Category Archives: Immortality Medicine

The 7-Eleven trip should have done Wiley Brooks in.

For most dieters, his shopping list on that fateful day in 1983 (chicken pot pie, chili and biscuits) would be, at worst, an embarrassment. But Brooks was no average weight-watcher. He was the founder of the spiritual and pseudoscientific movement known as Breatharianism, famous for spreading the gospel that humans could live on air alone. He claimed he hadnt eaten in 19 years. To his followers, the binge was an unforgivable sin as if God himself had taken a bite out of the forbidden apple.

The allegation of convenience store consumption came from Lavelle Lefler, co-founder of the Breatharian Institute, then based in Larkspur. The truth is he sneaks into 7-Elevens and fast food places and eats just like the rest of us except worse because he has to rely on places that are open late into the night, she told United Press International in 1983. Brooks shot back that Lefler was a scorned ex-lover, but more allegations emerged, including an assistant who said hed spotted Brooks drinking a can of Coca-Cola. A mass mutiny soon followed.

Yet that very public scandal didnt stop Breatharianism. Instead of dying out, the movement spread around the globe, fracturing over the decades into stranger, more dangerous forms. Its even helped shape health and wellness culture as we know it today.

A 1981 photo of the tent Wiley Brooks slept in outside his then-home in Boulder, Colo.

How Brooks became a Breatharian is as nebulous as the science behind his claims. He certainly wanted to make a name for himself; the hopeful holy man first gained national attention in 1980 by deadlifting 1,100 pounds on an ABC variety show called Thats Incredible! while bragging that he hadnt eaten in nearly two decades. While the Daily Mail reported hed been a New York-based sound engineer for the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, this reporter has been unable to find any evidence that he mixed for these titans of rock. A year after his bodybuilding stunt, with the spotlight dimming, he appeared on Tom Snyders The Tomorrow Show to argue once again that anyone could subsist exclusively on air and sunlight.

The idea of extended fasting is centuries old. An ancient Hindu text, the Ramayana, referred to saints who could sustain themselves on air and sunshine; some modern Jains have claimed to fast for months at a time. Brooks himself said hed learned the secret from an Indian fakir, or religious ascetic.

Breatharianism is a philosophy that believes that the human body, when its in perfect harmony with itself and nature, is a perfect Breatharian you know, all the constituents that we need is taken from the air we breathe, Brooks told Snyder, in front of a studio audience that seemed both amused and entranced by his words.

There is only one thing that keeps the human body alive, and that is breathing. The food that we take is the same as any other thing we take into the body as it becomes a habit. In other words, eating is an acquired habit, just like alcohol or smoking cigarettes.

He went on to make other strange, spurious claims, including that Breatharian mothers dont need to feed their babies, who are born able to survive on air and sun. He also said that hunger strikers who die are killed by their death wish, not from starvation.

Basic scientific knowledge of the human body notwithstanding, Brooks message was beguiling, taking the nascent popularity of New Age culture at the time and translating it into the language of what we now call wellness. With his heavy focus on spirituality, he made the leap from diet peddler to guru.

The Breatharian sales pitch began with Brooks himself. This was a fit and dapper man, who, at the age of 45, lifted nearly 10 times his body weight on national television. While he did admit to an occasional glass of water or juice, he claimed to need nothing else but an hour of sleep a night. He seemed to suggest that if he could muster this miraculous, otherworldly state, then anyone could.

All the things we've heard about, we must get old, we must get weak, ... that is not the case, he told Snyder. When a person gets older and wiser, he should get younger. He should not die in an unhealthy body.

Despite his many public detractors including the Pacific News Service, which called Breatharianism a diet cult Brooks soon had a healthy cohort of followers. He opened the Larkspur-based Breatharian Institute at the end of 1982 and began teaching classes. Dozens of adherents paid $500 for lessons from the master himself.

In the first session, Brooks advised against starting with fasting. Rather, he wanted his followers to first clean their blood by eating foods with a yellow vibrational quality. This encompassed everything from grapefruit, papaya and chicken to Haagen-Dazs rum raisin ice cream.

Over the years, his story and his rules about what Breatharians could and could not eat kept changing. Its even possible the foods with yellow auras were based on whatever he felt like eating that day. In 1983, institute co-founder Lefler told the San Bernardino County Sun that the man loves Colonel Sanders and could eat a dozen donuts in a single sitting. Brooks responded to allegations of inconsistency by saying the true message of Breatharianism did not depend on whether he ate or not anyway, according to a Pacific News Service story about the mass exodus from the Breatharian Institute that followed Leflers public statements.

Michelle Pfeiffer speaks onstage at The Hollywood Reporter 2021 Power 100 Women in Entertainment, presented by Lifetime at Fairmont Century Plaza on Dec. 08, 2021, in Los Angeles.

Most of what happened to Brooks for the rest of the 80s has been lost to history. One hint, though, came in 2013, when the actress Michelle Pfeiffer said shed been introduced to the cult by a very controlling couple as a young up-and-comer in Hollywood.

The Breatharian Institute moved around several times over the next few years, using similar grifts in new locations: first Arlington, Texas, then Bellevue, Washington. His logic shifted again in 1993, when he told the Seattle Times that he no longer believed food was an addiction. Though he still believed food was a poison, he also believed it could serve as medicine, a salve for low-quality city air. He himself occasionally balanced his aura with orange juice, honey and Twinkies, he said.

It got even more odd, and arguably, less healthy at the turn of the century. In 1999, he opened a new Breatharian Institute in Santa Cruz, and began teaching seminars in the Sierra Nevada focused on "the fountain of youth" and "how to obtain everlasting life and live from now on, forever.

I guarantee it! Wiley wrote on the Breatharian website.

In 2009, the official gospel of Breatharianism was updated again, this time with a convoluted explanation of how a McDonalds cheeseburger meal and a Diet Coke can help keep a Breatharian healthy. In a fifth-dimensional universe, apparently, the base frequency of the meal aligns with the needs of man.

Around the time he began to endorse McDonalds meals, Brooks began to peddle an elixir of the gods, a 32-ounce bottle of water that supposedly flows from the legendary fountain of youth and immortality in the Garden of Eden, and costs up to $10,000. By the 2010s, of course, Brooks followed the trends of conspiracy and began decrying the Illuminati and chemtrails for making it harder to become a Breatharian.

When Brooks himself ascended to a higher plane in 2016, at the age of 80, his vision of Breatharianism was a sad fringe phenomenon with a few adherents devoted to its founder. But his philosophy had spread widely even after his 80s downfall, with at least a dozen gurus taking up the mantle of Breatharianism around the globe in the 90s and onward.

The most prominent Breatharian, following Brooks brief reign, was Jasmuheen, an Australian woman born as Ellen Greve. Throughout the 90s, she claimed to subsist merely on air and a few cups of tea until the Aussie news program 60 Minutes debunked her entirely. When they locked her in a hotel room for 48 hours, she quickly developed high blood pressure and severe dehydration. (She claimed that she was not provided fresh air in this experiment, where seventy percent of my nutrients come from.)

Jasmuheen speaking at an event on Nov. 6, 2010, in Long Beach, Calif.

Jasmuheen, like Brooks, was also regularly accused of eating. A journalist once found her with a fridge full of food, and she was once caught ordering a plate of airline food. (She claimed that both were for her partner.)

Tragically, the popularity of starvation-as-religion eventually led to the deaths of at least two people: a 49-year-old Scottish woman named Verity Linn and a 33-year-old Australian named Lani Morris. Both died from dehydration midway through extended fasts in remote areas. Both owned copies of Jasmuheens book, Living On Light.

Jasmuheen denied responsibility for their deaths.

Even though Brooks was widely ridiculed in the media, its easy to see why his ideas found a foothold in the 80s and 90s. Low-fat and low-calorie junk foods like Lean Cuisine and Diet Coke filled Americans fridges and minds, turning food into a deep source of shame. The idea of self-restriction as the essence of health and beauty was shamelessly promoted in books and daytime television.

The rise of wellness culture has given new oxygen to Breatharianism, as it wraps starvation diets in the costume of spirituality and health, trading sugar-free cookies for juice cleanses, intermittent fasting and Keto diets. In 2014, Ukrainian woman Valeria Lukyanova also known as the human Barbie claimed she was a Breatharian who only ate cosmic micro-food. In 2017, the California- and Ecaudor-based couple Akahi Ricardo and Camila Castillo claimed to have skipped food for at least three years including during Castillos first birth.

Ukrainian model Valeria Lukyanova walks the runway during the Dosso Dossi Fashion Show in Antalya, Turkey, on Dec. 17, 2015.

And in 2017, a 22-year-old German man named Finn Bogumil was so strongly inspired by Breatharianism, he died of fasting.

Wellness culture, like Brooks, tells us to fear aging and detest weight gain, as if these things are moral failures rather than an inescapable part of the human condition. Whether through nutritional deprivation or immortality-through-technology, transcending the body and its flaws is all the rage right now. And what comes after humanity but holiness?

People dont know what God looks like and who He is, Brooks told Vice toward the end of his life. Why in the hell couldnt it be me? Why couldnt it be you?

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The strange, sad Bay Area diet cult that fell apart over a chicken pot pie - SF Gate

Aging is a particularly troublesome affair, and until recently it was considered to be an inescapable fact of life. Over the past few decades, however, scientists have discovered that aging follows a predictable path. Unsurprisingly, there is great interest in avoiding that path.

As we age, we experience a gradual decline of physiological function. Over time, our cells accumulate damage and their performance suffers. When the damage reaches a threshold, cells die. Fortunately, there is a system for replacing the dying cells stem cells. Unfortunately, stem cells also age. Consequently, their performance suffers, and they lose their capacity to create healthy new cells.

The new biotechnology firm Altos Labs has recently announced it was taking on aging. At first glance, it is hard to get excited about this. After all, a half-dozen biotech firms have made similar statements over the past decade or so. Altos Labs, which has already secured $3 billion in funding, hasnt released much information about their strategy, only that they are focused on cellular rejuvenation programming to restore cell health and resilience, with the goal of reversing disease to transform medicine. Catchy sales pitch, but not a lot of substance.

Altos Labs has, however, released a lot of information about the scientists theyve recruited, and it is an impressive list, comprising some of the superstars in aging-related disorder research. These scientists backgrounds would suggest Altos Labs has a two-pronged research strategy: 1) reverse the damage that occurs as we age and 2) rejuvenate stem cells capacity to create healthy new cells. A spa day and a cocktail, basically.

Stress ages us. Thus, one of the keys to living a long and healthy life is to relax. We cant escape stress, but if we relax after a stressful event, we can escape many of the consequences of stress.

Stress also ages our cells. Admittedly, they arent dealing with psychological stress from poverty or global pandemics, but they have their own problems, such as nutrient deprivation and viral infection. These cellular stressors can damage a cells proteins, and if there is a lot of damaged protein, a cell cant function well. Cells cannot escape stress. They may not become infected, but they will suffer some form of stress eventually. Luckily, cells have a mechanism for escaping the consequences of stress: the integrated stress-response (ISR) pathway.

When cellular stressors are detected, the ISR initiates spa mode. However, instead of relaxing while a masseuse rubs away muscle knots, cellular spa mode involves shutting down non-essential cellular operations and cleansing the cell of damaged proteins. If the cleansing is successful, the cell is rejuvenated. If not, then ISR presses the termination button. The cell dies, but ideally, a stem cell quickly creates a healthy new cell to replace it.

ISR is more active as we get older, which means cells spend more time in spa mode. A comparison of adult and older male mice demonstrated an increase of ISR activity levels in all tested tissues, including kidney, liver, colon, brain, testes, pancreas, lung, and heart.

However, it is not clear if the increase in ISR activity is a good thing. On one hand, it might promote health in old animals by rejuvenating cells. On the other hand, it might instead contribute to destroying cells unnecessarily.

Destroying a damaged cell can be a good thing, as long as it is quickly replaced with a healthy new cell. However, adult stem cells appear to age with the person. As stem cells age, their ability to create healthy new cells deteriorates. Consequently, a cell might die because ISR has determined it was too damaged, only to be replaced with a cell that is almost equally as damaged.

Essentially, this is like terminating an overstressed employee whose performance has dropped. Then, you wait six months to hire a new employee who is slightly less stressed. A couple months later, you lay off the new employee. During that six-month period, other employees will have to shoulder extra responsibility. Their stress will grow, their performance will drop, and next thing you know, youve laid off the whole department. Catastrophic organ failure is the main cause of age-related disorders.

It is tempting to speculate that inhibiting ISR in adults could solve a lot of problems. Sure, thered be no more spa day, but thered also be no more mass layoffs. But its not that simple. ISR inhibition does enhance memory and lifespan. However, ISR activation reduces the severity of Huntingtons disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and multiple sclerosis. Thus, the ISR appears to play a beneficial and detrimental role in health depending on the context. Altos Labs scientists will have to gain a better understanding of ISRs context-dependent effects before they can create new anti-aging therapeutics.

No matter how efficient the body is at rejuvenating cells, cells will die and need to be replaced. As we age, however, replacing cells takes more time. For example, healing of a fractured bone takes much longer in older individuals than in younger individuals.

Stem cells are responsible for replacing damaged cells. Like any other cell, stem cells are vulnerable to cellular stressors. This likely contributes to their own aging, but there is also evidence that stem cells DNA changes as during physiological aging. More specifically, the DNAs structure is changed (called an epigenetic change), but not the DNAs sequence. In other words, regardless of their age, stem cells keep the same genes; however, as stem cells age, some genes are tightly packaged up and no longer accessible.

Epigenetic changes are often helpful. For example, a liver-replenishing stem cell will package up all of its neuron genes. When that stem cell creates a new liver cell, the new cell cant accidentally express those neuron genes.

But in the case of aging, the epigenetic changes can be harmful. For example, in addition to packaging the neuron genes, an old liver-replenishing stem cell might package up two other genes:

When a new liver cell is created, it wont be able to access the cleansing gene. As a result, that cell will have a harder time cleansing itself of damaged proteins. Thus, it will die more quickly and need to be replaced again. Unfortunately, that replacement will be slow to arrive because the stem cell cant access the replication gene.

It is unclear why a stem cell would gradually package up helpful and important genes. One hypothesis is that this process ensures we will die. When old organisms die, it frees up resources for young, sexually reproductive organisms. Thus, there is an evolutionary advantage to death.

Regardless of why stem cells do this, it would be helpful to discover a way to liberate some of the genes packaged during aging. Scientists have suspected that this could reverse a stem cells aging-associated functional decline. In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka discovered the tools necessary to do this.

Yamanaka and his team showed that activating four gene regulators (now referred to as the Yamanaka factors) can reset a stem cells epigenetic changes, essentially turning it into a young stem cell. (Yamanaka won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for this discovery, and he is a consultant for Altos Labs.)

However, its not as simple as giving a stem cell an endless supply of Yamanaka factor cocktails. When a stem cell is stimulated with all the Yamanaka factors at once, all the genes are unpackaged, resulting in an unspecialized stem cell. This is analogous to resetting your brain to what it was as a baby; your potential would be incredible, but you would need guidance to harness that potential. In the same way, unspecialized stem cells have the potential to become any type of cell, but they will need lots of guidance. And scientists have only begun to scratch the surface on how to guide cells in their development.

However, they might not need to know how to guide development if they want to treat age-related diseases. Researchers recently discovered that moderation is the key to avoiding the problem of unspecialization.

Essentially, stimulating cells with just the right Yamanaka factors at just the right time partially resets the stem cells. These partially reset cells retain their ability to create new cells without extra guidance. Experiments on mice have shown how a partial reset can stop the progression of progeria (a mutation-induced syndrome that mimics rapid aging), can promote the healing of injured muscles, and can protect the liver against medication-mediated damage.

Age-related disorders dementia, arthritis, cancers dont significantly shorten our life span. They are often more cruel than that. Instead, they shorten our health span. They steal our memories, our independence, and our tranquility. From what I can tell, Altos Labs isnt looking for the secret to immortality or even the secret to increasing the human lifespan. They (and all the other anti-aging biotech firms) seem to be searching for a way to make aging less cruel.

So, dont expect an elixir of life that grants immortality anytime soon. Perhaps in a few decades, well know enough about aging to entertain a discussion about extending the human lifespan. But until then, I suspect spas and moderate cocktails are the best path for aging gracefully.

Originally posted here:
Anti-aging isn't a scam, but immortality almost certainly is - Big Think

If your house is on fire, dont wait for the billionaire bucket brigade. The same is true if youre a society facing a pandemic, extreme wealth inequality, an eroding democracy, climate change or a national racial divide.

Each year, the Chronicle of Philanthropy publishes the Philanthropy 50, a list of the biggest donors of the year and an indicator of the giving priorities of Americas ultra-wealthy class. This years feature story is titled, What Pandemic? and summarizes, Despite the continuing Covid threat and racial-justice problems, the nations wealthiest donors have largely returned to old standbys handing out big sums to universities, medicine and their own foundations.

Of the 50 top donors, most gave what could be characterized as legacy gifts: donations to universities and major medical centers that will likely go toward buildings and endowments and are made with an eye toward attaining some sort of edificial immortality.

From these giving priorities, you would never know we were living through a global pandemic, an ecological crisis, spiraling wage and wealth inequality or a national reckoning on racial inequity.

In fact, 14 of the 50 biggest donors gave mainly to their own private foundations or donor-advised funds (DAFs). This includes $15 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a $1.2 billion donation by William Ackman and Neri Oxfam to their three family foundations.

Donations to a persons own charitable intermediary should not be counted as gifts, since the money is still under their control and hasnt yet gone to an active charity. Forbess list of top donors accounts for this and only includes donations that flow to working charities, not foundations or DAFs.

Wealthy giving preferences have resulted, even during the pandemic, in a warehousing of charity dollars in private foundations and DAFs now estimated to be over $1.1 trillion. This is part of the larger problem of top heavy philanthropy: Over the last few decades, donations from low-and middle-income donors have steadily declined, and almost all growth in charitable giving has come from ultra-wealthy donors.

Wealthy donors love to give to the foundations and DAFs that they control. Roughly 28 percent of charitable donations now go to such intermediaries.

The problem is that a private foundation is only required to give away 5 percent of its assets a year, while overhead, salaries and program expenses can be counted toward this payout rate. And DAFs have no mandated payout at all. These design flaws enable donors to take immediate deductions in the year they transfer funds to their intermediary, while those dollars may sit warehoused for years before flowing to on-the-ground charities.

There have been refreshing exceptions to these trends. MacKenzie Scott, former wife of Jeff BezosJeffrey (Jeff) Preston BezosThe Hill's Morning Report - Russia widens war; Biden speaks tonight Mackenzie Scott donates million to USDA youth programs Elon Musk shuts down Warren claim that he doesn't pay taxes MORE, has aggressively moved to, in her words, empty the vault, distributing over $6 billion during the pandemic directly to grassroots racial justice groups and COVID-19 relief efforts. Similarly, outgoing Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has aggressively and transparently given billions for COVID-19 relief and poverty alleviation. But they are unfortunately exceptions to the larger trend.

We should be alarmed because, as taxpayers, we subsidize the giving whims of the ultra-wealthy. For every dollar a billionaire donates, we the taxpayer chip in 74 cents of that dollar in lost tax revenue. The wealthier the donor, the bigger their tax subsidy, since these gifts not only reduce their income taxes, but also estate, gift and capital gains taxes. So, there is a legitimate public interest in the scrutinizing the priorities of billionaire donors.

Congress should modernize the rules governing charity to increase the flow of giving to working charities and to discourage the warehousing of billions in donor-controlled intermediaries. Some members have introduced legislation to do this with the Accelerate Charitable Efforts (ACE) Act, but it doesnt go far enough.

Lawmakers should double the payout rate for private foundations to 10 percent and require DAFs to have a payout rate. They should increase the donation tax credit for low- and middle-income donors. And they should establish a lifetime giving cap, so the ultra-wealthy dont get to entirely opt out of paying taxes.

Our society and our vibrant independent nonprofit sector benefit from the generosity of individuals. But we should encourage charitable giving by people of all incomes, not just the wealthy. And we should be vigilant to ensure that philanthropy doesnt become another extension of the power and influence of the billionaire class.

Chuck Collins directs the Charity Reform Project at the Institute for Policy Studies where he coedits Inequality.org. He is author of The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions To Hide Trillions.

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Don't wait for billionaire philanthropy to fix America | TheHill - The Hill

People say runners must be running away from something. Death or a bad diet are the most common suggestions, and while there might be something in the bad dietnot that mines bad, exactly, lots of vegetables but also lots of chocolate which I get away with because of the running, though I want the chocolate because of the running so thats a moot point, reallyIm not running because I imagine it brings immortality. I dont want immortality. I dont understand people who want immortality, have they not read The Portrait of Dorian Grey or the story of Tithonus or pretty much anything? Life without death would be as pointless as a story without an ending, and its not as if the planet is so short of people we need a backup supply in the freezer.

I started running for the opposite reason, not to postpone death but to make the most of life. I saw my beloved grandmother pass the last twenty years of her long life in increasing pain and indignity as her bones crumbled and the fear of falling tightened around her. She used to climb mountains. She used to ride bicycles up mountains, back in the 1930s when she was a girl and no-one had told her you need special equipment for that kind of thing. She used to kayak on Scottish lochs, and even later in life, when I remember her, she swam twice a week in the pool at the glamorous hotel where we could help ourselves to big fluffy towels and the water temperature was perfectly bearable even when I first went in.

When I stayed with my grandparents during school holidays we swam together and she took me out for lunch afterwards, prawn sandwiches and cake. But by her early 80s, still with fifteen years to go, she was scared getting in and out of cars in case she lost her balance, because if shed fallen she would have broken bones and her bones didnt mend, and scared of stepping off curbs and though she could probably still have swum and swimming would probably have helped, she couldnt have managed the changing room or climbed into the water. Instead she took to her green velvet chaise longue with a pile of novels and a glass of whiskey, which was all very well in some ways, enviable even, but when you do that it gets harder and harder to do anything else and soon she couldnt manage the stairs and needed special handles in the bathroom and didnt want to go anywhere where there might be stairs and might not be special handles in the bathroom.

Her physical world got smaller and more frightening and then the world in her head got smaller and more frightening and the last few years were hard on everyone but especially her and my mother, who was taking care of her. So its not death I fear but decline, and while I know that plenty of people live long and happy and useful lives without ever running or even walking, that good lives happen in all kinds of bodies using all kinds of aids; while I know that health and strength in old age are partly matters of luck, I also observe as my parents generation ages that theres a lot a person in midlife can do to change the odds.

Also, it turns out, I like running. That is an understatement. I like running the way some people like heroin. I dont know if theres any physiological basis for talking about a running addiction, but I cant function without running at least a few miles a few times a week and preferably at least ten miles a day. Well, ten or fifteen, or sometimes eighteen if the light on the sea is good and my knees are holding up. I understand that running ten miles a day isnt the best way to train your body to go fast, and also that theres a high risk of injury in running that kind of mileage on asphalt month after month, and also that there should be rest days for soft tissue repair, but Im not particularly interested in going fast and Ive been doing it for years without injury and my soft tissue seems to be in adequate working order, not that there isnt a bit of pain from time to time but nothing consistent, nothing that seems like a reason to stop or even pause.

And is that when you think about your books, people ask, which is a nice idea, that all that time is really work, that hour and a half every day plus changing and showering plus core strength routine because thats why I dont get injured, but its not. If Im writing or about to write, I think about my book almost all the time except when Im running or knitting. I listen to podcasts, mostly science and medicine, while I run. I watch films, preferably in French or German, while I knit, or I talk to friends because I cant sit unless Im knitting or eating or teaching or reading but even for reading I prefer to pace the room and if we had space and I had the nerve Id buy one of those treadmill desks, though if I did that it would be only a matter of time before I tried running while knitting while watching a film in German. (I have just stopped writing this to make sure I still cant afford a treadmill desk, which isnt even really the main obstacle. I would need to check that I still cant afford a house big enough for a room of my own in which I could put a treadmill desk, and I live in Dublin so I know the answer to that.)

You relax, a psychologist friend observed, by hyperstimulation. I think of it as layering: if theres only one distraction, it might stop, but if I have three things going on even if one of them stops the other two will catch me. Its like the Swiss cheese theory of plane crashes: with enough layers of safety provision, the holes should never line up. If one engine fails, you can land with the other. My ideal form of relaxation, what Ill aim for if I have an evening alone in a hotel room, is knitting lace from a Japanese pattern while watching a film in French and also eating chocolate mousse with a very small spoon, and in the morning Id like to run a hilly route across a beautiful landscape while listening to a scientific researcher explaining her latest experiment. Its the rhythm, I say defensively, knitting is running for your fingers and you get a sweater at the end, but often the sweater is incidental.

I like interesting constructions (thats why I tend towards Japanese patterns) and I love the colors and textures of yarn and I enjoy knitting complicated lace, but in practice like everyone else I mostly wear plain things in shades of grey, which are deeply boring to knit. Im not running to maximize fitnessId run differently if I wereand Im not knitting to wear the clothesId knit differently if I were. Im keeping everything spinning, the dance of fingers and feet set to the rhythm of the heart and lungs, the minds pace set by footsteps and stitches, beating and pacing, being alive. I dont think it has anything to do with writing.

__________________________________

The Fell by Sarah Moss is available via Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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Actually, Not Everything is Writing: Sarah Moss on Why She Likes to Knit and Run - Literary Hub

In addition to trying to steal the history of medicine, Carmen has also attempted to plunder the concept of language, which would plunge the world into total chaos. The 1997 computer game "Carmen Sandiego: Word Detective" saw Carmen invent a device known as the Babble-On Machine, which instantly turns language into unintelligible gibberish. Carmen's ultimate goal in "Word Detective" is to render the world illiterate, with only the player character, Agent 13, able to stop her by reversing the machine's effects.

By the time "Word Detective" was released, the Carmen Sandiego franchise was already veering into more outlandish premises, completely abandoning narrative logic in favor of paper-thin plots to accommodate the educational content presented. Having said all that, the idea of Carmen stealing the concept of language itself just doesn't make any sense: If Carmen got into a life of crime for the professional challenge, eliminating language to make pulling off thefts easier directly contradicts this motivation.

Read the original here:
Things Only Adults Notice In Carmen Sandiego - Looper

Picture the scene. After a routine blood test, you visit your GP for the results. Its all good, says the doctor reassuringly. The only problem is that youre getting older. Then, with a flourish of the prescription pad, the doctor adds: But I can help you with that. Take these tablets. Theyll slow the ageing process and help you to stay healthy. Oh, and they might just make you live longer too.

A drug that extends your life, slows ageing and staves off the ravages of old age, including frailty and disease? It sounds too good to be true, and yet, an increasing weight of evidence suggests not just that these drugs are within reach, but that they may already be here.

Some can be found on the shelves at your local health store, while others are drugs for conditions such as diabetes and cancer that are being repurposed. Animal studies have demonstrated their potential, and now clinical trials are beginning to assess if their promise holds true in humans. If it does, those who are middle-aged now could become the first generation to benefit from their use. Imagine an 80-year-old with the biology and get up and go of someone 30 years younger. How joyful not to have to act your age!

Read more about ageing:

In the last couple of decades, the science of anti-ageing has moved from science-fiction into academically rigorous, evidence-based, peer-reviewed science. Its not about achieving immortality, having your brain cryogenically preserved or any of the other outlandish propositions that have been mooted.

There are a lot of people out there who sell you snake oil and tell you that youll live forever, and then when you die, nobody sues them, says Dr Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Ageing at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Instead, its about improving what scientists call the healthspan, or the number of years that people can live well without disease. Extending the lifespan could be a fortuitous side effect, as could the ramifications for the economy.

Currently, 80 per cent of the worlds adults aged 65 or over have at least one chronic illness, while 68 per cent have two or more. The human suffering is huge, and in the next 30 years, the number of over-65-year-olds is projected to double to 1.5 billion. This will be costly.

If we had a drug that adds even one or two healthy years onto the lifespan, it would have trillions of dollars of effect on the world economy, because people would be productive for longer and they wouldnt have all these morbidities that cost our healthcare systems so much, says Jim Mellon, chairman of the longevity company Juvenescence.

Staving off physical and mental decline is vital if were expected to live longer Getty Images

Its no coincidence that age is the biggest risk factor for illnesses such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and neurodegeneration. The ageing process involves a whole raft of biological changes that drives their development. Scientists call these changes hallmarks and around nine have been identified, including the accumulation of genetic mutations, the unravelling of chromosomes and the impaired ability of tiny cellular power packs, called mitochondria, to function.

According to the theory, if you can correct these problems, you wont just slow down ageing, youll also prevent or defer many of the diseases that are associated with old age.

In December 2021, researchers from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai revealed that a natural compound found in grape seeds could prolong the lifespan of old mice by 9 per cent, and make them physically fitter too. The compound, called procyanidin C1, works by targeting another of the hallmarks of ageing: the build-up of tired, worn-out cells that are described as senescent.

In our younger years, the immune system clears senescent cells from the body before they can cause a problem, but as we age and our immune system falters, the cells get to hang around, secreting inflammatory molecules that injure the surrounding tissue.

Its like a fire that spreads, says Ming Xu, who studies senescence at the University of Connecticuts Centre on Ageing. Its a very small population of cells, but they have a very large and very damaging effect. Drugs that seek out and kill these senescent cells, known as senolytics, are among the most promising anti-ageing therapies.

Xu and colleagues have shown that when small numbers of senescent cells are transplanted into mice, it ages them. Then when the same mice are treated, not with procyanidin C1, but with a cocktail of two different senolytic drugs, the rogue cells are destroyed and the mice become more robust. They develop stronger muscles, become more active and live longer. The same results are seen in mice that have aged naturally.

The ability of our mitochondria, essentially the batteries of our cells, declines as we age Getty Images

Its all the more impressive because the mice received the drugs very late in life, when they were already two years old. Its the equivalent of a person beginning treatment when they are 70 or 80, and then having their healthy lifespan extended by five to six years, says Xu.

Also encouraging is the fact that these drugs are already known to be safe for human use. Quercetin, which is a plant pigment found in many fruits and vegetables, is sold as a dietary supplement, while dasatinib is approved for use as a blood cancer drug.

Further animal studies have shown that senolytic drugs can delay, prevent or ease more than 40 diseases, including cancers and various disorders of the heart, liver, kidney, lung, eye and brain. Preliminary studies in humans show that they reduce the number of senescent cells, curb inflammation and alleviate frailty, and now dozens of clinical trials are underway to assesstheir impact on various conditions, including diabetes, arthritis and Alzheimers disease.

All of these trials will yield vital information, but if a senolytic or any other drug is ever to be used as a genuine anti-ageing therapy, itll need to pass muster in the human equivalent of Xus mouse study. As well as testing these drugs in people who already have disease as is happening in the current clinical trials they also need to be rigorously tested in healthy people who are ageing naturally.

Its a conceptual no-brainer and should be straightforward, save for a couple of problems. The first is that humans take decades to age, a predicament that makes the requisite trials both lengthy and expensive.

One potential solution to this problem, currently under investigation, is to use molecular proxies or biomarkers of the ageing process. These are subtle changes, such as the addition of certain chemical groups to DNA, that occur across smaller time frames and are thought to be indicative of the broader ageing picture.

Another option is to turn to mans best friend. Dogs age around seven times faster than humans, and experience many of the same age-related diseases and declines. They also share our homes and many of the same environmental influences that contribute to ageing. In short, theyre an excellent model of the ageing process, and are willing to help out in exchange for treats and belly rubs.

The different proliferations of keratinocytes, a type of skin cell, in an old mouse (top) and a young mouse (bottom) Birgit Ritschka/Research Institute of Molecular Pathology Vienna

As part of the Dog Aging Project in the US, 500 canines are helping to assess the worth of another putative anti-ageing treatment, called rapamycin. Rapamycin also targets senescent cells, as well as several of the other hallmarks of ageing.

Relatively large doses are given to transplant patients to help prevent organ rejection, but in small doses its been shown to prolong life in yeast, worms, flies and mice. The dogs will be followed for up to a decade and if rapamycins promise holds true, those who receive the therapy could have their lives extended by up to four human years (or 28 dog years).

The second problem with arranging the requisite human studies is less practical and more attitudinal. According to the current medical paradigm, ageing is not something that needs to be treated. Along with hangovers and nuisance phone calls, ageing is viewed as a grim inevitability of life.

If the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other medical regulators are ever to approve a drug for ageing, they would first need to recognise that ageing is a preventable condition that can be targeted therapeutically. We dont want to call ageing a disease, says Barzilai. The people we want to help dont want us to call them sick, but ageing does need to be officially recognised as an indication that is treatable.

So Barzilai has found a way around the conundrum. His focus is on another potential anti-ageing drug, called metformin. Metformin is a cheap and successful medicine. Every day, millions of people take it to control their type 2 diabetes, but in 2016, Barzilai suggested it could be used to slow ageing.

Dogs age in similar ways to humans but considerably faster, so are useful proxies Shutterstock

Key to his argument is a 2014 UK clinical trial involving over 150,000 people, which revealed that diabetics taking metformin live longer than non-diabetics who dont, and a growing number of separate studies that demonstrate metformins ability to prevent specific age-related disorders. Taken together, these studies hint that metformin may be able to improve the healthspan, but they dont quite nail it. Whats needed is a clinical trial that ties all these loose ends together in a single, well-designed study. Enter, the Targeting Aging with Metformin (TAME) trial.

Barzilai and colleagues are recruiting 3,000 adults, aged 65 to 80, who dont have diabetes, to receive either metformin or a placebo over a four-year period. During this time, the team will monitor age-related biomarkers and the time it takes for each of the patients to develop a major age-related disease, such as dementia or stroke.

Instead of looking at the ability of metformin to delay a single age-related disease, as the other trials have done, this study will assess the drugs capacity to delay the onset of age-related disease in general. It will show if metformin can increase the healthspan.

If the trial succeeds, its effects could be far-reaching. TAME has the power to prove that ageing really is something that can be targeted and treated with drugs. This, in itself, will be a major paradigm shift. We hope it will inspire the FDA to make ageing an indication and provide a template for other biotech companies to do similar studies, says Barzilai.

While other scientists pursue different anti-ageing strategies, such as gene therapy or tissue transplants, taking tablets is so much simpler. Metformin could become the first authorised anti-ageing drug with the ability to not just prolong life, but to prolong a healthy life. Then after metformin, other anti-ageing drugs could follow. Instead of treating each age-related medical condition separately, as currently happens, its possible to imagine a future where these conditions are treated together, by targeting multiple hallmarks of ageing.

Just as statins are doled out today to lower cholesterol, and prevent strokes and heart disease, so too anti-ageing medicines or gerotherapeutics could be prescribed to prevent the diseases of old age. Based on the results of a blood test, which could indicate how fast youre ageing and which diseases youre prone to, a clinician might prescribe one or more anti-ageing drugs.

Dr Nir Barzilai and his team are investigating ways of increasing human healthspans Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Metformin, rapamycin, quercetin, dasatinib and other as-yet-unidentified anti-ageing drugs could all be part of the picture. It would mark a shift away from the prevailing medical model, where diseases are treated reactively after symptoms have occurred and suffering has set in, to a preventative model of care, where patients are monitored proactively and future diseases are averted.

With a handful of promising anti-ageing drugs already in existence, ageing has never looked so treatable, and yet, theres just one final problem. Clinical trials dont come cheap, so the question is, who pays?

Government funding agencies seemingly arent keen to invest in the anti-ageing area. Regulators dont tend to fund studies of drugs that are already on the market, and the pharmaceutical industry wont cough up for trials of drugs that are generic, cheap or off-patent, with no profit margin.

The 30 or so bona fide anti-ageing companies that exist are more interested in developing their own proprietary therapies than readily accessible drugs such as metformin or quercetin. Until additional funding can be found, this means that safe, affordable drugs with the potential to slow ageing and extend the healthspan are not being properly explored. Meanwhile, the people who need them most are growing old waiting.

Read more about future medicine:

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Anti-ageing pills are real, and some of us are taking them without knowing it - BBC Science Focus Magazine

If you had the luxury of choice to change anything about yourself, would you?

People have long desired to change their appearance, fulfill their dreams, and travel to the most remote of regions. Sadly, these desires always seemed too far out of reach for most people. Limitations with technology, medicine, or social norms made it unavailable. It was only for the realm of the privileged.

That is until we formed the early digital worlds through video games. Titles such as The Sims allowed us to create, dress, and control the lives of virtual characters. Digital worlds showed us the potential of reflecting real life into the virtual realm.

A dozen or so years since the release of The Sims, and now we have the concept of the Metaverse the digital equivalent of the real world. This concept has captured the imagination of technology giants and the worlds largest corporations.

In fact, Steven Spielberg visualized his version of the metaverse in the 2018 film Ready Player One. Despite looking bleak, it outlined the potential of the metaverse. One that promised enormous profits, fame, and immortality.

Similarly, Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg changed his company name to Meta as a show of solidarity towards the Metaverse concept.

Other companies have followed suit from various industries like fashion, wearables, jewelry, and FMCG. Industries have realized the change in priorities of consumers who now value intangible goods as much as tangible ones.

Generation Z is the section of consumers most immersed in the digital world after the Millennials. They are the greatest force on the internet setting directions and trends that shape the future global digital market of goods and services. For example, the gaming industry developed progressive subscriptions; Pay 2 Win models; and the buying and selling of virtual items for cash.

However, in this new generation of intangible goods, scammers still exist to take money away from innocents. Thats why there has been a rise in the prioritization of cyber-security in recent years.

One such way to ensure security is through NFT technology, which allows for safe and automated transfer of value from the real world to the metaverse. The technology confirms sales by a unique certificate based on blockchain technology. As a result, art, record collections, shoes, purse, or any other material may be worth as much in the metaverse as in the real world.

Today, the worlds largest companies are changing their business strategies and multi-billion fortunes are being created as we speak.

Eventually, we might all find it difficult to define the difference between virtual and reality.

Radosaw Krzycki investor, creator of IT projects and solutions based on blockchain technology. Founder of the go2NFT project, operational director (COO) of the Skey.network blockchain platform, designer and creator of innovative NFT blockchain solutions dedicated to brands and corporations.

Disclaimer: CoinQuora does not endorse any content or product on its page. While we aim to provide you with all relevant information that we could obtain, readers are encouraged to do their own research before taking any actions and bear full responsibility for their decisions. Please note that this article does not constitute investment advice.

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What Will The Meta Future Look Like By CoinQuora - Investing.com

The behaviour of snakes and their facial features (e.g. the unblinking, lidless eyes) seemed to imply that they were intelligent, that they lived by reason and not instinct, and yet their thought-processes were as alien to humans as their ways of movement.

In most cultures, snakes were symbols of healing and transformation, but in some cultures snakes were fertility symbols. For example, the Hopi people of North America performed an annual snake dance to celebrate the union of Snake Youth (a Sky spirit) and Snake Girl (an Underworld spirit) and to renew fertility of Nature. During the dance, live snakes were handled and at the end of the dance the snakes were released into the fields to guarantee good crops. "The snake dance is a prayer to the spirits of the clouds, the thunder and the lightning, that the rain may fall on the growing crops.."[1] In other cultures[which?] snakes symbolised the umbilical cord, joining all humans to Mother Earth. The Great Goddess often had snakes as her familiarssometimes twining around her sacred staff, as in ancient Creteand they were worshipped as guardians of her mysteries of birth and regeneration.[2]

Some cultures regarded snakes as immortal because they appeared to be reincarnated from themselves when they sloughed their skins. Snakes were often also associated with immortality because they were observed biting their tails to form a circle and when they coiled they formed spirals. Both circles and spirals were seen as symbols of eternity. The circle was particularly important to Dahomeyan myth where the snake-god Danh circled the world like a belt, corseting it and preventing it from flying apart in splinters. In Egyptian myth, the state of existence before creation was symbolised as Amduat, a many-coiled serpent from which Ra the Sun and all of creation arose, returning each night and being reborn every morning. Also, the snake biting its tail (Ouroboros) symbolised the sea as the eternal ring which enclosed the world. In Egypt the snake has healing abilities. Hymns and offerings were made to it since it was believed that the Goddess could manifest through the snake. "In a hymn to the goddess Mertseger, a workman on the Necropolis of Thebes relates how the goddess came to him in the form of a snake to heal his illness (Bunn1967:617).[3]

In Serer cosmogony and religion, the serpent is the symbol of the pangool, the saints and ancestral spirits of the Serer people of West Africa. When a person dies, the Serer believe that their soul must make its way to Jaaniiw (a place where goods souls go). Before the soul can reach Jaaniiw in order to reincarnate (cii in Serer[4]), it must transform into a black snake. During this transformation, the snake hides in a tree. For this reason, it is taboo in Serer culture to kill snakes. A great degree of respect is afforded to snakes in Serer culture, as they are the very embodiment and symbol of their saints and ancestral spirits.[5][6][7][8] Like their Serer counterparts, the Dogon people of Mali also have great reverence for the serpent. The serpent plays an active role in Dogon religion and cosmogony. The mythology of the Dogon's primordial ancestor Lebe, it based almost entirely on a serpent mythology. In their traditional African religious belief, they say that the Serpent Lebe guided the Dogon people from Mand to the Bandiagara Escarpment (their current home) when they decided to migrate to flee Islamization and persecution.[9][10] The Dogon believe that Lebe is the very reincarnation of the Dogon's first ancestorwho was resurrected in the form of a snake.[11][12][13]

In the Sumerian culture snakes were also very important as a healing symbol. In Hammurabis Law Code (c. 1700 BC) the god Ninazu is identified as the patron of healing, and his son, Ningishzida, is depicted with a serpent and staff symbol (Bunn 1967:618)

Snakes were a common feature of many creation myths, for example many people in California and Australia had myths about the Rainbow Snake, which was either Mother Earth herself giving birth to all animals or a water-god whose writhings created rivers, creeks and oceans. In ancient Indian myth, the drought-serpent Ahi or Vritra swallowed the primordial ocean and did not release all created beings until Indra split the serpent's stomach with a thunderbolt. In another myth, the protector Vishnu slept on the coils of the world-serpent Shesha (or "Ananta the endless";). Shesha in turn was supported on Kurma and when Kurma moved, Shesha stirred and yawned and the gaping of its jaws caused earthquakes.[14]

In Chinese mythology, the woman-headed snake Nwa made the first humans. She made humans one at a time with clay.

Delighted, she made another figure, and another and another, and each came to life in the same way. Day in and day out Nw amused herself making mud figures and watching them come to life.[15]

To conserve her energy, she dipped a rope in clay and flicked it so blobs of clay landed everywhere; each blob of clay became an individual human. The first humans of hers became high-class, but second ones became low-class.

Greek cosmological myths tell of how Ophion the snake incubated the primordial egg from which all created things were born.

The classical symbol of the Ouroboros depicts a snake in the act of eating its own tail. This symbol has many interpretations, one of which is the snake representing cyclical nature of life and death, life feeding on itself in the act of creation.

Snakes were regularly regarded as guardians of the Underworld or messengers between the Upper and Lower worlds because they lived in cracks and holes in the ground. The Gorgons of Greek myth were snake-women (a common hybrid) whose gaze would turn flesh into stone, the most famous of them being Medusa.[16] Nagas, "the demon cobra"[17] and naginis were human-headed snakes whose kings and queens who lived in jewel-encrusted underground or underwater paradises and who were perpetually at war with Garuda the Sun-bird. In Egyptian myth, every morning the serpent Aapep (symbolising chaos) attacked the Sunship (symbolising order). Aapep would try to engulf the ship and the sky was drenched red at dawn and dusk with its blood as the Sun defeated it.[18]

In Nordic myth, evil was symbolised by the serpent (actually a dragon) Nidhogg (the 'Dread Biter') who coiled around one of the three roots of Yggdrasil the Tree of Life, and tried to choke or gnaw the life from it."Here there is an evil dragon named Nidhogg that gnaws constantly at the root, striving to destroy Yggdrasil" [19] In ancient Slavic paganism a deity by the name of Veles presided over the underworld. He is almost always portrayed as a serpent or dragon depending on the particular myth. The underworld was part of a mythical world tree. The roots of this tree (usually growing in water) were guarded by Veles (Volos) the serpent god.

The idea of snake-people living below the Earth was prominent in American myth. The Aztec underworld, Mictlan was protected by python-trees, a gigantic alligator and a snake, all of which spirits had to evade by physical ducking and weaving or cunning, before they could start the journey towards immortality. In North America, the Brule Sioux people told of three brothers transformed into rattlesnakes which permanently helped and guided their human relatives.

The Pomo people told of a woman who married a rattlesnake-prince and gave birth to four snake-children who freely moved between the two worlds of their parents. The Hopi people told of a young man who ventured into the underworld and married a snake-princess.

Snakes have been associated with Hecate, the Greek goddess of magic and the lower world.[20]

Snakes were also commonly associated with water especially myths about the primordial ocean being formed of a huge coiled snake as in Ahi/Vritra in early Indian myth and Jormungand in Nordic myth.[21] Sea monsters lived in every ocean from the seven-headed crocodile-serpent Leviathan of Hebrew myth to the sea-god Koloowisi of the Zuni people of North America and the Greek monster Scylla with twelve snake-necks. In some cultures, eels (which spend their early lives in freshwater before returning to the sea as adults) were regarded as magical creatures.

Rivers and lakes often had snake-gods or snake-guardians including Untekhi the fearsome water-spirit of the Missouri River. Until recently, some northern European communities held well dressing ceremonies to appease the snake-spirits which lived in village wells and told legends of saints defeating malevolent lake-snakes e.g. Saint George killing a maiden-devouring serpent or Saint Columba lecturing the Loch Ness Monster which then stopped eating humans and became shy of human visitors.

Carved stones depicting a seven-headed cobra are commonly found near the sluices of the ancientirrigation tanks in Sri Lanka; these are believed to have been placed as guardians of the water.

Snakes were associated with wisdom in many mythologies, perhaps due to the appearance of pondering their actions as they prepare to strike, which was copied by medicine men in the build-up to prophecy in parts of West Africa. Usually the wisdom of snakes was regarded as ancient and beneficial towards humans but sometimes it could be directed against humans. In East Asia snake-dragons watched over good harvests, rain, fertility and the cycle of the seasons, whilst in ancient Greece and India, snakes were considered to be lucky and snake-amulets were used as talismans against evil.

Tiresias gained a dual male-female nature and an insight into the supernatural world when he killed two snakes which were coupling in the woods.

The Biblical story of the fall of man tells of how Adam and Eve were deceived into disobeying God by a snake (identified as Satan by both Paul and John in II Corinthians and Revelation, respectively). In the story, the snake convinces Eve to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which she then convinces Adam to do as well. As a result, God banishes Adam and Eve from the garden and curses the snake.

In the state of Kerala, India, snake shrines occupy most households. Snakes were called upon by the creator of Kerala, Parasurama, to make the saline land fertile. The Mannarasala Shri Nagaraja Temple is one of the main centres of worship. The presiding deity here is Nagaraja - a five-headed snake god born to human parents as a blessing for their caretaking of snakes during a fire. It is believed that Nagaraja left his earthly life and took Samadhi but still resides in a chamber of the temple.

Healing and snakes were associated in ancient Greek myth with Asclepius, whose snake-familiars would crawl across the bodies of sick people asleep at night in his shrines and lick them back to health.

In northern Europe and West Asia, snakes were associated with healing whilst in parts of South Asia, snakes are regarded as possessing aphrodisiac qualities. Greek myth held that people could acquire second hearing and second sight if their ears or eyes were licked by a snake.

In ancient Mesopotamia, Nirah, the messenger god of Itaran, was represented as a serpent on kudurrus, or boundary stones.[22] Representations of two intertwined serpents are common in Sumerian art and Neo-Sumerian artwork[22] and still appear sporadically on cylinder seals and amulets until as late as the thirteenth century BC.[22] The horned viper (Cerastes cerastes) appears in Kassite and Neo-Assyrian kudurrus[22] and is invoked in Assyrian texts as a magical protective entity.[22] A dragon-like creature with horns, the body and neck of a snake, the forelegs of a lion, and the hind-legs of a bird appears in Mesopotamian art from the Akkadian Period until the Hellenistic Period (323 BC31 BC).[22] This creature, known in Akkadian as the muuu, meaning "furious serpent", was used as a symbol for particular deities and also as a general protective emblem.[22] It seems to have originally been the attendant of the Underworld god Ninazu,[22] but later became the attendant to the Hurrian storm-god Tishpak, as well as, later, Ninazu's son Ningishzida, the Babylonian national god Marduk, the scribal god Nabu, and the Assyrian national god Ashur.[22]

The anthropomorphic basis of many myth-systems meant snake-gods were rarely depicted solely as snakes. Exceptions to this were the Fijian creator-god Ndengei, the dozen creator-gods of the Solomon Islands (each with different responsibilities), the Aztec Mother Goddess Coatlicue, and the Voodoo snake-spirits Damballa, Simbi and Petro. Snake-gods were more often portrayed as hybrids or shape-shifters; for example, North American snake-spirits could change between human and serpentine forms whilst keeping the characteristics of both. Likewise, the Korean snake goddess Eobshin was portrayed as a black snake that had human ears.

The Aztec spirit of intelligence and the wind, Quetzalcoatl ("Plumed Serpent"). The Mayan sky-goddess was a common attribute. However, in her case, the snakes leaned into her ears and whispered the secrets of the universe (i.e. the secrets of herself). In Indian myth, Shiva had a cobra coiled on his head and another at rest on his shoulder, ready to strike his enemies. Egyptian myth has had several snake-gods, from the 'coiled one' Mehen who assisted Ra in fighting Aapep every day to the two-headed Nehebkau who guarded the underworld. In Korean mythology, the goddess Eobshin was the snake goddess of wealth, as snakes ate rats and mice that gnawed on the crops.

The Horned Serpent appears in the mythologies of many Native Americans.[23] Details vary among tribes, with many of the stories associating the mystical figure with water, rain, lightning and thunder. Horned Serpents were major components of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex of North American prehistory.[24][25]

More here:
Snakes in mythology - Wikipedia

Posted on 02/01/2022 by EraOfLight Leave a reply

Payback is a bitch. The Rockefeller clan, the greatest mass murderers in human history, are finally facing justice. Mass demonstrations across occupied Europe and now action by truckers in North America is a sign their satanic rule is collapsing.

Today is January 31st, a payment deadline the Rockefellers have to make. All signs indicate their check has bounced. They now have until February 18th to come up with the money or be bankrupted.

What money are we talking about? The Rockefeller proxy fake Biden regime ran up a record $1.08 trillion trade deficit in 2021 and added more than $2 trillion to US federal debt to bring the total to $30 trillion. That means they need to come up with $3 trillion or their entire fake regime collapses.

Remember, their clan, -headed by the fugitive criminal David Rockefeller Jr,- control what they call the rules based world order. Whose rules? Their rules. Their servants run the UN, the World Bank, NATO, the Fortune 500 companies etc. Remember the heads of these organizations were appointed, not elected. So, when the Rockefellers are bankrupted, it will mean all of these power centers will revert to the control of the people.

Even if they manage to get their Chinese Communist Party servants to hand over the Chinese peoples money; that still will not save them. That is because the Chinese Communist Party, reeling under $118 trillion of debt, worth 833% of their GDP, is also bankrupt.

Even if they use fiat money and fake accounting to pretend they are still solvent, that will not help because they are being hunted. The Rockefellers murdered the Tsar of Russia and his family after he refused to grant them oil concessions. The Khazarian mafia then started a reign of terror that killed over 50 million Russians. Russian patriots are now getting their justice and have begun systematically hunting down the entire extended Rockefeller clan and their servants, according to FSB sources.

Speaking about servants, let us talk about their fascist/communist servant Justin Castro of Canada. Thanks to the patriotic truckers who descended on Ottawa, he is the first Prime Minister in Canadian history to run into hiding from his own people.

This is a message to David McGuinty, who I went to high school with and who heads Canadas secret services: If you do not want to face a Nuremberg-style tribunal for war crimes, then you need to grow a pair and arrest Castro. Just like Adolf Hitler, Castro only got 33% of the popular vote and yet he is using that to try to turn Canada into a fascist dictatorship. The Canadian military did not win at Vimy ridge just to see Canada taken over by a brother murdering fascist foreign agent. Here is my advice to the Canadian military: take Castro up on his bluff and follow the science. Send military police into hospitals around the country and check facts with front-line doctors. You will find Castro and his fellow fascist/communist agents have been using a renamed common cold (which is a coronavirus) to destroy democracy in Canada and vaccinate Canadians with dangerous substances. You can start your fact-checking here:

Military Vax Data Rocks DC: Catastrophic Injury Toll Exposed At Sen. Johnson Hearing

https://www.redvoicemedia.com/2022/01/military-vax-data-rocks-dc-catastrophic-injury-toll-exposed-at-sen-johnson-hearing/?utm_source=home-headline

Remember, Canadians who support vaccinations do so only because the controlled media has told them lies about the so-called pandemic. Also, ask yourselves why your top generals were removed based on lies and innuendos, and replaced with puppets. Do not trust anyone who has not personally seen combat. Whatever you do, refuse to take action against your fellow patriot truckers and farmers now fighting to liberate Canada. Here is a message from one of the protesters in Ottawa: Canada just woke the fuck up!! Long live free Canada.

OK, now let us look at how Khazarian mafia rule is collapsing around the world.

The first thing we notice is that truckers around the world are now emulating Canada and preparing to stop economic activity until the Khazarian criminal puppet regimes are removed.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/truckers-across-planet-unite-convoys-against-medical-tyranny

There are also huge, demonstrations going on all over Europe. Here is just one example from Belgium where a million-person protest is being held in a country of 11 million people.

The scale of the protests means many former top members of the Khazarian mafia are now surrendering and agreeing to a peace and reconciliation process. For example, Nathaniel Rothschild contacted us again to sayhe is working with [US President Donald] Trump directly. He is spending most of his time at the Thule US Space Force Center. There is a massive underground base there. (Also the underground prison is located nearby). Nat has made a deal with the Alliance and turned his fortune over to them. He has already given $50 billion for use in the project in the region. His fortune is estimated at several trillion dollars. The exact amount is classified. Nat distanced himself from the British side of the family and was nearly taken out because he wanted out of the family business. He has a body double who attends most meetings regarding his new company Volex. Take a look at the 2 attached photos. One is Nat a year ago when he went to Sri Lanka. The other photo is fairly current and is his double.

The French side of the family is called De Rothschild. They were behind the attempted coup in Kazakhstan. Their mercenaries were eliminated thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia is now fighting to liberate Europe from Rockefeller and NATO control. The battle over Ukraine is really a war to liberate Europe, according to the Russians and their British allies.

Over 80% of Russian gas exports to Europe go through Ukraine.

The Rockefellers and their French De Rothschild allies have installed a puppet regime there to stop the flow of gas and force Europeans to buy expensive gas controlled by the Rockefellers.

Yevgeny Fedorov, a well-known Russian politician, explains the situation in the interview linked below.

https://thesaker.is/the-other-side-of-the-story-russias-view-on-geopolitics-war-and-energy-racketeering/embed/#?secret=ZJ0psBDvf5

He explains that the Rockefellers fight to keep gas from flowing directly to Germany via the Nordstream II pipeline is a fight for European independence.

If the Europeans were to buy gas from Russia, they would pay $300 per cubic meter in long-term, stable contracts. Instead, the Rockefellers are trying to force them,

$1,000 per cubic meter of gas they control. Now that Ukraine is liberated, France and Germany, both of which have existed as independent countries for over 1000 years, will become independent again, Russian FSB sources say.

According to Fyodorov, Russia plans to: reannex Ukraine to Russia, restore the Soviet Union, restore Yugoslavia, and nationalize the Russian Central Bank. Fedorov explains that the current central bank is a subsidiary of the IMF.

According to MI6 and CIA sources, the arrest of Klaus Schwab, head of the Swiss Rothschild family, and Christine Lagarde, head of the EU Central Bank, means that the IMF is now ready to work with Russia to replace the EU with the 47-member Council of Europe. This is how Russia sees the fake pandemic.

The arms, slavery and drug business known as NATO is being replaced under this agreement with something that actually concerns European security, the sources say. MI6 is doing its part by eliminating agents of the Khazarian mafia in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe.

A senior MI6 agent states that removing Angela Hitler (Merkel) from power in Germany is the key. If Merkel is gone, then [French President Emmanuelle] Macron is gone, the source says. Thats why the French De Rothschilds were trying to create a new home outside France with their failed attempt to take over Kazakhstan.

In the UK, according to MI6, former cabinet minister (and secret ruler) Simon Case was executed Also, former MI6/Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) chief John Scarlett was assassinated last week, the source says.

They tried to capture the state secretly, they committed treason. The whole thing is imploding on itself.

Its a bit like dealing with an amateur Nazi force, MI6 explains. Its about asserting personal sovereignty. You have to stand up to bullies. Dont let Pfizer go around telling you lies. They are bullies, and paid bullies at that, it continues.

The crackdown on Pfizer and other Khazarian pharmaceutical lackeys continues worldwide, according to several sources in agreement. For example, Anthony Fauci, the top pandemic pusher in the U.S., was executed at Gitmo, according to CIA sources.

The man now surfacing is a lookalike, the source said. The following photo was submitted as proof. The fake Trump pushing vaccines has also been exposed, as this CIA photo shows. As for the CIA, the Rockefellers have let former CIA chief Mike Pompeo have his say:

Chinese leader Xi Jinping wants world domination for the Chinese Communist Party and warns that the rise of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could destroy the rules-based international order that has existed since the end of World War II.

The problem is that, according to CIA sources, this Pompeo is undoubtedly a double, as the photos below make clear.

The double is wearing a boot (with a GPS monitor). The real Pompeo is completely out of the picture. He has accepted the Alliances offer of truth and reconciliation. He has turned over to the Alliance all the files and USB drives he acquired as Director of the Agency and as Secretary of State.

He is currently in a very secure location supporting the Alliance, according to the CIA. We have also received information from Australian intelligence about the situation in their region. First, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, has gone into self-isolation.

Looks like the grin is off his face. Its time to decide whether to cooperate or go to Gitmo, that looks a lot like Jack Ardern to me, the source said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/29/new-zealand-jacinda-ardern-isolates-after-possible-covid-exposure

The battle to liberate Australia is also in full swing. Australian intelligence reports the situation there as follows: Melbourne is the dragons head for pedophilia and child trafficking in Australia. There is a very large underground base under the city. With a submarine base that leads into the sea.

Melbourne and Victoria are 100% controlled by the satanic cabal, as is all of Australia. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is also under the control of the cabal. He will soon resign for health reasons.

Prime Minister Dan Andrews now has a double. The real Andrews has disappeared. Speaking of gone, we also note that pop megastar Elton John on Tuesday postponed two concerts in Dallas part of what is expected to be a long farewell tour after testing positive for Covid-19.

https://insiderpaper.com/elton-john-tests-positive-for-covid-19-postpones-dallas-concerts/embed/#?secret=8UiojnSXTS#?secret=wuicZQBXg8

He was also arrested. He is a known pedophile, a CIA source explained. China is also on the case, as this news story shows:

BEIJING: Chinese authorities have summoned officials from AstraZeneca China to investigate suspected health insurance fraud by company employees, the National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) announced Saturday (Jan. 29).

Employees in the southern city of Shenzhen had altered or participated in altering patients audit reports and were suspected of health insurance fraud.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/astrazeneca-china-summoned-suspected-fraud-2468051

A similar series of arrests has also taken place in Japan, where foreign agents and their lackeys have been arrested for falsifying positive test results and murdering people in hospitals, according to Japanese police.

We also note that Rockefeller associate and WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus now says publicly that vaccines are used to kill children. Clearly, he has been turned around. Rest assured that it is only a matter of time before all pandemic perpetrators are either arrested or turned over.

With the pandemic attempt to create global fascism fizzling out before their eyes, there are growing signs that space opera is next. As evidence, here are videos of some recent UFO sightings.

Project Blue Ray Full Steam Ahead?

End

**Source

01/25/2022

In Disclosure

Events are unfolding at a blistering pace now with huge changes in Europe, Japan, China and elsewhere. This should lead to the liberation of the United States before too long. The most earth-shattering event was shots fired by the Belarus military against the Polish military at the two countries border.10/12/2021

In Disclosure

08/24/2021

In Disclosure This entry was posted in Disclosure, News by EraOfLight. Bookmark the permalink.

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saintandrewstwinflame | Eternal life and Immortality from ...

What if you could live forever? It's a question long pondered by fictional supervillains and Silicon Valley billionaires alike.

Now researchers in Japan say they may have taken a step toward boosting human longevity with successful trials of a vaccine against the cells that contribute to the ageing process.

In laboratory trials, a drug targeting a protein contained in senescent cells - those which have naturally stopped reproducing themselves - slowed the progression of frailty in older mice, the researchers from Tokyo's Juntendo University said.

The vaccine also successfully targeted the senescent cells in fatty tissue and blood vessels, suggesting it could have a positive impact on other medical conditions linked to ageing.

"We can expect that (the vaccine) will be applied to the treatment of arterial stiffening, diabetes and other ageing-related diseases," Juntendo professor Toru Minamino told Japan's Jiji news agency.

Cells become senescent when they stop duplicating themselves, often in response to naturally-occurring damage to their DNA. Cellular senescence is thought to contribute to the ageing process itself, as well as ageing-related diseases like Alzheimer's and some cancers.

"Senescent cells secrete a series of factors that disrupt the function of the tissue," Dr Salvador Macip, head of the University of Leicester's Mechanisms of Cancer and Ageing Lab, told Euronews Next.

"They 'call' cells from the immune system, in theory to be cleared by them (but that eventually fails) and create a chronic low level inflammation, mixed with fibrosis," Macip said.

Macip was part of an international team of academics from universities in the UK, Spain, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia that published research on another method of tackling senescent cells in October this year.

"The biological process of ageing is very complex, therefore it is unlikely that one single strategy will completely stop it or reverse it. However, there are probably many ways to slow it down, and clearing senescent cells seems to be one of the easiest and potentially more effective," he said.

In laboratory tests, preventing the build-up of senescent cells extended the lifespan of mice by 15 per cent, Macip told Euronews Next. Other, similar experiments have achieved as much as a 35 per cent increase, he said.

But before you get too excited, it's worth bearing in mind that researchers still don't know how much a living creature's lifespan can be extended.

"This is a very interesting question, and one that we still have not agreed upon. Some believe there is a 'hard' limit for human lifespan (around 130 years is the current estimate), while others think that, on paper, immortality should be feasible," Macip said.

"It's still early to know how much life can be extended and whether there's a limit or not".

We may not have to wait too long for an answer, though.

"The field of anti-ageing research is advancing very fast. In the last decade, there have been many key discoveries," Macip said.

"The person that will take the first anti-ageing pill has probably already been born".

Read more:
Can we live forever? New anti-ageing vaccine could bring ...