Tech & Humanity, Aging and Longevity, Gender, and Planet & Climate.This series sheds light on the wisdom and ideas of leaders creating an equal world for people of all genders. ReadPart 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6 of the series.

Excerpt from:
From Rights To Jobs LBGTQ+ Liberation In The Arab World - Forbes

(Incorporated in the Cayman Islands with Limited Liability)

Stock Code: 0575

30 March 2021

ANNOUNCEMENT

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited and The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited take no responsibility for the contents of this announcement, make no representation as to its accuracy or completeness and expressly disclaim any liability whatsoever for any loss howsoever arising from or in reliance upon the whole or any part of the contents of this announcement.

AUDITED FINAL RESULTS

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2020

AND

PROPOSED CHANGE OF COMPANY NAME

PERFORMANCE OVERVIEW

A summary of the financial performance and other notable events for

2020 includes:

Page 2 of 46

Page 3 of 46

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had, and continues to have, a material impact on businesses around the world and the economic environments in which they operate. The outbreak has caused disruption across our business lines. A number of countries in which we operate have implemented severe restrictions on the movement of populations, with a resultant significant impact on economic activity. These restrictions are being determined by the governments of individual jurisdictions, including through the implementation of emergency powers. The impacts of these restrictions, including the subsequent lifting of restrictions, may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. However, during 2020 COVID-19 has negatively impacted the royalty income from Recordati, as the royalty income for the year ended 31 December 2020 dropped by approximately 32.27% as compared to the financial year ended 31 December 2019, which is due to the cessation of activities by Recordati's sales representatives during this time and the fact that patients stopped visiting their physicians while "lock down" was in place. Management is closely monitoring what impact, if any, COVID-19 has to its liquidity and capital sufficiency with reference to our operations and capital commitments. Given the complex and constantly evolving situation of COVID-19, it is not possible to predict or quantify the financial or operational impact of COVID-19 on the Group's operations (note 15).

We have invoked certain plans at our offices in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom (the "UK") to help ensure the safety and wellbeing of our staff, as well as our ability to support our customers and maintain our business operations. Many of our staff have continued to provide continuity of work while working remotely. It remains unclear how this will evolve into 2021 and we continue to monitor the situation closely while at all times following local government guidelines and policies.

Page 4 of 46

With a streamlined focus and sensible capital structure, the Company remains excited about the future prospects for the Group and its shareholders and will: (i) continue to pursue the successful commercialisation of Fortacin/SenstendTM as quickly as possible, with the OTC roll out just commencing, as well as in the remaining key markets of the US, China, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East; (ii) commercialise DLI's Young.AI mobile App and the Young.AI website, together with partnering with clinics, laboratories and insurance companies by offering its AgeMetricTM reports and access to its online platform; (iii) continue monitoring its investments in Venturex and West China; and (iv) continue with its existing strategy of pursuing strategic and value-led investments in the healthcare and life sciences sectors.

CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT

2020 was a challenging year for the Group, together with the global economy, being dominated by the devastating global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had, and continues to have, a material impact on businesses around the world and the economic environments in which they operate. The outbreak has caused disruption across our business lines. A number of countries in which we operate have implemented severe restrictions on the movement of populations, with a resultant significant impact on economic activity. The impacts of these restrictions may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. It remains unclear how this will evolve into 2021 and we continue to monitor the situation closely. But we are ever hopeful that with the roll-out of the vaccines that we are now seeing across many countries, it will lead to the lifting of the restrictions from as early as Q2 2021.

Unfortunately, these issues, among others, caused the Group to implement from April 2020 certain cost cutting measures, including an across-the-board 30% reduction in fees and salaries of its Directors, employees and consultants, which reductions are continuing, furloughing staff where appropriate and implementing general and administrative expenses and research and development expenses cost cuts, on an aggregated basis, of approximately US$2.13 million when comparing with the corresponding period in 2019.

Page 5 of 46

However, I am very proud to report that the Group was able to perform very strongly in the second half of 2020, achieving a number of significant milestones, including the acquisition of Deep Longevity, a new and complementary business line that I am particularly excited about given its cutting edge approach to longevity medicine, a US$4.20 trillion dollar (and growing) industry, in 2017. I will report further on these achievements below. It goes without saying that the Group will continue to pay close attention to the development and evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on the financial position and operating results of the Group, but, all things being equal, we remain very optimistic about the direction the business is taking and in our ability to generate value for shareholders going forward.

Healthcare and Life Sciences Focus

The Group's healthcare and life sciences investments remain our core focus, and the Group believes that investments in this sector will create substantial returns for our shareholders in the medium to longer term. As part of this focus, we have worked diligently to further strengthen our relationships with key commercial partners and stakeholders in this sector, and in the second half of 2020 I am pleased to report that our team, together with our commercial partners, made significant progress in this respect per the following achievements:

Page 6 of 46

Business Development

From a business development standpoint, during the 2020 financial year, the Group continued to look closely at a number of acquisition and investment opportunities in the healthcare, life sciences and wellness sectors, including opportunities to enter into the longevity sector, with a particular focus on patented technology to help identify individual biological aging markers. This culminated in the acquisition of DLI in December 2020, which will serve as a key platform for the Group's expansion into the health and wellness sector, namely the emerging field of longevity medicine.

Page 7 of 46

DLI is developing explainable and user-friendly AI systems to track the rate of aging at the molecular, cellular, tissue, organ, system, physiological and psychological levels. It is also developing systems for the emerging field of longevity medicine enabling physicians to make better decisions on the interventions that may slow down or reverse the aging processes. DLI has also developed Longevity as a Service (LaaS) solution to integrate multiple deep biomarkers of aging dubbed "deep aging clocks" to provide a universal multifactorial measure of human biological age.

Originally incubated by InSilico Medicine, DLI started its independent journey in 2020 after closing a Series A financing on 29 June 2020 that included some of the most credible venture capitalists specialising in biotechnology, longevity and AI. Among these strategic investors are such well-known funds as BOLD Capital Partners, ETP Ventures, Human Longevity and Performance Impact Venture Fund, Longevity Vision Fund, LongeVC, Michael Antonov (co- founder of Facebook-owned Oculus VR) and other expert AI and biotechnology investors. DLI has also established a key research partnership with one of the world's leading longevity organisations, HLI. Under this arrangement, HLI will provide DLI's developed haematological aging clocks to a global network of advanced physicians and longevity research specialists and HLI will share the revenue generated from the patients' test reports with DLI. DLI's products, including the aging clocks and AgeMetricTM reports, do not require any licensing or regulatory approvals. The Apple App Store approved the launch of the Young.AI mobile App on 29 September 2020, thereby validating its technology and affording DLI with a huge scaling-up market opportunity. Like any other application or website, this is DLI's first version of its App and website, and DLI, like other App providers, will provide further updated versions of its App and website by ironing out any bugs and improving and adding products over time. Future investment will mainly come in developing new product launches (more aging clocks), improving existing products, social media/marketing and adding personnel. Utilising advanced deep learning algorithms, DLI develops novel tools for aging research that can be applied in many industries to make people live better, longer and healthier lives.

DLI is operated by Alex Zhavoronkov, as Chief Longevity Officer position, and Polina Mamoshina, as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Scientific Officer. In addition, DLI has an experienced team of scientists, engineers, and designers involved in the development of the web application, new aging clocks and automation of AgeMetricTM reports. We welcome the DLI team into the Group and look forward to achieving milestones and enjoying commercial success in the near future.

Page 8 of 46

Other Existing Investments

Looking at the Group's existing and legacy investments in natural resources (which are non- core and are the focus of its existing divestment programme), precious and base metals investments have performed very strongly and the Group's not insignificant exposure to base metals (copper and zinc in particular) continues to enjoy a recovery of note. While commodity markets remain volatile, there has been a noticeable shift of investment activity towards exploration and not just producers. We remain confident that on a fundamental basis, demand will be underpinned by urbanisation of emerging and recovery of developed economies globally. Since year end, we are delighted to see the significant increase in our investment in Venturex, which has significantly improved in the last four weeks and, accordingly the Group as at 15 March 2021 had an unrealised gain of approximately US$7.04 million and a marked-to-market value of approximately US$9.43 million on this investment, representing a 295% increase from 31 December 2020.

Outlook

Rising COVID-19 case numbers in the US and Europe make it difficult right now to envision a return to normal. Yet, even as the pandemic drags on, the global economy has proven remarkably resilient. Following a steep decline in early 2020, the world economy rode a rebound that began in May and remains on track to surpass pre-pandemic GDP levels by the end of 2020, setting the stage for strong post-recovery growth in 2021. The V-shaped recovery that many forecast during 2020 is now seemingly entering a new self-sustaining phase and is on track to deliver 6.4% GDP growth in the coming year. This projection is in contrast to the predictions of others, who forecast 5.4% global growth on a consensus basis and who are concerned that the pandemic will have a bigger impact on private-sector risk appetite and, hence, global growth. I maintain a more positive view in that consumers have driven the recovery, and investment growth, which reflects a healthy tolerance for risk in the private corporate sector, which is a critical feature to any self-sustaining recovery.

Moreover, unlike the Group's legacy investments in natural resources, the Group's healthcare, wellness and life sciences investments are far less sensitive to macroeconomic fundamentals and fluctuations and remain its core focus.

Page 9 of 46

Our strategy remains the same and our balance sheet has us well positioned to deliver on this. The Company has every intention of continuing with its existing business of investing in companies engaged in the health care, wellness and life sciences sectors. With the commercialisation of DLI's Young.AI mobile App and the Young.AI website, together with partnering with clinics, laboratories and insurance companies by offering its AgeMetricTM reports and access to its online platform, as well as the ongoing commercialisation of Fortacin across targeted markets, our progress with the NMPA and the FDA and ongoing discussions with other possible commercial partners, we remain tremendously excited about the future prospects for the Group.

On behalf of the Board, I want to thank our shareholders for their continued support and our employees for their hard work in another challenging, but rewarding year.

Page 10 of 46

RESULTS

The directors (the "Directors" or the "Board") of Regent Pacific Group Limited (the "Company" and collectively with its subsidiaries, the "Group") announce the audited results of the Group for the year ended 31 December 2020, together with comparative figures for the year ended 31 December 2019, as follows:

Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income

For the year ended 31 December 2020

2020

2019

Notes

US$'000

US$'000

Revenue:

4

Milestone and royalty income

1,212

164

Corporate investment income

108

464

Other income

371

94

1,691

722

Fair value gain/(loss) on financial instruments

5(a)

458

(1,035)

Total income less fair value gain/(loss) on

financial instruments

2,149

(313)

Expenses:

Employee benefit expenses

6

(3,258)

(3,924)

Rental and office expenses

(663)

(718)

Information and technology expenses

(159)

(180)

Marketing costs and commissions

(61)

(111)

Professional and consulting fees

(674)

(1,161)

Research and development expenses

(2,458)

(3,306)

Amortisation of intangible assets

(19,407)

(28,047)

Other operating expenses

(349)

(354)

Read this article:
Regent Pacific : Audited final results for the year ended 31 December 2020 and proposed change of company name | MarketScreener - Marketscreener.com

If you live in one of Australias 5.9 million pet households, youll already know how much affection, humour and joy animals can offer. What beats coming home to the slobbery welcome of a tail-wagging woofie or snuggling up with a softly purring puss after a stressful day?

The unconditional love pets provide their human companions not only makes us feel good, its also physically beneficial. Numerous studies have shown that keeping pets especially dogs and cats improves cardiovascular fitness, could help control cholesterol and blood pressure, and reduces stress, loneliness and depression.

Increasingly, medicine is recognising the bond between pets and people as a powerful weapon in fighting disease and treating chronic conditions.Credit:Stocksy

Even taking other peoples pets out can do you good. Dog walkers, for example, can improve their overall fitness and stamina due to regular exercise, and are perceived by others as friendly and approachable.

American veterinarian Marty Becker, author of The Healing Power of Pets, says animals play a very important role in the function of our immune systems. Pets spend much of their time outside and bring all sorts of germs into the home, which isnt necessarily a bad thing, he says. These germs help to boost our immunity, which will then help prevent colds and other mild illnesses.

Loading

But theres more. Just petting your dog or cat reduces the physiological indicators of stress, including high blood pressure. When you stroke your pet, which is something that comes naturally when theyre sitting on your lap, within a few seconds you get a release of positive biochemicals like oxytocin, prolactin and serotonin, Becker says. We now know that pets help reduce cardiovascular incidents and strokes. Both physically and emotionally, they are live-in life-support systems cleverly disguised as animals.

Increasingly, medicine is recognising the bond between pets and people as a powerful weapon in fighting disease and treating chronic conditions. In fact, in one survey, almost three in four doctors said they would prescribe pets for their patients health.

Besotted cat people will quickly tell you that their pets purring helps calm them if theyre feeling stressed or in pain. While we still dont know much about why cats purr, the frequency at which they purr between 25 and 150 hertz can improve bone density and promote tissue regeneration.

Another study, from the State University of New York, found that people were less stressed when performing a task in the company of their pet than when a spouse, family member or friend was close by.

See the article here:
Fitter, calmer and healthier are pets the secret to longevity? - Sydney Morning Herald

Share

Share

Share

Email

Everybody knows what WAR is at this point. The 2012 and 2013 AL MVP debate brought it tons of publicity, and that was almost 10 years ago. While few people are able to explain the intricacies of the construct, I imagine that most big baseball fans can explain the gist of it even if theyre not a fan. Despite its flaws and all models in all the sciences have flaws it can be quite useful. However, its much lesser known cousin Wins Above Average (WAA) has its uses, too.

Ive mentioned the stat in passing a few times at my former home at Beyond the Box Score, but Im hard pressed to think of ever seeing a writer mention it anywhere else. The one big exception is the Hall of Stats, a fun site that evaluates baseball players Hall of Fame worthiness based solely on their stats.

Of course, nobody is arguing that this is the way it should be done, but its a fun, useful exercise to see how a player stacks up to the Hall of Fame standard when stripped away of our flawed human biases and subjectivity. You can say the same thing about Jay Jaffes JAWS system to a certain extent, but the Hall of Stats uses a different methodology that I find interesting. You can read all about it here, but what I found most interesting is there use of WAA as a measure of peak.

The Hall of Stats was started by a fellow former writer at Beyond the Box Score, Adam Darowski, who not too long ago tweeted out this fascinating tidbit comparing Fernando Tats Jr. to Omar Vizquel, the subject of a previous OTBB statistical deep dive.

That shocked me. I had to double check, and sure enough, its true!

Tats career WAA: 4.9

Vizquel career WAA: 5.3

Ignoring the fact that a rounding error makes it a 0.4 difference, how does a player with 45.6 WAR and 2,968 games played have only a slightly higher WAA than one with 6.9 WAR and 143 games played? Because its a lot harder to accumulate WAA than WAR.

WAR measures how much better a players is than a theoretical end of the bench, Quad A type player. WAA measure how much better you are than an average player. A 0 WAR means you stink, but a 0 WAA means youre a solid player! The difference between the two is roughly two wins. Someone who is a subpar player year after year will accumulate some WAR but will constantly get negative WAA seasons.

This is part of what happened with Vizquel. When you take a career 83 wRC+, with only a few out of 24 seasons were you were an average hitter or better, and combine that with a good defensive shortstop, youre going to get a player that is good at accumulating WAR but bad at accumulating WAA.

This is what I like about WAA: it penalizes compilers and players who pad their career lengths with bad play. Ken Griffey Jr., Albert Pujols, Rabbit Maranville, and Jim Kaat are a few examples of players who fall into that category. Pete Rose might be the worst offender here. In his nine seasons after leaving the Reds, he accumulated only 1.9 WAR at the cost of -12.7 WAA! Of course, he wouldve finished with only 3,164 hits had he decided to retire at age 37.

Im firmly of the belief that we should evaluate players longevity not simply by how long they played, but for how long they were actually good. WAA provides a solid measure of this, as you can see how many seasons a player had a positive WAA value.

To be fair, the big discrepancy between Vizquels WAR and WAA has less to do with his longevity and more to do with another use of WAA: measuring a players peak. This is the bigger reason for Vizquels huge difference between his WAR and WAA. If a player has a long career where he is mostly good to very good, but not great, WAA is going to hold that against you. Tats has been outstanding over his 143 games played. Vizquel, on the other hand, had only one season in his 24-year career where he had a WAR above 4.0 and a WAA above 2.0.

Theres no good way to do a search for WAR-WAA, unfortunately. However, if you peruse the JAWS leaderboards for each position, youll find that large WAR-WAA values were from those who played a long time but were never truly great or could never sustain greatness, played longer than they should have, or some kind of mixture of the two.

The most well known measure of a players peak is WAR7, which adds up a players best seven seasons by WAR, and is part of the JAWS system. WAA might just be another way to do that, but its use in measuring longevity compared to WAR is intriguing. Ill leave you with a fun fact: Out side of his cup of coffee in 1993, Chipper Jones played 18 seasons and never had a WAA below 0.9. The Hall of Famer had a long career where he never had a bad season! Impressive!

Read more here:
Wins Above Average as a Measure of Peak and True Longevity - Off The Bench - Off The Bench Baseball

At almost 2 centimeters, the queen of the Texas leafcutter ant (Atta texana) is far bigger than her workers. She also has a longer life span.

By Yao-Hua LawMar. 25, 2021 , 2:00 PM

A small room in the University of Regensburg is home to more than 50 boxes of black, strikingly slender ants. Native to Central America, the clonal ant Platythyrea punctata has evolved a trait rare among ants: It can produce daughters from unfertilized eggs. A P. punctata colony can consist entirely of clones, produced by one or two dominant females. That uniformity underscores a mystery.

What is really fascinating is that they are the same genetically, says evolutionary biologist Abel Bernadou, pointing to the 30 or so ants in a box, but depending on their jobs, they will have totally different life spans. Members of the colonys working caste, which nurse the brood, hunt for food, and defend the nest, die within 7 months, even when well-fed and protected in the lab. But ants in the reproductive caste, whose sole job is to lay eggs, can live 10 to 16 months.

To Bernadou, the questions raised by those disparities are irresistible. What causes some ants to live twice as long as nest mates that have exactly the same genome? And how can reproduction, a taxing effort that speeds up aging in most animals, make these ants live longer instead?

Bernadou and his myrmecologist colleagues at Regensburg are part of a small cadre of researchers who have turned to social insectsants, bees, and termitesto help unravel the mysteries of aging. Its a developing field that rarely features in conferences on aging biology, where the spotlight is on mice, Drosophila fruit flies, and the minuscule nematode Caenorhabditis elegansthree species researchers have probed and tweaked for well over half a century to learn what controls their life spans.

Many who study those species have yet to be convinced that social insects have something important to contribute. They think its fun and worthwhile to know the diversity of aging, says biologist Gro Amdam, who studies aging in bees at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and Arizona State University, Tempe. But they dont think we will make major discoveries in social insects that are relevant to their work.

In the western honey bee (Apis mellifera), queens (middle) live longer than workers (top) and drones (bottom).

But Amdam and other social insect researcherswho this month published a big batch of findings ina thematic issue on aging and socialityin thePhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Bsay they promise new ways to understand aging. One reason is that many social insects live far longer than the more popular model organisms. Honey bee queens live up to 5 years, and termite and ant queens more than 20.Drosophila, by contrast, has a life span of 13 weeks at most, andC. elegansa mere 18 days. If you want to know how to die quickly, then work onDrosophila, quips evolutionary biologist Laurent Keller, who studies aging in ants at the University of Lausanne.

Even more intriguing is the fact that aging in social insects is plastic, changing with social context. Few social insects are as homogenous as clonal ants, but in most, queens and workers have very similar genomes, because all colony members are offspring of one or several queens. Yet whereas queens seem to stay youthful through their long lives, workers age quickly and die fast. And within a colony, a workers job determines its life span, even though by and large all workers are siblings. Scientists can rush, slow, or even reverse aging in ants and bees simply by having them mate or changing their tasks.

Revealing the molecular mechanisms behind these strange phenomena may ultimately shed more light on aging in general, including in humans, saysmolecular biologist Roberto Bonasioat the University of Pennsylvania, who studies epigenetics in mammals, flies, and ants: Thats the idea.

Aging, or senescence,is a progressive loss of function and performance with time. It saps the individuals capacity to withstand stress, fight diseases, heal wounds, or learn new skills. But must we age? Why did organisms not evolve to maintain their youthlike vigor until theyre about to die?

Rather counterintuitively, scientists argue aging is the outcome of natural selection, which favors genes that help an organism survive to reproductive age. Once the individual has produced offspring, selection for survival weakens, which opens the door for injurious genetic effects to accumulate. Aging sets in.

The strong selection to survive until reproduction may favor so-called pleiotropic genes, which are helpful in early life but harmful later on. An example is theclk1gene inC. elegans, which is known to boost the nematodes metabolism. The gene promotes early reproduction and gives individuals a fitness edge over competitors, but shortens their life span by 40%, in part because it speeds the buildup of harmful metabolic byproducts.

Scientists have suggested organisms living in more precarious environmentsfor instance ones thick with predators or competitorsexperience higher selection for survival and reproduction early in life, at the cost of faster aging later on. This so-called extrinsic mortality hypothesis is often used to explain why animals that fly, live underground, or are venomousand as a result face fewer threatsalso seem to live longer and presumably age less rapidly. Think of bats, which live far longer than other mammals of similar size.

The average maximum life span for solitary insects is much less than for reproductive individualsqueens, kings, and some workersamong social insects.

Within social insect species, the life span of reproductive individuals far exceeds that of those that do not produce offspring.

(Graphic) N. Desai/Science; (Data) L. Keller and M. Genoud, Nature, 389, 958 (1997); Korb et al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 376 (2021); Kramer et al., Experimental Gerontology, 85, 18, (2016); Oettler et al., Current Opinion in Insect Science, 16, 58, (2016); Thorne et al., Journal of Animal Ecology, 71, 1030, (2002); Peeters et al., Insectes Soc., 47, 325 (2000)

Back in the 1990s, Keller realized social insects offered an interesting way to test the extrinsic mortality hypothesis, he says. Safely ensconced in their nests and guarded by a legion of workers, ant queens are assumed to face a much lower risk of predation and disease, and thus of dying, than insects living a solitary life.

Keller and his Lausanne colleague Michel Genoud collected life span records of queens in 61 species of ants, termites, and the honey bee, and compared these with adults of 81 solitary insect species. On average,queens live 5 to 11 years, whereas solitary insects live only months, they reported in a 1997 paper. Everything was as the hypothesis predictedand the paper kick-started aging research in social insects.

The field facesplenty of challenges. Insect queens and kings are rare, which limits studies sample sizes. And keeping colonies of social insects alive can be laborious. At Regensburg, evolutionary biologist Jan Oettler and graduate student Luisa Jaimes maintain 200Cardiocondyla obscuriorant colonies that they need to feed and clean several times weekly over the 6 months or more that their queens live. By contrast, to grow hundreds ofDrosophilamaggots into adults, you only need a bottle, premade fly food, and 10 days. One nasty reviewer asked why, since we cant get the numbers, do we still useCardiocondylaa tiny tropical antinstead ofDrosophila, says myrmecologist Jrgen Heinze, who has been studying the ants for 30 years at Regensburg. They cant see the benefits.

Lagging experimental techniques are a problem as well. In mice, scientists can document physiological aging in urine and blood samples; inDrosophilaandC. elegans, they can insert molecular tags into cells that show gene expression in real time. Such molecular clocks dont exist yet for ants and termites. Thats a problem because aging isnt always a linear process: Queen ants often churn out eggs for months or years without visible aging, only to drop dead abruptly. Without reliable and nonlethal ways to trace aging or physiological changes at the molecular level, comparisons between old and young individuals are questionable. If you have a 10-day-old worker, to what do you compare it? A 10-day-old queen? Or a queen that has lived the same proportion of its average life span? Keller asks. This is difficult.

A worker of the Indian jumping ant (Harpegnathos saltator) tends the brood. When members of this species lay eggs, their brains develop40% more of a type of protective cell called ensheathing glia, researchers have found.

Gene editing would be a game changer for these studies, Oettler says, enabling scientists to disable specific genes and watch for effects on aging. But it has barely started to be used in social insects. Scientists only created thefirst genetically modified honey bees in 2014, andtwospeciesof genetically engineered antsin 2017. Amdam would love to see transgenic technology developed for free-flying honey bees, allowing real-world experiments on aging. But beekeepers staunchly oppose genetic modification, which they worry could affect their colonies, and regulators are wary. The moment you say free-flying transgenic bee, its no-no, Amdam says.

One way to speed progress, Bonasio says, is to consolidate our efforts on one or two species so that more [molecular] tools are available to everybody. But Heinze says researchers should embrace the bewildering variety of life histories and aging patterns seen in social insects. There is no standard ant, he says; for understanding the diverse causes and effects of aging, plurality is best.

Despite the challenges, scientists are starting to link aging patterns in social insects to the underlying molecules. One oddity theyre probing is the link between reproduction and longevity.

In most animals, high fecundity almost universally comes with a quick burnout; red deer, for example, age faster if they reproduce early. But social insect queens buck the trend: Reproduction stretches their life span rather than snipping it. For example, a 2005 study by Heinzes team found thatC. obscuriorqueens that mated had life spans 44% longer than virgin queens (26 weeks versus 18). And thats despite these mated queens hectic lifestyles: They laid up to five times more eggs, and at faster rates, than queens that did not mate or were mated with sterile males.

Other scientists have discovered that procreation also extends the life spans of queens of other ant species, honey bee queens, and termite queens and kings. In species where a limited number of workers in a colony can also reproduce, such as theP. punctataants that Bernadou studies, those that reproduce live longer, too.

In termites, reproduction may blunt the impact of transposons, bits of DNA that jump through the genome, disrupting genes and, at least in humans andC. elegans, promoting aging.Judith Korb, who studies aging in termites at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, compared transposon activity in two termite species. In the species with sterile workers, older workers have higher transposon activity; in the species where older workers can reproduce, they show better defense against damage from transposons.

Workers of the Japanese termite (Reticulitermes speratus) cant repair oxidative damage as well as queens (not shown) and live shorter lives.

Social insects brains appear to benefit from sex as well. WhenHarpegnathos saltatorants, also known as Indian jumping ants, lay eggs,their brain develops 40% more of a type of protective cellcalled ensheathing glia, Lihong Sheng, a postdoc in Bonasios lab, reported in August 2020. A decline of these cell types is associated with aging in flies and cognition loss in mice. If we know what the ants themselves use to control the number of [ensheathing glia] in the brains, Bonasio says, it could point to similar mechanisms in flies, mice, and maybe in humans. (Bonasio is now studying the phenomenon inDrosophilaflies; the ants showed us the way but once I know what the pathway is, I prefer to do the experiment inDrosophila because it is easier, he says.)

A workers job can also slow or speed up its aging. Honey bee workers, for instance, start out as nurse bees that stay in the hive and tend to the brood and the queen. About 3 weeks into their lives, they become foragers that fly out to collect food. Various studies show that nurse bees do not age, but foragers do so rapidly, declining in flight performance, immunity, and learning.

Amazingly, that process can be reversed. When a hive needs more nurse bees, foragers can switch back to their former roles. When Amdam removed nurse bees from hives, foragers were forced to revert to their former rolesand they also recovered their youthful traits. Such reverted nurse bees produce more cells that mop up pathogens, Amdam says. They also regain high levels of vitellogenin, a multipurpose, Swiss knife sort of protein that regulates a bees changing roles across its lifetime and declines as the insects age. She has found that reverted nurse bees learn faster than foragers of the same age and that their brains have more proteins associated with cellular stress resilience and repair.

These job switches in bees dont only mean a new line of work; they also bring a different set of interactions with other members of the colony. Amdam thinks a bees social life plays an important role in its longevity. Social contact is also known to affect human physiological and mental health, and loneliness has been identified as a risk factor for cognitive declinea provocative similarity. Although scientists have yet to determine how sociality can affect insects life span at the molecular level, it certainly has peoples attention, Amdam says.

Several papersin this months theme issue of thePhilosophical Transactionsdelve deeper into the molecular control of aging in social insects. Onecompared gene-expression patterns between young and old individualsof six species of ants, bees, and termites, for example. The study measured the activity of two biochemical pathways, both ubiquitous in animals, that detect nutrients and regulate cell development. Scientists had previously found strong links between these pathways and life spans in flies and other solitary insectsbut not in social insects.

In the new study, however, they scrutinized parts and products of the same pathways that had been largely neglected in aging research, and found genes and proteinsincluding vitellogeninthat strongly associate with aging in social insects. These results reinforce the need to cast a wide net and study aging in many species, says Korb, lead author of the new paper.

Thomas Flatt, who studies the genetics of aging inDrosophilaat the University of Fribourg, is one of the researchers who has been won over by the promise of social insects. Flatt has been working with Korb, Heinze, and other researchers in a6.2 million project funded by the German Research Foundationto study the unusual relationship between fecundity and aging in social insects. The genomic revolution will eventually help the field take flight, Flatt predicts, and give scientists a much better understanding of how aging works across the animal kingdom. My dream is that we will discover stuff in ants that is universally important, he saysthings we dont even know existed inDrosophila.

Correction, 26 March 2021, 1:35 p.m.: This story previously discussed the creation of transgenic ants in 2017.They were genetically engineered, but not transgenic.

Read the original post:
What can ants, bees, and other social insects teach us about aging? - Science Magazine

In March 2020, COVID-19s epicentre was moving west from China, heading towards Europe: already the Italian region of Lombardy was being locked down.

Tan Suee Chieh, now president of the UKs Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA), was blogging and tracking the pandemic, needing to verify projections he was making on the number of infections reaching one million by early April.

He contacted actuaries he knew in the UK through LinkedIn. These included Joseph Lu, director, longevity science at Legal & General, and Nicola Oliver, a former public health specialist and epidemiologist, now director of life and health with the research company she co-founded, Medical Intelligence.

Tan also contacted Chris Martin, director and head of modelling at Crystallise, a firm specialising in managing and modelling biomedical data.

Nick Spencer, chair of the IFoAs sustainability board, suggested that Tan contact Stuart McDonald, head of demographic assumptions and methodology at Lloyds Banking Group, who was saying the same thing on Twitter.

Over the weekend of 7 to 8 March, the idea of an informal group outside IFoA emerged from their discussions.

It was quickly agreed that a multi-disciplinary group needed to mobilise the professions response to the crisis. The initial members were Matthew Edwards, Nicola Oliver, Joseph Lu, and Chris Martin, Daniel Ryan and Craig Butler.

The COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group (ARG) was first convened on 10 March 2020. Instinctively, the group knew that humanity faced a global crisis of epic proportions, and had to do what it could quickly, meaningfully, and thoughtfully.

Now numbering 12 members with a range of specialities, from actuarial to medical, the groups aim is to help people understand and respond to the crisis, and establish itself as a reliable source of information.

The aims are to learn, share, educate and influence, says Tan.

That, he says, was the ARGs objective. But, that this could also lead to the IFoA confidently finding its voice in the public domain, was Tans thinking as he prepared for his presidential inauguration in June 2020.

He says: COVID-19 is a tragic event of epic proportions, but it gave us an opportunity to unlock our expertise and revive our public interest role to address not only longevity but other related areas as well. It is a way for the profession to make itself more relevant and more widely heard.

The concept of the ARG as a group of professionals dedicated to studying the wider scheme of things, beyond the immediate area of its own point of view, is shared by other group members.

KEY POINTS

The ARGs target audience was originally the actuarial profession, but its reach has grown beyond expectations, says Edwards, a Willis Towers Watson actuary and longevity specialist. Edwards is also ARG co-chair, along with McDonald and Oliver an arrangement reflecting the groups collaborative nature.

Getting to know Tan Suee Chieh

Born in Malaysia and based in Singapore, Tan Suee Chieh is a true citizen of the world, in a philosophical and geographical sense.

Tan holds degrees from the London School of Economics and Columbia University, alongside fellowships from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA), Society of Actuaries (in the US) and Singapore Actuarial Society, as well as being a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.

As the current IFoA president, and with a high-profile track record in the insurance industry, he sees himself as an enabler in broadening the relevance of the actuarial profession outside the narrow remit of longevity statistics.

COVID-19 is not a black swan, but a grey swan, Tan says. How could we have missed seeing it?

But global risks are not restricted to the virus, he says: We see many inter-locking systemic risks. We have had the global financial crisis, the loss of biodiversity, climate risk and other events besides the pandemic all of this has increased because of globalisation, networks and societal emphasis on growth.

This all has an impact on sustainability, he says. Asrisk professionals, we have a public duty to help ensure the systems we live in are more sustainable.

Tans passion for psychology led him to take a sabbatical in 2002 to complete his Masters in social and organisational psychology and this has informed his work with the ARG. He says the debate on COVID-19 has spread to other social issues.

The zeitgeist has changed, he says. There is a range of choices as to how active actuaries could be in terms of issues ranging from economic security equality to climate risk, and these include the use of social media such as LinkedIn and Twitter.

He adds: COVID-19, climate risk and inequalities highlighted by Black Lives Matter are all relevant as they impact sustainability. As actuaries we cannot take action on everything, but we can take a more active and positive role in the public debate. This speaks to the voice and thought leadership of the profession.

The ARG has published over a hundred bulletins, covering not only the mortality implications of COVID-19 but also vaccine efficacy and approval, hospital admissions and R estimates from sources around the world. Bulletins are published on its website at http://www.covid-arg.com and on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Several of these reports have considered the medium and long-term longevity impacts of COVID-19. For example, a bulletin on the longer-term mortality and morbidity impacts of the pandemic examined the consequences of COVID-19 relating to:

Economic shock heavy reductions in GDP for the large western economies predicted by the OECD are likely to mean reduced government funding for health.

The physiological impact on severe symptoms survivors. These include lung scarring and cardiac damage. Such problems are set to be significant, on the basis of fallout from the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) pandemic in 2003 their prediction has been borne out with the emergence of long Covid.

Behavioural changes, such as in alcohol usage, smoking, diet and exercise.

Mental health here, isolation and extreme uncertainty, plus the possibility of unemployment, are likely to provoke mental health problems, for example, affecting an estimated 500,000 people in the UK. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was a common condition among SARS survivors.

The conclusion was that the sum of all four factors and given the impact of behavioural changes will probably be short-term is likely to be material and negative.

The impact on survivor mortality of importance to pension funds and life insurers is examined in another bulletin.

This points out that COVID-19 mortality is associated with risk factors such as obesity and diabetes that also imply higher normal (all-cause) mortality. One effect could be that the overall mortality of the post-pandemic survivor pool turns out to be lighter than before.

The bulletin sets out how this impact might be estimated. The example it uses shows that the effect is likely to be low, other than in subgroups with a high proportion of COVID-19 deaths.

Another bulletin focused on social isolation.Social isolation is associated with higher mortality. Several research studies are cited to substantiate this. For example, a 2018 Danish study of about 21,600 people found social isolation was associated with 60-70% increases to all-cause mortality.

However, there is no good research on the effects of mass lockdowns, rather than the individual social isolation that is already known (which may partly be caused by, rather than causing, bad health), and the studies looked at are more suggestive guides to possible impacts.

With much of the next year, if not beyond, likely to involve continuing social distancing and isolation in various forms for many parts of society, we need to consider the possible mortality impacts of such isolation, says Edwards, writing in October 2020. The onus of enforced or heavily prescribed isolation is likely to fall on the oldest, and this may have a material impact on longevity.

At the time, Edwards suggested a plausible scenario to estimate the impact of this would be to assume that 50% of the over-75s endure a long period of either formal social isolation or heavily reduced social participation.

He says research implies that scenario could lead to a 25% to 50% increase in mortality for one to two years for those affected. This would be equivalent to anything from an increase of 12.5% to 50% in a typical years deaths for the over-75s, although perhaps spread over several years.

Considering the effects of COVID-19 as a whole, Edwards concludes: We think its longer-term impact on mortality will be negative. It probably wont be the case that life expectancy declines. But mortality improvements will be lower.

There is a great deal of flexibility involved in the group as a whole, particularly in trying to avoid the need for unanimous decisions, says Edwards.

Its less about rules and procedure, more about mutual trust and competence, he says. Having said that, when you have a common enemy like COVID-19, its easier to have unity.

The group meets for an hour over Zoom initially weekly and now fortnightly to discuss the strategic issues and ideas, with, of course, frequent WhatsApp and e-mail contact in between.

Most UK members of the group already knew each other, given their leading roles in the industry, but Tan and other non-UK members have met only virtually for instance, Tan has never met Edwards or McDonald.

COVID-19 is a human tragedy but it may have changed the way we work and create, Tan says.

But he says he has now met all IFoA council members: Thanks to Zoom, Im meeting more people than ever.

Looking to the future, Tan says that one of the few positive outcomes of COVID-19 is that the ARG could become a model for bringing other strategic and thought leadership issues under the IFoA umbrella for discussion.

It is a bottom-up creation which can shine a light on areas of focus, he says. Other subjects may not be as immediately compelling as COVID-19, but are no less important. The ARG has been and continues to be a forum for ongoing work. It can produce measured, erudite and long-term output to give actuaries guidance and help them to learn.

The ARG has pointed the way for the IFoA to be slightly bolder and more imaginative in our public engagement, but always in a manner which does credit to the profession, he says.

In the short term however, and with the hope that the world is close to the end of the second wave of the virus, there is a more immediate aspiration.

We hope that were gradually winding down and the vaccine will make us extinct, says Edwards. Wed like to not have a reason to exist.

Read the rest here:
Perspective: Exceeding expectations | Features | IPE - IPE.com - IPE.com

It is unclear how old Mr. Burns is. Based on Simpsons canon and various clues throughout the series run we can surmise that Charles Montgomery Burns has surpassed the boundaries of human longevity. His vehicle ownership also gives the shows audience a fair idea that he is from a bygone era:

You there, fill it up with petroleum distillate and re-vulcanize my tires, post haste. from r/TheSimpsons

The Ford Quadricycle was the first vehicle developed by Henry Ford and produced from 1896 to 1901. It is a true Horseless Carriage that could hit 20 mph under the power of its 59ci two-cylinder 4hp engine. A two-speed manual transmission without reverse was paired with the engine.

In the season seven episode Scenes From The Class Struggle In Springfield Mr. Burns drives a Quadracycle to a gas station and says, You there, fill it up with petroleum distillate and re-vulcanize my tires, post haste.

Charles Goodyear came up with the concept of vulcanizing tires and received the patent for it in 1844. A part of me thinks that Goodyear and Burns were peers based on using antiquated jargon for tires.

Charlie Merz of the United States with his riding mechanic Harry Martin aboard the #2 Stutz Motor Company Stutz Bearcat racer during the third running of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race on 30 May 1913 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Speedway, Indianapolis, United States. (Photo by Topical Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images).

In season nine, episode 20 The Trouble With Trillions, Mr. Burns absconds to the airport with Homer and Waylon Smithers. Mr. Burns loyal assistant is behind the wheel of his boss maroon 1936 Stutz Bearcat.

The Bearcat was introduced in 1912 and was produced until 1924. It was right-hand drive, featured external .gearshift and brake levers, and had a 360ci 16-valve four-cylinder engine.There was a revival of the model in 1931and its run ended in 1934

At a price of $2,000 in 1914, $52,602 today, it was a luxury vehicle and would suit Mr. Burns. There is the slight issue that there isnt a 1936 Stutz Bearcat for Mr. Burns to own, but we have suspended reality in regards to his age and we can do the same with the year of his car.

At one time Mr. Burns had a drivers license issued by the Springfield DMV but it expired in 1909. Even if it hadnt expired with would been revoked or suspended after he ran over Bart in the shows second season. The matter went to trial and despite Mr. Burns obvious guilt in the matter the civil suit aspect was doomed by the Simpsons lawyer Lionel Hutz. The case was settled for nothing and we dont see Mr. Burns drive again for four-seasons.

In episode 17 of season seven Mr. Burns operates his own car but it seems that years of being chauffeured about has led him to forget how to drive.

Im sure the manual will indicate which lever is the velocitator and which the deceleratrix. Mr. Burns in Homer the Smithers.

A cursory search on Merriam-Webster indicates that neither velocitator or deceleratrix are words. But he conveys his point that he is not clear how modern cars operate and his not obeying traffic laws or common sense create havoc in downtown Springfield.

For the greater good of the community maybe its better that Smithers drives Mr. Burns around Springfield.

More:
Mr. Burns: Expired License To Drive - Art of Gears

What is epigenetics?

The word epigenetics is derived from the Greek word epi, meaning over or above, and in this case, over or above the genome. This area of research involves the study of how our behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way our genes work. Genes are made of a chemical called DNA.

Epigenetic changes are vital to normal biological functioning and can affect natural cycles of cellular death, renewal, and senescence. Different lifestyle and behavioral factors such as diet, sleep, exercise, smoking, and drinking alcohol can also affect the composition and location of the chemical groups that bind to our DNA. Environmental factors such as stress and trauma or even neighborhoods or zip codes may also have an impact.

As part of NIAs work to increase health span the part of a persons life during which he or she is generally in good health several NIA-funded researchers are accelerating understanding of these epigenetic markers and mechanisms of aging.

Payel Sen, Ph.D., a Stadtman investigator with the NIA Intramural Research Program, leads a team using epigenetic techniques to study the repair of aging or damaged cells. Her lab is currently focused on whether liver tissue and cells can be restored to a younger state to heal the damage from aging, disease, or injury.

The first step to better understanding epigenetics, Sen said, is understanding the intricate way long strands of DNA are packaged inside our cells. Inside the nuclei of cells from all living things, each of those tightly coiled, very long DNA strands contain a set of instructions to build that organism.

If you drew out the DNA that's wound up inside of just one cell nucleus, it would be six feet long, she added.

DNA inside the cell nucleus is highly organized and specifically structured, wound around proteins called histones, which are proteins found in cell nuclei that impact the packing and formation of DNA, into structures known as nucleosomes. Similar to clothespins arranged in intricate three-dimensional patterns on a winding clothesline, nucleosomes can be spaced tightly or far apart. Their spacing and organization is affected by exposure to various chemicals, both those that are found naturally inside our bodies as well as those that originate from our environment including food, drugs, and toxins.

As DNAs spacing and organization changes, different genes become accessible to other parts of our bodies genetic machinery that read genes and turn them on. This is called gene expression, which starts the process to create the proteins that are the building blocks of the cell activity and growth connected to that gene. Conversely, other chemicals in the body, especially compounds called methyl groups, at certain positions on histones, can alter the spacing and organization of genes. This, in effect, turns them off so they wont be read. This process is known as gene regulation.

A variety of other biological interactions are involved, but in general, epigenetics provides an additional layer of instructions that can affect where and when our genes are expressed that doesnt change the genetic code itself.

Our epigenetic processes are under exquisite control in our bodies, but they are also extremely influenced by the environment, Sen said. Lets say you go to the beach and you get exposed to a lot of ultraviolet rays. Certain regions of your skin cells genomes are going to react to that and produce byproducts that may not be good for our skin.

On the other hand, Sen points out that mild levels of environmental stress can be beneficial. Exercise, being exposed to changes in temperature by not just being in an air-conditioned room all the time, and so on, these kinds of things might make us more resilient, she added.

Epigenetics can also mark accurate chronological time versus biological time. Our chronological age is based on our birthdate, but biological age means the true age that our cells, tissues, and organ systems appear to be, based on biochemistry. Our epigenome is affected by our environment and experiences over time, similar to how rings on the inside of a tree can tell us the trees age and mark where it had encountered damage or stress.

Steve Horvath, Ph.D., Sc.D., of the University of California, Los Angeles, along with his twin brother and their friends and collaborators, have been interested in longevity since they were teenagers.

We were complete amateurs, but at some point, we realized that extending healthy lifespan is a prerequisite for addressing many other grand challenges of our civilization, Horvath said.

Horvath went on to discover an epigenetic clock that allows us to measure the age of all human tissues. Past models of biological versus chronological age were based on an analysis of telomeres. These are structures at the end of chromosomes that keep them from tangling with each other and play an important role in DNA replication during cell division.

Horvath zeroed in on a natural epigenetic process known as DNA methylation, through which methyl groups attach to cytosines, one of the four main building blocks of our genetic code. By studying changes and patterns in DNA methylation over time in various body tissues, he perfected a molecular clock. More recent human clocks have been developed as estimators of mortality risk. Horvath and his team have since analyzed the DNA methylation clocks from 174 different mammalian species, including exceptionally long-living animals such as the naked mole rats, bats, and bowhead whales. This work resulted in a universal biological aging clock for all mammalian species.

As Horvath has refined this work, it has informed projects seeking epigenetic mechanisms with therapeutic potential. He currently is participating in the expansion of a small, preliminary human study to see if a treatment to change the methylation of sites on ones DNA could help restore youthful function to the thymus gland. The goal is to prevent the natural age-related degradation of our immune systems ability to ward off disease and infection.

Like much of the epigenetic field, many obstacles remain for translating animal and cellular lab models to human trials, but the potential is intriguing. Horvath hopes that continued studies, and eventually, rigorous human trials, will someday unlock new ways to slow biologic aging and extend human lifespan.

Thats kind of the Holy Grail in my lab, to identify and validate anti-aging interventions, he said.

Multiple scientists are researching how to use epigenetics to help heal the body. Others seek to determine how physical or emotional scars from ones environment or early years, along with our lifestyle and habits, can affect our biological age and outcomes as we grow older.

For example, NIA-funded Researcher Morgan Levine, Ph.D., of the Yale University Department of Pathology, has made major strides in applying modern computational analysis to finding biomarkers that connect to differences between calendar and biological age. Biomarkers are signatures in the body that can help measure natural processes or disease, infections, or toxin exposure. Levine used a machine learning approach to find patterns in big longitudinal studies like the CDCs National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to identify a set of nine biomarkers that were accurate predictors of future disease risk, functioning, and mortality when combined with participants calendar ages.

A lot of times well define biological age in one dimension, but we know aging itself is multidimensional, so we want to better understand personal aging, not just the rate but the diversity of experiences, plus different risk factors based on lifestyle or background.

Levines research has shown evidence of big differences in healthy aging outcomes between socioeconomic groups. For example, accelerated aging among African Americans makes their biological age about three years greater than white peers of the same chronological age. We see huge disparities between racial and ethnic groups, Levine said. We dont think those are innate genetic differences but more about what different groups experience and encounter over their lives.

Terrie Moffitt, Ph.D., of Duke University, another NIA-supported researcher this field, studies how behavioral and social factors in early life may influence long-term differences in biological age, mortality, and health outcomes. Her team tracks early life adversity, chronic stress, childhood health, personality, and intelligence along with less measurable but vital puzzle pieces such as social connectedness, isolation, and a sense of purpose throughout our lives.

Moffitt and her team study data from longitudinal studies like New Zealands Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study that has been tracking and testing participants since the early 1970s. One study revealed a surprising factor connected to our biological age: intelligence levels measured earlier in life. Dunedin participants who had higher IQ test scores as children consistently had younger biological age measures as adults than fellow participants with lower childhood intelligence.

There are many possible explanations. It could be that kids with higher IQs grow up into adults who tend to have indoor, white collar jobs that are less physically taxing and require less exposure to the stressors, thus not accumulating years of extra biological age. Perhaps higher intelligence means a stronger family support network, access to resources, and an understanding of the importance of healthy diet and exercise.

But Moffitt sees the lifelong connection between aging rate and intelligence as a puzzle that needs further study. She says it could underscore the importance of working to close gaps in education, nutrition, and health care for at-risk children across the world.

There's the possibility that childhood intelligence is sort of like a canary in the coal mine, she said. The brain is our hungriest organ and uses the most resources of all the body. So, it could be that if there's anything wrong anywhere in the body with physical health, that it shows up first in the functions of the brain. So even though children often look pretty darn healthy, if you give them IQ tests you can find some variation that gives you a clue for who's going to end up aging fast or slow.

Multiple studies have shown that racial and ethnic minorities tend to have lower socioeconomic status and education levels, which tend to co-occur with higher levels of adversity, trauma, obesity, addiction, depression, and stress. These all need to be accounted for, along with biology, if we are truly going to get an accurate picture of human aging and the different rates at which we age, and the variations in resilience to obstacles. Research on these types of health disparities remain a strategic priority for NIA.

One of the most promising, Nobel Prize-winning epigenetic techniques uses a harmless virus to introduce special genes called Yamanaka factors (after the researcher who discovered them) to undo the epigenetic programming of mature cells. This process transforms the mature cells back into their younger stem cell form. Having those younger cells in place has been shown to regenerate some function lost to age, illness, or injury.

Recently, NIA-supported researchers led by David Sinclair, Ph.D., A.O., of Harvard University, also came up with a novel technique using Yamanaka factors in an experiment in lab mice that shows great promise for future paths toward treating age-related vision problems. Working in lab cell cultures, the team was able to reverse damage to vision-related neural cells and later made progress restoring some vision loss in a mouse model of glaucoma, a leading cause of age-related human blindness.

Yamanaka factors also feature prominently in the work of another NIA-supported researcher in this field, Thomas Rando, M.D., Ph.D., of Stanford University. Rando is working to uncover whether there is a way to keep our muscle cells young and vital. Another focus of his work is in identifying therapeutic interventions that may be able to mimic the natural benefits of diet and exercise.

We started pursuing this idea that aging is at least in part an epigenetic phenomenon and that the age of a cell can be modified and modulated, said Rando. We want to find out whats responding to these external stimuli at a molecular level thats actually making an old cell young. What is that reprogramming process and what is the state of young versus old?

Today, his team pursues research on combining Yamanaka factors with different body tissues to revitalize and repair them. Rando likens it to the popular comic book character Wolverine who has a mutation giving him a super-fast healing factor that regenerates injured tissue and protects him from toxins.

We see this in a movie, and we all say, Yeah right, but thats exactly what we do biologically, but we just do it more slowly, he said.

Rando hopes to someday find safe, effective techniques for stem cell-based, targeted treatments for everything from sports injuries to muscular dystrophy to broken hips. The idea is to get injured tissues or diseased organs to heal faster like they did in their younger days. While modern science is still very far away from such a proven intervention, Rando is optimistic. Say you break a bone. If youre 70 years old and break a bone, youd like to apply a therapy to make that bone heal like a 20- or 30-year-old, he said.

The science of epigenetics offers intriguing windows into how and why we age at different rates. It also holds both great promise and potential peril for unethical or inequitable use. While this field is growing fast, it is still evolving, and many of the technologies are still only used in animal models and have not yet been approved for humans. Be skeptical and cautious when considering any anti-aging interventions, especially if something seems too good to be true.

While its nice to imagine how epigenetics could someday be manipulated to heal or restore, common sense advice on healthy aging remains: eat right, exercise, get enough sleep, moderate unhealthy habits, and stay socially connected.

Thereve been a lot of books and movies about how people want to extend their lifespans through technology, but I think we're already there in a sense, through medical technology, whether its hip replacements, cataract surgery, or heart pumps that extend our years of life, Duke Universitys Moffitt surmised. But what we all would really like is to have a longer health expectancy: to still be healthy, active, happy and well into our golden years.

More here:
The epigenetics of aging: What the body's hands of time tell us - National Institute on Aging

An average vaccination rate isn't going to be enough for New York and New Jersey, where the COVID-19 infection rate is climbing. The former coronavirus hotspots are again the site of the highest rates of COVID-19 infection in the country, according to several trackers.

Both states top NPR's heat map, which shows the risk level of infection in each state: New York with an average of 9,709 new cases per day in the last week and New Jersey with 4,395 new cases per day, which is an 11 percent jump from last week. Transmission levels are high across the entire Garden State, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, while in New York community transmission is highest in the southeast region of the state, including New York City.

Our country is in a historic fight against the Coronavirus. Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.

Despite being lauded for its response to the coronavirus pandemic in the fall, avoiding the surge in states that reopened more quickly, New Jersey saw a dramatic spike after reopening at the end of winter. The state is now pausing its reopening and expanding vaccine eligibility to restaurant workers as new variants are identified in the region.

In New York, the surge is not as deadly as it was last year, when the state was an epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, and has plateaued albeit at a relatively high rate of infection. Still, some are questioning the state's reopening plan.

"I ask the governor to stick to the science, trust the experts, and pause the planned reopenings now, before they take effect and more are infected," New York City's Public Advocate Jumaane Williams told The Associated Press.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CORONAVIRUS RIGHT NOW

TRUMPS HEAD OF CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE SAYS MOST COVID-19 DEATHS COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED

TRUMPS CDC DIRECTOR MAKES SHOCKING STATEMENT ABOUT ORIGIN OF COVID-19 IN WUHAN LAB

EXTREMISTS ARE SPREADING APOCALYPTIC WARNINGS ABOUT COVID-19 VACCINES

PFIZER IS NOW TESTING A COVID-19 PILL

NEW STUDY WARNS PFIZER AND MODERNA COVID-19 VACCINES COULD BE FAR LESS EFFECTIVE AGAINST SOUTH AFRICA VARIANT

Original post:
This is now the worst US state for COVID-19 infections | TheHill - The Hill

Longevity for the Nevada man is projected to be 75.6 years, probably because we drink, smoke, gamble, and stay up 'til midnight howling at the moon. However, low as that number may be, it would be lower yet, were it not for saintly Nevada women who will be the saving of us.

Grandmother, mother, wife, friend, they are the bedrock that keeps a man's body & soul together, not to mention providing comfort and joy.

Truth be known, were it not for the steady hand that rocks us from cradle to grave, we men would have blown ourselves to kingdom come by now, mistakenly taking the sunnier sex along with us for the ride. No, it's the women folks who have the greatest capacity for love.

Only she can put a stop to internecine wars, for only when world powers are governed by women will we finally see warfare for what it is, the most grotesque of all embezzlements ever perpetuated by man.

When women finally rule we can say goodbye to genocide, jihads, crusades, and forever wars. A womans hand on the cradle of globalization is what our weary, worn-out world needs, and we need it right now today.

A tenacious pandemic along with an escalating climate crisis has temporarily focused our attentions more on saving lives than on threatening lives. For the first time in perhaps a hundred years the world has more heroes in the field of health than on the field of battle, and a good portion of those heroes are women.

Hunters have ruled and riled the world all along throughout the hoary halls of history, its time we give the gatherers a showing. Having already passed the longevity age for Nevada males myself, I will not be around to get to see the heaven-sent day, but the day will come when promoting general welfare and greater good will prevail, and it will be women who will usher in that all too belated and much welcomed day.

To my mind, there is nothing more reassuring than a goodhearted woman with lines in her face where the smiles have been, and a sparkle in her eye that hints of her eagerness to humor man into striving to be a better man, a kinder man, a more charitable man, with each passing day, month, and year. It's stirring, really, to know that this same goodhearted woman can take the reins of a country and usher that country into an age of world-wide reconciliation and goodwill.

Oh, and not to forget, we must remember to look out after our dear old mother, Mother Nature, along with our consanguineal mothers of course.

In closing I would leave you with an age old question, where would we be without women? Scarce, my friend, mighty scarce.

For more than 30 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope, Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: Its like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American.

Go here to see the original:
Pine Nuts with McAvoy Layne: They're goodhearted women and much more | Carson City Nevada News - Carson Now