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Archive for the ‘Longevity’ Category

Walnut consumption linked to health and longevity in women, says study – New Food

Friday, February 28th, 2020

In this study, the researchers looked at data from 33,931 women in the Nurses Health Study (NHS) to evaluate the association between nut consumption and overall health and well-being in ageing.

According to a new epidemiologicalstudy, women in their late 50s and early 60s who consumed at least two servings of walnuts per week had a greater likelihood of healthy ageing compared to those who did not eat walnuts. After accounting for various factors that could impact health in older adults, such as education and physical activity, walnuts were reportedly the only nut associated with significantly better odds of healthy ageing.

In this study, which was supported by the California Walnut Commission, healthy ageing was defined as longevity with sound mental health and no major chronic diseases, cognitive issues or physical impairments following the age of 65.

Previous research from primary investigator Dr. Francine Grodstein, formerly of Brigham and Womens Hospital, has found that eating walnuts may have a positive impact on reducing the risk for physical impairments in older adults as well as cognitive decline. Additionally, others in the same research group have found decreases in cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes all conditions that become more common as we age.

As part of this study, between 1998-2002, over 33,931 female nurses in the NHS were asked about their diet (including total nut consumption); evaluated for chronic diseases (such as cancer, heart attack, heart failure, stroke, type 2 diabetes and Parkinsons disease); and assessed for memory concerns, mental health and physical limitations (including daily activities like walking one block, climbing a flight of stairs, bathing, dressing oneself and pushing a vacuum cleaner). Of the study participants, 16 percent were found to be healthy agers, defined as having no major chronic diseases, reported memory impairment or physical disabilities as well as having intact mental health.

Althoughprevious researchhas connected a healthy diet, including walnuts, to better physical function among older men and women, this study only included women. More research is said to be needed to understand if these results hold true among men. Additionally, participants were not assigned to eat walnuts or other foods; they were simply asked about their dietary choices. It is possible that subjects misreported their dietary intake since this information was collected by questionnaires. As an observational study, this does not prove cause and effect. However, this research aims to shed light on simple habits that can influence health during later years in life such as eating walnuts.

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AgeX Therapeutics Researchers Publish Paper on the Age Reprogramming of Super-Centenarian Cells – Yahoo Finance

Friday, February 28th, 2020

AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. ("AgeX"; NYSE American: AGE), a biotechnology company focused on developing therapeutics for human aging and regeneration, announced a new paper co-authored by two AgeX scientists that could lead to new insights into the fundamental mechanisms of aging and why super-centenarians not only live the longest, but also experience extraordinary healthspans; an extension of the healthy years of life that compresses morbidity to a very short period near the end of life. The paper, "Induced pluripotency and spontaneous reversal of cellular aging in supercentenarian donor cells," is published online in the peer-reviewed scientific journal "Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications" from Elsevier. The senior author is Dana Larocca, PhD, VP of Discovery Research at AgeX, and the first author is Jieun Lee, PhD, Scientist at AgeX.

"Clearly, we can learn a lot about aging and longevity from the longest of the long-lived, the supercentenarians, and we hope that this paper accelerates such research," commented Dr. Larocca. "Now that we have converted the cells of one of the longest-lived people in history, a deceased 114-year-old American woman, to a young pluripotent state, researchers can do so with cells from other supercentenarians. The goal is to understand specifically how these "extreme agers" manage to avoid the major chronic illnesses of aging better than any other age group including centenarians. We can essentially put their cells in a time machine and revert them to an earlier state, then study their biology to help unlock the mysteries of super-longevity. Scientists have long wondered, and now we know that we can indeed reset the developmental state and cellular age in the oldest of the old."

By way of comparison, the paper also describes undertaking a similar process with cells from two other donors: an eight-year-old with a rapid-aging syndrome commonly known as Progeria, and a 43-year-old, healthy disease-free control (HDC) subject. The paper notes that the supercentenarians cells reverted to induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells at the same rate as the HDC subject and the Progeria patient. However, there may be some negative impact of extreme age on telomere resetting as this did not occur as frequently in the supercentenarian as in the other two donors.

The donated cells were from "the longevity collection," a cell bank established by the NIHs National Institute on Aging.

About AgeX Therapeutics

AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. (NYSE American: AGE) is focused on developing and commercializing innovative therapeutics for human aging. Its PureStem and UniverCyte manufacturing and immunotolerance technologies are designed to work together to generate highly-defined, universal, allogeneic, off-the-shelf pluripotent stem cell-derived young cells of any type for application in a variety of diseases with a high unmet medical need. AgeX has two preclinical cell therapy programs: AGEX-VASC1 (vascular progenitor cells) for tissue ischemia and AGEX-BAT1 (brown fat cells) for Type II diabetes. AgeXs revolutionary longevity platform induced Tissue Regeneration (iTR) aims to unlock cellular immortality and regenerative capacity to reverse age-related changes within tissues. AGEX-iTR1547 is an iTR-based formulation in preclinical development. HyStem is AgeXs delivery technology to stably engraft PureStem cell therapies in the body. AgeX is developing its core product pipeline for use in the clinic to extend human healthspan and is seeking opportunities to establish licensing and collaboration agreements around its broad IP estate and proprietary technology platforms.

For more information, please visit http://www.agexinc.com or connect with the company on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements that are not historical fact including, but not limited to statements that contain words such as "will," "believes," "plans," "anticipates," "expects," "estimates" should also be considered forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements and as such should be evaluated together with the many uncertainties that affect the business of AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. and its subsidiaries particularly those mentioned in the cautionary statements found in more detail in the "Risk Factors" section of AgeXs Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commissions (copies of which may be obtained at http://www.sec.gov). Subsequent events and developments may cause these forward-looking statements to change. AgeX specifically disclaims any obligation or intention to update or revise these forward-looking statements as a result of changed events or circumstances that occur after the date of this release, except as required by applicable law.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200228005122/en/

Contacts

Media Contact for AgeX:

Bill Douglass Gotham Communications, LLCbill@gothamcomm.com (646) 504-0890

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AgeX Therapeutics Researchers Publish Paper on the Age Reprogramming of Super-Centenarian Cells - Yahoo Finance

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Consuming Olive Oil After Exercising Can Aid Good Health And Longevity – International Business Times

Friday, February 28th, 2020

KEY POINTS

Olive oil has been renowned for its umpteen health benefits and for adding to the Mediterranean diets excellence. A new study reported that olive oil could be associated with good health and longer lives.

The researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School studied how olive oil affected human cells in Petri dishes and found that the fats present in the oil activate certain cellular pathways associated with longevity. The study also demonstrated that olive oil reduced the risk of age-related ailments including diabetes and cardiovascular conditions.

The findings of the study suggested that olive oil fats get stored in the body and gets released during exercise. While combining olive oil consumption with fasting or exercising, the effects of the oil will be more pronounced.

We found that the way these fat works is it first has to get stored in microscopic things called lipid droplets, which is how our cells store fat. And then, when the fat is broken down during exercising or fasting, for example, is when the signaling and beneficial effects are realized," Insider quoted the studys lead researcher Dr. Doug Masheks press release.

Clinical trials might be the next steps for their research in order to discover new drugs or to further tailor dietary regimes that aid health benefits.

Mediterranean diet emerged from the countries surrounding the Mediterranean sea, where individuals historically consumed vegetables, healthy fats, nuts, and oily fish. Unlike the fad diets including Atkins or the keto, the Mediterranean diet allows people to eat a wide variety of foods in moderation. It is one of the safest diets for most people, including older adults and children.

Mediterranean diet staples including fresh fruits, whole-grain bread, salads, nuts, olive oil, beans, and salmon promote a wide range of health benefits, Insider mentioned.

This is not the first study to demonstrate the benefits of olive oil. Previous researches have reported that the oil could reduce frailty in older individuals, reduce inflammation in older people, prevents stroke risk, protect against heart diseases, prevent breast cancer risk and also prevent cognitive diseases including Alzheimers and Parkinsons as well.

olive oil for heart attack Photo: congerdesign - Pixabay

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Consuming Olive Oil After Exercising Can Aid Good Health And Longevity - International Business Times

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Dairy milk could increase the risk of breast cancer – The Hill

Friday, February 28th, 2020

A new study released this month suggests women who drink dairy milk, even as little as one cup per day, may be at an elevated risk of developing breast cancer.

The study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology from researchers at Loma Linda University Health found that even relatively moderate amounts of dairy milk consumption is associated with an increase of breast cancer risk of up to 80 percent, depending on the amount consumed.

Consuming as little as to cup of dairy milk per day was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer of 30 percent,Gary E. Fraser, author of the paper, said.

By drinking up to one cup per day, the associated risk went up to 50 percent, and for those drinking two to three cups per day, the risk increased further to 70 percent to 80 percent.

Researchers observed the dietary intake of 53,000 women for nearly eight years, all of whom were initially cancer free.

By the end of the study, there were 1,057 women diagnosed with breast cancer, or about 2 percent of the total women who participated in the study. No clear associations were found between soy products and breast cancer, independent of dairy.

Fraser said the associations between breast cancer and dairy milk could be the result of the sex hormone content of dairy milk, as cows are lactating and about 75 percent of the dairy herd is pregnant.

Dairy milk does have some positive nutritional qualities, Fraser said, but these need to be balanced against other possible, less helpful effects. This work suggests the urgent need for further research.

The American Cancer Society (ACS) estimates more than 42,000 women will die from breast cancer in 2020. Its the second leading cause of cancer death in women, behind lung cancer.

The nutrition study has some limitations, as this one was observational, making it difficult to confirm cause and effect. There could be other factors associated with milk consumption that are impacting breast cancer risk.

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This Smell-Related Trait May Hold The Key To Living Longer – International Business Times

Friday, February 28th, 2020

KEY POINTS

Longevity may, at times, be subjected to chance, but scientific information also provides a wide-ranging guide by identifying in advance some warning signs. Markers linked to life-threatening and age-related complications like dementia, for instance, are largely being identified early on. Findings of the study that were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine have made a significant contribution to this field. According to the study, your sense of smell may provide clues in determining your lifespan.

The Sense of Smell

Researchers found that older adults suffering from a poor sense of smell may die sooner compared to those with better olfactory attributes.To examine the relationship between longevity and sense of smell, researchers gathered 2,289 adults with ages ranging from 71 to 82 years old. They were then asked to identify twelve common smells, with researchers ranking their capability to recognize the correct smell from 0 to 12.

To make sure that all participants begin on a level footing, researchers made sure none of the volunteers were frail. All of them were checked if they could climb ten steps easily and walk a quarter of a mile, as well as complete routine activities without any help.During the 13-year study, 1,211 of these participants died. sense of smell and longevity Photo: Public Domain Pictures - Pixabay

Upon checking their data, researchers found participants who have a weak sense of smell were 46% more likely to die by the tenth year of the study. Another 30% were at risk of dying by the end of the study compared to those who have a good sense of smell.

Poor Sense Of Smell

The link was hugely limited to volunteers who showed good to excellent health at the beginning of the study. This proved that a poor sense of smell might be a sensitive and an early sign of deteriorating health before it is recognized clinically.

This was the conclusion of Dr. Honglei Chen, the senior author of the study and a professor at Michigan State University in East Lansing.Highlighting the impact of having a poor sense of smell, Dr. Chen said those with olfactory problems were 62% more likely to die by the tenth year of the study. This is despite being in excellent or good health at the beginning of the study.

Researchers also found that those with a poor sense of smell are at higher risk of dying from cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, but not from respiratory conditions or cancer.Having a poor sense of smell may be an early indication of poor health in older age. As the results suggest, this goes beyond neurodegenerative ailments that often signal the start of mental or physical decline.

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This Smell-Related Trait May Hold The Key To Living Longer - International Business Times

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Want To Increase Your Longevity? Looking To The Left Might Help – mindbodygreen.com

Friday, February 28th, 2020

Just like we learned as children, when crossing an intersection, always look both ways. But more importantly, always look left first. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), "A significant proportion of intersection crashes involve left turns."

Proactively turning left to make sure another driver isn't breaking the rules of the road can help prevent a collision. According to Attia, more automotive accidents occur in intersections (20%) compared to on freeways (18%), so it's safe to assume the designs of each roadway might be a contributing factor in car crashes.

In an intersection, drivers are often turning in front of oncoming traffic, as opposed to freeways, where everyone is headed in the same direction. Attia wrote in a blog post, "A driver is most likely going to be struck near the driver's side by another vehicle, otherwise known as a broadside or T-bone crash."

In the same post, Attia demonstrates a variety of potential intersection crashes. In each one, the driver with the right of way would be killed from direct impact on the left side, and the other driver is usually running a red light or a stop sign. But those scenarios refer to intersection crashes, not T-junction crashes.

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How to live longer: Three reasons why paprika spice may increase your life expectancy – Express

Friday, February 28th, 2020

Research continues to drill down into the properties of different food items to evaluate their impact on peoples health over a specified period of time. Naturally, the foods that come out on top are the ones that protect you against a host of deadly conditions, such as heart disease and cancer. While evidence clearly shows that no single item will be a panacea, specific ingredients have been shown to provide myriad health benefits nonetheless, making them an essential component of any diet.

One such ingredient is paprika, a ground spice made from a mixture of dried peppers in the Capsicum anuum family, including hot chili peppers, cayenne peppers, poblano peppers, aleppo peppers, sweet peppers, and others.

Here are three reasons to include paprika in your diet

Evidence suggests paprika may benefit your cholesterol levels, a key protective measure against heart disease.

Cholesterol comes in two forms: LDL and HDL cholesterol, and the former is often branded the bad cholesterol because carrying too much of it clogs up your arteries, a mechanism that hikes your risk of having a heart attack.

HDL cholesterol, on the other hand, cancels out this harmful process by picking up the LDL cholesterol and transporting it to the liver where it is removed from the body.

READ MORE:How to live longer: How education or a lack of it could impact life expectancy

Studies investigating the carotenoid compounds found in paprika, such as beta carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin, have revealed they play a role in fighting oxidative stress, which is thought to increase your risk of certain cancers.

Oxidative stress is an imbalance of free radicals - unstable molecules which can lead to cell and tissue damage - and antioxidants, which are thought to protect against these unstable molecules.

Notably, in a study in nearly 2,000 women, those with the highest blood levels of beta carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin, and total carotenoids were 2535 percent less likely to develop breast cancer.

Whats more, capsaicin in paprika may inhibit cancer cell growth and survival by influencing the expression of several genes, says research.

Capsaicin, the active comment of paprika that gives it its spice, may help to manage diabetes, a chronic condition that is a precursor to heart disease.

How? Research suggests capsaicin may influence genes involved in blood sugar control and inhibit enzymes that break down sugar in your body. It may also improve insulin sensitivity, another key component of blood sugar control.

Improving blood sugar control is critical because unregulated blood sugar levels can lead to more serious complications, such as heart disease.

Bolstering the claims, in a four-week study in 42 pregnant women with diabetes, taking a daily 5-mg capsaicin supplement significantly decreased post-meal blood sugar levels, compared with a placebo.

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More than 4 in 10 Americans obese, study finds – The Hill

Friday, February 28th, 2020

A new government survey found that approximately 4 in 10 American adults are obese, with nearly 1 in 10 being severely obese.

The report was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and released Thursday.The data was collected during 2017-2018, recording the height and weight of participants to get an average American Body Mass Index (BMI). Approximately 5,000 U.S. adults were surveyed.

The BMI measurement calculates an individuals height to weight ratio to gauge the level of body fat. A BMI of 30 or higher falls within the obese range, and a BMI above 40 is considered severely obese, according to CDC definitions.

Results indicated that 42 percent of participants were obese, just slightly higher than the40 percent recorded in a 2015-2016 study.

Participants who were found to be severely overweight rose to more than9 percent, after recording 8 percent in the previoussurvey.

Obesity appeared more prevalent across certain racial groups, with black American adults reportinga 49.6 percent obesity rate, andHispanic and non-Hispanic adults following with ratesabove 40 percent. Asian participants reported the lowest adult obesity rate with 17.4 percent,the CDC found.

Obesity rates have steadily risen since 1999, according to historical data from the CDC, with a slight dip in 2011-2012. The recent report stated that the newest data may not be statistically significant, as the small increases do not deviate far from previous results.

Similar data shows the prevalence of obesity rising on average as well since 1999, with its occurrence in U.S. adults who are 20 or older rising significantly from 30 percent to 38 percent over a 15 year period.

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Call for bids – 49er and 49erFX Sails The class is seeking to improve consistency and longevity – Sail World

Friday, February 28th, 2020

by Ben Remocker 26 Feb 03:09 PST

The 49er class invites expressions of interest to design and build 49er and/or 49erFX sails for the 2021-2024 quadrennial.

The 49er class welcomes world leading sail designers and manufacturers to bid on becoming our class sailmaker(s). The selected sailmaker(s) will have the opportunity to build sails for at least the four year period leading to the Paris Olympics, with the possibility to extend for further quadrennials.

The current 49er sails have been used since 2009 while the 49erFX sails have been used since 2012. The 49er class has had 3 different designs of sails over the years, while the 49erFX is coming off the original set of sails.

The class is seeking to improve consistency and longevity of the sails, to keep the costs of campaigning as manageable as possible.

Each of the two rigs, 49er and 49erFX, has been updated for 2021 already, with CST being the new mast maker for the classes. The new masts are of the same geometry and bend characteristics as the previous generation of masts. The existing class masts are expected to remain class legal for the foreseeable future.

We invite all interested parties to get the full technical requirements via email. Expressions of interest are due by March 28th, 2020.

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Call for bids - 49er and 49erFX Sails The class is seeking to improve consistency and longevity - Sail World

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Longevity Tips from the Blue Zones | The Heart of the Farm is the Family – Lancaster Farming

Thursday, February 20th, 2020

Have you ever heard of the term Blue Zones? This phrase refers to five different regions around the globe that researchers have identified as having the highest concentrations of centenarians in the world.

While in the U.S., the average life expectancy is 78 years, in the Blue Zones, living to be over 100 isnt uncommon. The regions that make up the Blue Zones include Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Icaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California.

Despite the geographical differences, people in these areas share nine key lifestyle habits, which have been coined the Power 9. Here is a glance at what the longest-living people in the world have in common, and what you can do to adopt their longevity practices, no matter where you live.

Move Naturally

Physical activity is part of daily life for the residents in the Blue Zones and is incorporated into the day through activities like gardening, walking and cooking. Research on men living in the Sardinian Blue Zone discovered that living longer was associated with activities like raising farm animals, living on steeper slopes in the mountains and walking longer distances to work. Building more physical activity into daily life can help meet the physical activity guidelines for Americans. These guidelines suggest at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity per week.

Sense of Purpose

In the Blue Zones communities, having a sense of purpose in life is associated with living longer.

In Okinawa, a life purpose is known as ikigai and in Nicoya, it is referred to as plan de vida.

Having a reason to get out of bed in the morning is closely intertwined with happiness, and without one, it can be difficult to maintain healthy behaviors and a lifestyle that contributes to a longer life. Research on psychological well-being has linked a sense of purpose and happiness with a reduced risk of death. The evidence is clear; having a positive outlook on life can influence how long you live.

Manage Your Stress

We know that too much stress is bad for us and often leads to inflammation that is associated with many age-related chronic diseases. In the Blue Zones, people still experience stress, however they have different routines that help manage their stress. For example, people in Okinawa take time every day to remember their ancestors, while Seventh Day Adventists in Loma Linda often pray, Ikarians take frequent naps, and Sardinians partake in happy hour. It is clearly important to find stress management techniques that work for you, whether that is getting the right amount of sleep, being physically active or socializing with friends and family.

Eat Until You Are 80% Full

Another practice that Blue Zone communities have in common is that they dont overeat. Okinawans follow the 80% rule, which is known as hara hachi bu. It simply means that they stop eating when they feel 80% full, rather than 100% full. Because of this, it is harder to consume too many calories, which leads to weight gain, obesity and other chronic diseases. Strategies like placing your fork down between bites and focusing on your sense of fullness can help make it easier to stop eating when you feel 80% full.

Plant Slant

It may sound strange to us in the United States, but the cornerstone of most Blue Zone diets is plants.

Although most are not vegetarians, they do tend to eat a 95% plant-based diet. Instead of being the main course, meat is served as a small side, and is often considered a celebratory food or a way to add flavor to plant-based dishes. Diets in the Blue Zones are rich in vegetables, legumes, nuts and whole grains.

Moderate Wine Consumption

Another factor common to many of the Blue Zones is moderate wine consumption. Some studies have shown that one to two drinks per day can significantly reduce mortality, specifically from heart disease. In the Icarian and Sardinian Blue Zones, red wine is the drink of choice, with many people consuming 1-2 glasses per day. Red wine contains an antioxidant called resveratrol, which may prevent blood vessel damage and may reduce LDL cholesterol. It is important to remember that these benefits are only seen for moderate wine consumption (up to one 5-ounce glass a day for women and up to two for men). Be sure to talk with your doctor before making any changes in alcohol consumption.

Find Community

Most of the Blue Zones are religious, with the majority of people belonging to a faith-based community. Many studies on faith and religion have shown that being religious is associated with a lower risk of death. It is unclear why, however, researchers speculate that this could be due to social support and reduced rates of depression. If this is the case, being a part of any meaningful community could also increase longevity, whether that be faith-based or not.

Put Family First

In the Blue Zones, family members are often close. Not only do younger generations value older generations, but they often live together and help care for older family members. In many Blue Zones, it is not uncommon for grandparents to live with their families. In fact, studies have shown that grandparents who help raise their grandchildren have a reduced risk of death than those who do not care for grandchildren. It seems that being close with family can influence lifespan.

Maintain a Fulfilling Social Life

People in Blue Zones have supportive social circles and actively participate in them. In Okinawa, the term moais refers to groups of five friends that are committed to each other for life. Social support and a sense of community are essential in all Blue Zones areas, and research has linked this to good health, happiness and longevity. Additionally, many studies have shown lower rates of hypertension, obesity and diabetes in those who have a strong support network.

Katie Greenawalt is a Penn State Extension educator for food, families and health in Lebanon County.

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Understanding the mechanism and longevity of corrosion inhibitors in insulation: part one – Hydrocarbon Engineering

Thursday, February 20th, 2020

Insulation systems, comprised of thermal insulation, jacketing, mastics, and sealants, are designed to keep water out in order to maintain the integrity of the thermal insulation and limit corrosion under insulation (CUI). However, even the best designed and installed systems sometimes become compromised in real-world applications, resulting in the presence of water at the pipe surface and the potential for CUI.

As industry experts explore new ways to mitigate and inhibit CUI, a new strategy based on the chemistry of the insulation has been developed. This concept considers how the insulations chemistry can promote or inhibit corrosion after water has been introduced to the system. The first step in exploring this new mitigation strategy is understanding the corrosion by-products of different insulation types based on their chemistries. In order understand this, Johns Manville (JM) recently conducted two new studies to explore how insulation influences the chemistry that occurs on the metal surface of a pipe and whether or not the XOX Corrosion Inhibitor found in Thermo-1200 and Sproule WR-1200 maintains its efficacy after repeated wet-dry cycling. The purpose of the analysis is to better understand how CUI is impacted by the interaction between the thermal insulation chemistry and the metal surfaces that are routinely seen in industrial systems.

The first test protocol used in this study was based on ASTM C1617 Standard Practice for Quantitative Accelerated Laboratory Evaluation of Extraction Solutions Containing Ions Leached from Thermal Insulation on Aqueous Corrosion of Metals. Per the test method, the leachable content of the insulation was extracted via a boiling liquid extraction. The extractions were then dripped onto heated carbon steel coupons for a period of 96 hours to mimic accelerated wet/dry cycles.

In this study, after 96 hours of exposure, the surface corrosion and by-products on the carbon steel coupons were subjected to laboratory analyses via electron diffraction spectroscopy (EDS), optical microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The EDS analysis was used to determine the composition and relative amount of each element on the surface layer of the coupons. The enhanced optical and SEM analyses were used to visually inspect the surface of the coupons.

The insulation samples tested in this study and listed below cover the CUI range and are designed for use in applications up to 1200F:

JMs EDS analysis of surface corrosion layers on carbon steel showed that different chemical compositions form depending on the type of insulation that was in contact with the metal surface. Insulation materials with corrosion inhibiting chemistries, like Thermo-1200 and Sproule WR-1200, were shown to decrease the proliferation of corrosion on metal surfaces by depositing a protective layer of sodium silicate onto the metal surface. This layer was present when testing the Sproule WR-1200 (hydrophobic perlite with the XOX Corrosion Inhibitor) sample and the Thermo-1200 (water-resistant calcium silicate with the XOX Corrosion Inhibitor) sample.

The elements present in this study were predominantly metal oxides, including silica oxide, iron oxide, and calcium oxide, as well as sodium, magnesium, and chlorine. The close inspection of the metal coupons revealed that components leaching from different insulation chemistries interact with pipe surfaces in different ways, some propagating corrosion and others inhibiting it. By analysing the CUI surface layer (or absence of a CUI layer), engineers can understand how the insulation chemistry can influence the potential for long-term corrosion of the system as a whole. Johns Manville will discuss this research in greater detail in its live Insulation Intel webinar, Mitigating CUI: A Two-Pronged Approach on 25 February 2020 at 2pm ET (Register Now), and during its presentation at the upcoming NACE Corrosion 2020 Conference and Expo on 15 19 March. Part two of this article will discuss the results from the corrosion inhibitor longevity testing after repeated wet-dry cycles.

Written by Marybeth Jones, Johns Manville.

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/special-reports/20022020/understanding-the-mechanism-and-longevity-of-corrosion-inhibitors-in-insulation-part-one/

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Does our blood hold the secrets of our longevity? – The Oakland Press

Thursday, February 20th, 2020

(Editors note: This article is part of an editorial partnership between Next Avenue and The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), a national nonprofit whose mission is to support and advance healthy aging through biomedical research.)

Are you as old as you feel, as old as you look or as old as your birth certificate says? The best answer may be none of the above.

Actually, you may be as biologically old as your blood says you are.

For many years, aging researchers have sought markers of biological age, or biomarkers simple signals that reveal the expected length of your future health. The expected length of future health, after all, is the key biological difference between younger and older people.

Some people have called such markers biological clocks. I dont know about you, but I dont typically calculate my age by thinking of clocks. I think of calendars. So, I prefer to call these hypothetical signals biological calendars.

The importance of these calendars is that they potentially allow researchers to quickly see whether a new drug, diet or other treatment that purports to slow, or even possibly reverse, aging is actually doing so.

Biological calendars of aging can also provide rapid feedback on how a lifestyle change, such as in diet or exercise habits, is affecting your biological age. This insight can motivate people to stick with that change.

Now, as a biological calendar, blood is a devilishly complex stew. Like a stew, it is liquid with lumps in it. We call the liquid plasma; the lumps, cells. Physicians for the past century have been using chemical analysis of plasma and counts of the various blood cell types to diagnose diseases. But we are now entering a brave new world of blood analysis.

Plasma contains not just the dozen or two chemicals that standard laboratory tests measure; it contains a constantly changing mixture of vitamins, nutrients, waste products, hormones and thousands of different proteins.

A hint that plasma might hold secrets about aging has come from research in which the plasma from young mice (or humans!) was found to rejuvenate the function of muscles, brain, heart and other organs of old mice. Dracula, it turns out, may have been onto something.

Recent advances in chemical analysis allow us to measure thousands of plasma chemicals at once, and advances in machine learning are helping make sense of that torrent of information. Plasma proteins may turn out to be just the type of biological calendar we are seeking.

I say this because a recent study of about 3,000 plasma proteins found that a specific combination of 373 of these proteins could accurately tell the age of the person from whom it was drawn. The study was conducted by AFAR Scientific Director Dr. Nir Barzilai with AFAR grantees David Gate of Stanford University and Dr. Sofiya Milman and Dr. Joe Verghese, both from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

On top of that, people who were judged by their proteins to be younger than their real age scored better on a panel of physical and mental tests. We dont know yet how well these proteins might predict future health or life, but those studies will soon follow.

Blood cells, in addition to plasma, might have an even more promising aging tale to tell.

Your white blood cells (but not your red cells) contain your DNA, which provides the instruction manual for pretty much everything that goes on in your body. A few years ago, it was hoped that telomeres those protective DNA caps at the ends of your chromosomes from white blood cells might be a useful biological calendar. But telomeres as predictors of future health have not held up to scientific scrutiny.

However, we may have just been looking at the wrong part of our DNA.

Although we tend to think of DNA as little more than a long-coded sequence of DNA letters, there is a bit more to it. In particular, there are a number of small chemical tags that attach to DNA at specific sites to help turn off, or turn on, genes.

In recent years, combinations of particular tags called DNA methylation have, like plasma proteins, been shown to be good predictors of age and health in people and animals. These tags have even been shown to predict time to death and the development of later life diseases in people.

Perhaps even more exciting, a small, very preliminary study of 10 middle-aged men taking a hormone cocktail designed to stimulate the immune system showed a one-and-a-half-year regression in their DNA methylation calendar.

Lets not get too excited about this result yet. It is easy to overinterpret such very preliminary results, as some of the media have done. We have no idea at present what a small backward trend in DNA methylation age means, and this study has more than a few limitations. But it is without doubt provocative.

Stay tuned. Analysis of blood cells and blood plasma may hold secrets of aging that we are just beginning to discover.

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Does our blood hold the secrets of our longevity? - The Oakland Press

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How To Tell If Your New Employee Will Quit On You After 6 Months Or 7 Years. The Mindset Method. – Thrive Global

Thursday, February 20th, 2020

Keeping Employees Nowadays Is Tough.

Now more than ever spotting your right employees got more challenging than ever. In its 2018 Employee Tenure Summary, theBLSreported, the median employee tenure was 4.3 years for men and 4.0 years for women. We dont have the data for 2019, but we also know that this longevity varies by age and occupation while retention becomes a catch and release game.

That is why any tool that can help you as an employer to at leastpredict retention probabilitiescan be a game-changer. And here comes the undeniable utility ofthe mindset method.I call it the mindset method because it uses one of thesubconscious mindset filters involved to run us on autopilot. And so, working with the filters is like hacking someones brain.

Every time I used this method it was stunningly accurate. I mean I did it in my training with 10, 20 people, or in private coaching. I did this while helping companies with new hires. I did it with my husband, he with his colleagues. Same amazing accuracy.

The only downfall is I didnt use it enough or speak about it when its so valuable for all of you to know. It can save you time, money, or at least prepare you for some changes in the near future. I couldnt do it with myself because, you know, I was already spoiled with the rules. But other than that it worked magic.

Not to mention it works the same for relationships. That can get intriguing. Thats because the subconscious filter youll use to determine the longevity of your new employee is calledThe Relationship Filter.

Youll need 3 coins for that (nickels, dimes, euro cents, you name it). It doesnt matter what type of coins, just to be the same carrying the same value. They can be fake coins if you want. But you need them for this test.

Once you evaluate a candidate for the job, place the 3 coins in front of the person. Two of them should have the same orientation. Like if its a nickel you have two heads pointing straight up and one of the heads pointing at the other two, or in a different direction. If you use number based coins you orient the numbers straight up for two of the coins and one pointing in a different direction. You got the idea.

Now, ask this question:

Whats the relationship between these 3 coins?

Its crucial to not change the question, ask it exactly this way, using these exact words. This will give you the ability to hear their language using an ambiguous question based on similarities, not differences.

Now its time to listen. Consider every word they say.This wayyoull get the answer youre looking for, based on 5 categories. Youll include your new employee or candidate in one of these 5.

You look for percentages. This way to can plan for the change.

Lets translate the data.

You look for percentages and which comes first. Sameness people will always start with similarities. Those with differences will start with that.

First, dont panic. Especially if you want someone badly but it turns out he/shes in category 5, or 4, and you want that person around for many years to come.

Someone with the difference filter on can stay longer at the job if the job itself changes in that period. If you can count on max. 6 months you need to plan new responsibilities, department changes, different schedules, and a different routine, or even title.

Here is the magic.

If that person perceives the change like a new opportunity it can stay.

Since I am a promoter of a remote work environment, wherever is possible, lets include the simplest way to use this method no matter where your employees are.

It doesnt matter what kind of screening software you use. There are those cool quizzes where you can include this test. You can even do it through a simple form of a questionnaire (text and image).

If its a video interview you just include a slide to share during the question and listen.

If the coin method is not available for whatever reason, here is another question you can ask.

What is the relationship between what youre doing this year on the job and what you did at this time last year?

The same rules apply. Listen to the words your candidate is saying.

These filters are not good or bad. They reflect how you perceive the relationship between things in your life. How they are related to each other. Once you know what youre dealing with you can plan things out.

The same goes for personal relationships. If your significant other is with you for 2 years and you know its differences with exception (or sameness and differences equally) you understand its time to spark up the relationship or create some significant changes. If you want to keep that person of course.

I know its not ideal, especially if you are forever sameness, but at least a big hallo is lifted from your head, and now you know what to expect and evaluate if the sacrifices worth the effort.

Note!Just to be clear. The Mindset Method using the Relationship Filter wont take all the other evaluation methods out of the table. Your employee still needs to match the company, its culture, and be an overall good fit. And then the relationship filter can come into play.

This article was inspired by the emails I received after thisFREE Masterclass. Its still running for a limited time. Feel yourself invited:HOW TO READ PEOPLE BY DISCOVERING THEIR SUBCONSCIOUS FILTERS.

Originally published atMindset to Greatness

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How To Tell If Your New Employee Will Quit On You After 6 Months Or 7 Years. The Mindset Method. - Thrive Global

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Mass Adoption Of AI In Financial Services Expected Within Two Years – Forbes

Thursday, February 20th, 2020

A

Percentage of reported significant AI-induced increases in profitability by current R&D ... [+] expenditure on AI (Figure 2.17 in Survey)

A significant number of financial industry executives from 151 financial institutions in 33 countries report that within the next two years they expect to become mass adopters of AI and expect AI to become an essential business driver across the financial industry. This information was collected as part of a survey on AI in Financial Services conducted by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School and supported by EY and Invesco. The objective of the study was to understand the opportunities and challenges that will result from mass adoption of AI in Financial Services.The research was published in a 127-page report entitled Transforming Paradigms A Global AI in Financial Services Survey.

Highlights from the Survey

Financial Services sectors represented in the survey sample(Figure 1.2 in Survey)

Insights from the Survey

Perceived strategic importance of AI over time (Figure 3.1 in Survey)

R&D expenditure spent on AI (Figure 2.15 in Survey)

The Widening Technological Gap

The report addressed the widening technological gap between high and low spenders as high spenders increase funding for AI R&D. Researchers speculated that AI supremacy might be determined between high-spenders vs. low-spenders rather than incumbents vs. disruptors.That prediction may be true, but consider that in the last 10 years investment in the FinTech industry has exceeded $350 billion dollars. During the same period a similar amount of funding was invested in other industries such as AI, healthcare, and aerospace. There have been a number of breakthroughs in these other areas but not that much in FinTech. The amount of money invested in FinTech has not yielded so significant results compared to other domains. In the last 10 years FinTech received more investment but accomplished less with it.

Long term AI supremacy in financial services is likely to result from a combination of factors including technical prowess, domain knowledge, and AI friendly senior management driving AI strategy. The companies most likely to achieve AI supremacy will be the ones capable of attracting interdisciplinary teams that have deep experience in both AI and financial services who can design, build, and implement AI-powered novel FinTech solutions. Companies with AI-friendly executives will demonstrate how the effective use of AI can increase a company's valuation. The presence of AI-friendly CEOs in financial services could be an indication that a company is more likely to succeed.

Development teams with experience using Data Science and AI will understand both its potential and also its practical limitations at this stage. Experts with specific domain knowledge in FinTech will be able to understand the real-world processes that they are modeling, and be able to develop superior products. Companies that achieve leadership in FinTech 2.0 will be the ones that are able to build teams that have experience in both AI and financial services.

FinTech, AI, and data-driven technologies will converge into a single advanced technology

The Convergence of FinTech, AI, and Data-Driven Technologies

In the near future, FinTech, AI, and data-driven technologies will converge into a single advanced technology. Next-generation financial companies will use engineering methods with integrated systems to treat business, finance and technology as a single unit with complementary parts. The resulting FinTech 2.0 will offer unprecedented potential for growth and disruption.The 7 Components of FinTech 2.0 are:

In the HealthTech space, the application of data science and AI has already enabled P4 Medicine (personalized, predictive, precision, participatory). The integration of data science, AI, and FinTech will result in P4 FinTech (personalized, predictive, precision, participatory). AI will enable personalized financial products optimized for individuals. Several cycles of feedback between the user and the AI system will deliver products specifically tuned to each individual. This level of AI enabled personalization is already standard in progressive medical clinics and soon will be incorporated in progressive FinTech. Companies using AI enabled FinTech 2.0 will surpass low tech FinTech companies and financial institutions using outdated technologies.

Financial Inclusion

In the next few years FinTech 2.0 will provide financial inclusion for people over 60 many of whom have been excluded in the past. There has never been a bank focused on the needs of people over 60. With FinTech 2.0, financial institutions will be able to explore this untapped multi trillion market. The AI-enabled Longevity Economy is an opportunity for the Financial Industry. Soon AI-powered FinTech companies and Longevity Banks will provide services designed for people 60+ who want to optimize their wealthspan. The global spending power of this demographic is $15 trillion per year, and is expected to grow to $27 trillion by 2026.Very advanced FinTech technology is already emerging in London and AI tools for FinTech 2.0 are already in development there.

Longevity Banks

Clients of Longevity Banks will have more time to accumulate wealth, will have a longer investment horizon, and will benefit from compounding.These banks will utilize AI to develop and deploy fully integrated AgeTech-WealthTech solutions to grow their clients healthspan and wealthspan simultaneously and in a coordinated way, enabling elderly people to have a higher quality of life in their golden years. Integrated FinTech and HealthTech will help older people manage their health and wealth simultaneously. Financial services innovators will use AI to provide personalized financial products that provide a comprehensive view of investments, taxes, insurance, and regulation without unneeded complexity. This will appeal to 1 billion people over 60 who make up the wealthiest part of the financial system.

The complete report is available here: Transforming Paradigms A Global AI in Financial Services Survey.

Margaretta Colangelo is co-founder of Longevity Bank which is expected to launch in Switzerland later this year.

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Mass Adoption Of AI In Financial Services Expected Within Two Years - Forbes

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The 74 Interview: Outgoing Louisiana Chief John White on the New Orleans Experiment, His Longevity and What It Means to Be Well Educated – The 74

Thursday, February 20th, 2020

See previous 74 interviews: Sen. Cory Booker talks about the success of Newarks school reforms, civil rights activist Dr. Howard Fuller talks confronting Elizabeth Warren on charter schools, criminologist Nadine Connell talks about the data behind school shootings, former U.S. Department of Education secretary John King talks the Trump administration and more. The full archive is right here.

When you tell people youre going to conduct an exit interview with John White, Louisianas state superintendent of schools, reactions are swift. The longest-serving state education chief in the country, White has steered some of the most audacious education and school-improvement initiatives of the era, ranging from prodding teacher training programs to professionalize to creating a list of evidence-based curriculum and incentives for districts to use.

And, of course, guiding the grand experiment that has been rebuilding New Orleanss schools in the wake of Hurricane Katrina into a system of independent charter schools, first under the control of the state-run Recovery School District and now, in an unprecedented governance arrangement, by the elected Orleans Parish School Board.

In the process, White has acquired a public profile thats unusually high for an education policy wonk. And so it is perhaps inevitable that in the weeks since he announced he will step down this spring, the education community grapevine has lit up with speculation about his next act.

White recently sat down with The 74 to talk about his tenure, what he learned from being a classroom teacher and what challenges education advocates should be thinking about next. He did not quell any of the rumor-mongering about his own future except to note that he will continue to be involved in Propel America, the nonprofit he co-founded that works to bridge the gap to skilled, entry-level jobs for high school graduates. And he is a new dad.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

The 74: Your friend Paymon Rouhanifard, former superintendent in Camden, New Jersey, suggested I ask about your experience as a teacher. In his view, much of what youve done in the years since you taught in Jersey City was influenced by that experience.

White: I learned a lot about what it meant to be well educated. I have carried a sense with me from then about not just wanting kids to graduate and not just wanting them to do well on certain measures, but also wanting them to have a good education. One thing this job has allowed me to come back to is the essentials of being well educated and insisting there are non-negotiables that have to do with what that means.

One of those things is to have a base of knowledge, having read certain materials and had certain discussions and studied certain places and people. If you havent done those things in this society, its very hard to think critically or strategically because you simply arent playing with the raw material, the raw knowledge that well-educated people are playing with.

I struggled with that as a teacher. Ultimately, I arrived at a pretty good plan for my kids to bolster not just their conventional skills, but the knowledge of the world and of history that would allow them to be good readers and critical thinkers.

Whats a present-day example of an outgrowth of that belief?

Were one of four states thats operating an assessment pilot under the Every Student Succeeds Act, which is effectively a test that is purely based on curriculum and texts.

As an English teacher, I always ask myself, to what degree are my kids going to be able to step into a literature seminar at a university and be comfortable with and perform in that environment? The test that weve designed and are now implementing with more than 10,000 kids actually measures, Did you understand and can you make sense of the books that youve read? Not just, Can you adequately summarize this passage youve never seen before?

Thats a different level of understanding and a different level of education.

Other education leaders who have tried to make the kinds of big changes you led had much shorter tenures that often sparked political backlash. What enabled you to persist?

Ive worked for the state of Louisiana for nine years. Ive been in this role for eight years. Its a shame that we think of that as a long tenure. Students and school leaders deserve much greater continuity than they get.

I think we all can acknowledge that education has a particularly long tail in terms of impact. It takes time to see whats worked at the scale that were contemplating across 700,000 or 800,000 kids.

I always thought it would be better to be more invested for the long term to see things through to greater levels of fruition and to be able to evaluate whether the things youve done have worked while you were still in office.

In terms of why Ive been able to do it, the people who work around me in the organization have persisted too. And the team of board members and legislative leaders and superintendents and teachers, teacher leaders that have been in my orbit very regularly.

You have to have that team. Our ability to keep the team together allowed us to weather political vicissitudes and to confront strategic challenges over a longer period of time.

New Orleans schools returned to local control a year and a half ago. Is there still work to be done in easing the tension between autonomy and accountability? Im thinking of the ongoing grading scandal at Kennedy High School and other issues that seem to have bedeviled the Orleans Parish School Board.

Big urban school systems are messy. They have a history of underserving low-income kids of color and people with disabilities in every city in this country. Part of the problem is that theres not a light shined on their struggles, whether their struggles are manifestations of corruption or incompetence or just circumstance.

Look at New York City, where I was before. That is a massive bureaucracy that employs 120,000 people. For the media or the public to get a lens into the daily dysfunction of the bureaucracy is a very difficult thing. Theres a lot of forces working to make sure that the world doesnt know just how difficult educating kids is and how often people fail at that challenge.

In every other school system [than New Orleans], theres an incentive to make the world think that everything is OK. The legal watchdog on the system is also the system itself. Thats a contradiction.

In New Orleans, you have a situation where the watchdog is only a watchdog, and thats the school district office. So things like the grade-fixing at Kennedy High School, as one example, they come to light largely because there is a watchdog and the watchdogs job is to transparently lay those things out and deal with them and find ways of making sure they dont happen again.

We have a circumstance now in New Orleans where buses have not, in 13 school management organizations, been adequately reviewed. The school board isnt going to the media and denying it. Theyre addressing it. Theyre putting out statements and theyre sanctioning people who wont get on board.

The incentive structure is different. So when I see things happening like that, of course Im disappointed, but those things exist in every large school system in the country. Whats more shocking is that there are not more stories about it.

There are a number of places around the country where education policymakers are attempting to find a third way giving schools in traditional districts charterlike autonomy but not going as far as New Orleans. Texas, for instance, has created attractive incentives for districts to ask outside nonprofits to run schools.

There are a number of experiments going on around the country that are playing in the gray space between pure autonomy and pure regulation. Renaissance Schools in New Jersey. The empowerment zone concept thats at work in Springfield, Massachusetts, which I know [the nonprofit organization Empower Schools] is taking elsewhere, including Denver.

These are incredibly exciting innovations because in a way, more than collective bargaining, the one thing that is the most static in the system across 14,000 school districts is governance. That is the ultimate force right now for uniformity, for kind of a one-size-fits-all approach.

Of course, all those things come with risks. If youre claiming to be creating autonomies, but in fact the incentives political or otherwise are not those that people who are really autonomous truly possess, you could be risking creating a charade and a whole bunch of work that ultimately really doesnt manifest itself in anything particularly different for kids.

Autonomy is a word that needs to be scrutinized and understood for why its so powerful before you just go around granting it. Its not a thing that exists in shades of gray, in my experience: You either come to work feeling that your job is to fulfill the mandate that someone else has given you or that your job is to fulfill the challenges in front of you. An entrepreneur is a self-generating problem solver. An actor in a compliance-oriented system is simply absorbing passively what theyre told to do. Of course, in all of our jobs, there are variants of both of those things.

There is a risk in thinking that you can finely thread that needle. I have not seen a lot of experiments where people think, Well, well give them autonomy on this, but not on that and still have it result in really entrepreneurial behavior.

About your initiative to vet curricula and push schools to use high-quality materials, versus what we know plays out when teachers of varying talents take to, say, Pinterest in search of lessons how do you enable teachers, or, for that matter, their leaders, to be entrepreneurial in a way that promotes excellence?

Thats a question were wrestling with. Ironically, were sitting here in New Orleans, the school system where schools exercise the greatest flexibilities of any district in the country. Then [there are] the other 63 counties we call them parishes where we have done a lot to say curriculum is a non-negotiable. Your curriculum shall have certain features, and the publishers that live up to that standard will be active here, and the ones that dont will not.

That would seem to be the antithesis of autonomy. But I would say two things. First, there are conditions within which autonomy flourishes and conditions within which that does not. Autonomy flourishes in the presence of coherence.

We in the education establishment in America have treated [curriculum] as ancillary, as if its like its the drapes on your walls and windows rather than a fundamental piece of the framework of your home. In every other functional education system in the world, it is thought of as a foundational piece.

Theres nothing hurtful to autonomy about there being standards, about there being clear assessments that measure those standards and about there being a curriculum that embodies the standards. That encourages autonomy because it creates a road map for teachers. They know that if they roughly follow that map, then theyre going to get, in a linear way, to the goal. Its a trust environment.

We in the education establishment in America have treated [curriculum] as ancillary, as if its like its the drapes on your walls and windows rather than a fundamental piece of the framework of your home. In every other functional education system in the world, it is thought of as a foundational piece.

Secondly, your principal has to be in a position to translate the academic program into a system of learning for teachers. I dont care how good your curriculum is, I dont care how autonomous your school if your principal cant take the academic program and translate it into a daily means of teachers reflecting on outcomes, learning the curriculum and making plans for future implementation, that wont be a good school.

Youve gotten pushback from both sides politically on vouchers. Was it worth it?

I dont view our traditional public program, our charter public program and our nonpublic program as different from one another. In my view, school choice has a moral dimension and a practical dimension. The moral dimension is that affording rights to the privileged and not to the underprivileged is anti-American and wrong. And the practical dimension is, in a world where there are not enough good schools, why would we take off the table the ability of someone to attend a good school?

Unfortunately, the issue of private school choice, or school choice generally, is typically neither approached from a moral perspective or a practical perspective. Its approached from an ideological perspective, which means its a purity test for both conservatives and liberals. Im not that interested in purity tests.

Im for school choice. Im also for good schools. Im not for funding bad schools, and I am for increasing enrollment at good schools. So we have an accountability system. The accountability system has shown that there are good private schools and there are not-so-good private schools. Im for kids going to the good private schools. It seems very simple to me.

On the left, there is an aversion to even entertaining the notion of publicly funding religious institutions, which is tying one hand behind our back, I think, because you are taking off the table potentially very rich opportunities for social-emotional, values-based education. In a state like Louisiana, taking off the table the ability of kids to attend institutions that have served kids here for literally centuries.

Im for school choice. Im also for good schools. Im not for funding bad schools, and I am for increasing enrollment at good schools. So we have an accountability system. The accountability system has shown that there are good private schools and there are not-so-good private schools. Im for kids going to the good private schools. It seems very simple to me.

On the right, theres an aversion to regulating those schools and establishing even a very limited bar for minimum standards of quality. I cant see the justification of that from either a moral or practical perspective. Morally, it cant be right that we grow schools that are failing to teach young people basic things like reading. And from a practical perspective, if our goal is increasing the odds that youll be able to attend a good school, why on earth would we accept schools that are patently failing generations of kids, all in the name of them escaping failing schools?

Whats next in terms of educational progress, writ large? What is the next frontier?

Families are ridiculously strained in the first five years of childhood and in the years immediately following childhood. I appreciate the fact that Democrats and Republicans now are generating ideas in that space.

Complementing a childrens agenda should be a family and work agenda. Im excited about the popularizing of childcare, of maternal and paternal leave policies. Im excited about the promotion of work attainment systems and subsidies and education subsidies to get certain credentials. The cost of college and debt reduction.

In the K-12 system, we just passed a federal law that were supposed to be implementing. This is not the time for bunches of new ideas. This is the time for following through on our commitments, and it will take new and creative ways of doing that work.

For example, if we believe that our job is to get kids to grade level on standards, standards-based assessments and otherwise, we need better curriculum, we need better teacher training at scale, we need a generation of better tests. We need colleges of education and other prep programs to get serious about educating kids on using specific curriculum in a way that is seamlessly integrated with schools themselves.

We need early college courses that are challenging our students in terms of the real rigor of the world beyond. We need a legitimate career and technical program that involves workplace-based education.

Nothing that Im saying is new, but the law is new. If youre implementing the law in a way that is really faithful to the goal of elementary and secondary schools, youre doing all those things. And what I see is an aversion to talking about the substance of schooling.

Has becoming a dad changed your worldview in terms of your work?

No. I mean, I want to leave open the fact that it might in the long run. The day I became a parent is the day that I most viscerally felt how fortunate I am. Because when youre given the charge by God or nature or whatever power you ascribe it to, to take care of a person who has nothing, you really do realize how much you have. And especially when you walk around the maternity wards of these hospitals and you glance at the different circumstances among the people especially in a city like New Orleans, where you really have the wealthy and the poor in the same shared little space you understand what is I think sort of cheaply called the achievement gap. You understand its roots very deeply.

Whats next for John White?

I have no plans. Im going to take some time and figure it out. Ive been very blessed to have extremely good mentors, to work for incredible people and to have worked on, in my view, the most important domestic issue that our country presented me. And Ive done it for 21 straight years. I am going to take a little bit of time and think about how I replicate the learning and the mentorship and the mission orientation that Ive had in the first 21 years of my career in the next 21 years.

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The 74 Interview: Outgoing Louisiana Chief John White on the New Orleans Experiment, His Longevity and What It Means to Be Well Educated - The 74

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U.S. ranks 39th in child well-being study – The Hill

Thursday, February 20th, 2020

The United States ranks below nearly 40 countries when it comes to childrens health and well-being, while the health of children worldwide is under threat due to sustainability issues, according to a new report.

The report was compiled by health experts in a commission convened by the World Health Organization (WHO), Unicef and published in the medical journal The Lancet. It ranked 180 countries on three measures of child well-being: flourishing, sustainability and equity. The categories include health, education, nutrition, sustainability, greenhouse gas emissions and income gaps.

The U.S. came in at No. 39 on the child flourishing index, while Norway, South Korea and the Netherlands ranked in the top three respectively. Meanwhile, Somalia, Chad and the Central African Republic ranked last respectively.

Countries were also ranked by levels of excessive carbon emissions. Researchers looked at projected levels for 2030. The United States ranked number 173 for sustainability.

When the report factors in CO2 emissions, however, the top three countries were ranked 156, 166 and 160 respectively, based on their carbon emissions. The United States, Australia and Saudi Arabia are among the10 worst emitters in the world.

The report notes that while the poorest countries need to do more to support their childrens ability to live healthy lives, excessive carbon emissions from wealthier countries threaten the future of all children across the globe.

Despite improvements in child and adolescent health over the past 20 years, progress has stalled, and is set to reverse, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and co-Chair of the Commission Helen Clark said in a statement.

It has been estimated that around 250 million children under five years old in low-and middle-income countries are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential, based on proxy measures of stunting poverty. But of even greater concern, every child worldwide now faces existential threats from climate change and commercial pressures.

The reports authors called for countries to stop excessive carbon emissions, tighten regulations around commercial marketing of harmful products like alcohol and introduce new policies to protect childrens health, nutrition and rights.

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U.S. ranks 39th in child well-being study - The Hill

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Managing Complications Associated With Increased Longevity in Beta Thalassemia – Hematology Advisor

Thursday, February 20th, 2020

Beta thalassemia syndromes are among the most common monogenic disorders that occur globally and are generally inherited as autosomal recessive diseases. The beta globin gene HBB is found on the short arm of chromosome 11, and to date, more than 200 pathogenic HBB mutations have been identified. Beta globin and alpha globin combine to create the adult hemoglobin tetramer, which comprises 2 chains of each; however, reduced or absent synthesis of beta globin chains can create an imbalance that leads to accumulation and precipitation of free alpha chains in the red blood cell precursors. The result is anemia, which then stimulates erythropoietin synthesis that results in intense proliferation of bone marrow, skeletal deformities, dysregulated iron homeostasis, and increased levels of reactive oxygen species in the erythroid cells. Based on the severity of the phenotype, beta thalassemias are classified as either transfusion-dependent (TDT) or nontransfusion-dependent (NTDT).

Advances in understanding the pathophysiology of beta thalassemia have substantially improved patient management and led to a robust increase in life expectancy. However, longer survival brings its own set of issues. Moreover, the underlying pathophysiology of the syndromes has not been eliminated, and current treatments, although effective, are associated with complications. Improvements in survival have also been associated with age-related disorders that occur in the general population.

In a review article published in Expert Review of Hematology, Irene Motta, MD, of the department of clinical sciences and community health at the Universit degli Studi di Milano in Italy, and colleagues discussed the management of common complications that have been observed in patients with beta thalassemia.

Cardiovascular diseases remain a significant cause of morbidity and the primary cause of death in patients with both TDT and NTDT. More than 70% of deaths in this patient population are due to cardiovascular disease, and arrhythmias are becoming more prevalent in adults who have experienced previous iron overload.

All patients transitioned to adult care are monitored closely for these complications, said Hayley Merkeley, MD, MSc, FRCPC, of the division of hematology at the University of British Columbia in Canada. With respect to cardiac concerns, patients receive echocardiograms every 1 to 5 years depending on their symptoms, as well as a cardiac [magnetic resonance imaging scan] every 6 [to] 12 months.

Arrhythmias should be treated as in the general population. Although ablation strategies can be considered in select cases, there are currently no specific recommendations for it.

Adrenal insufficiency is another complication of thalassemia, although the researchers noted that among all of the thalassemia-related endocrinopathies, adrenal insufficiency in particular has been poorly studied and underreported in adult patients. Because it tends to develop gradually over time, and symptoms may be nonspecific and attributed to chronic anemia, undetected adrenal insufficiency may eventually present as a life-threatening acute crisis.

It is recommended, therefore, that the annual endocrinological evaluation for patients with both TDT and NTDT who are older than 18 years should always include basal adrenal function evaluation (adrenocorticotropic hormone [ACTH] and cortisol basal levels), and replacement therapy with cortisone acetate should be given if a diagnosis of adrenal insufficiency is made. For patients with low or borderline basal cortisol levels, an ACTH stimulation test should be performed in order to identify adrenal insufficiency.

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Managing Complications Associated With Increased Longevity in Beta Thalassemia - Hematology Advisor

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Dayton speech, debate teacher honored with national award – Chron

Thursday, February 20th, 2020

Hes a fierce competitor and a loyal teacher to his students, constantly praising them and giving them invaluable advice. Now hes being recognized by the National Speech and Debate Association for his excellence and longevity in the sport of speech and debate.

Hes a fierce competitor and a loyal teacher to his students, constantly praising them and giving them invaluable advice. Now hes being recognized by the National Speech and Debate Association for his

Hes a fierce competitor and a loyal teacher to his students, constantly praising them and giving them invaluable advice. Now hes being recognized by the National Speech and Debate Association for his excellence and longevity in the sport of speech and debate.

Hes a fierce competitor and a loyal teacher to his students, constantly praising them and giving them invaluable advice. Now hes being recognized by the National Speech and Debate Association for his

Dayton speech, debate teacher honored with national award

Hes a fierce competitor and a loyal teacher to his students, constantly praising them and giving them invaluable advice. Now hes being recognized by the National Speech and Debate Association for his excellence and longevity in the sport of speech and debate.

Dayton High Schools Speech and Debate Coach James Kingsmill will be recognized at the Donus Roberts Award Ceremony at the National Speech and Debate Association National Tournament in Albuquerque, New Mexico on June 19 with his First Diamond Award.

A Diamond coach award reflects on excellence and longevity in the activity.

According to the NSDA website, A coachs first Diamond is earned when they receive 15,000 points and have been coaching in the Association for at least five years since achieving the degree of merit (25 points). Five years must pass between each new diamond award, and 15,000 points must be earned to receive a second diamond. An additional 30,000 points must be earned, and five years must pass for each additional diamond.

Formed in 1925, The National Speech and Debate Association, previously called the National Forensic League until 2014, is the worlds largest forensic organization devoted to speech and debate activities. It bestows numerous awards and recognition to students, coaches, and schools annually. Diamond Coach Awards reflect excellence and longevity in the activity.

Prior to coaching at Dayton, Kingsmill coached at Galena Park and Needville High Schools. Under his leadership, Kingsmills debate teams have had success on the state and national level. His students have advanced to the University Interscholastic League (UIL) State Contest in both Cross Examination and Lincoln-Douglas Debate and Informative and Persuasive Speaking. His students have debated Student Congress in the Texas State Capitol.

Nationally his debate teams have earned spots as National Qualifiers and Finalists for the National Speech and Debate Association National Tournament and have earned the distinction of Academic All Americans.

Since his arrival at Dayton ISD, Kingsmills students have regularly competed and won numerous awards.

dtaylor@hcnonline.com

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Improve Longevity By Finding Time Each Year To Do This – International Business Times

Thursday, February 20th, 2020

KEY POINTS

Life expectancy statistics bring so much hope in 2020, particularly when tracing the origins of the data. The huge increase in global life expectancy over the past few decades displays a truly pleasing picture. This upward trend may be attributed in part to pioneering studies in the field of medicine and science.

The findings from both kinds of research continue to add weight to universally accepted facts like how eating a healthy and balanced diet can prevent the development of life-threatening ailments. Going on a holiday hasalso been proven by many meticulous studies to be good for your health.

In one such study covering a period of 40 years, going on vacation can help extend your lifespan. The results of the study were published in The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging.

The Vacation and Life Span Link

Researchers, to prove such a hypothesis, analyzed data on more than 1,000 male executives in their middle age who were born between 1919 and 1934. These participants were asked to join the Helsinki Businessmen Study in 1974 and 1975. increase life expectancy through vacation Photo: Pexels

Each of the volunteers had at least one cardiovascular disease risk factor like high cholesterol, glucose intolerance, smoking, high blood pressure, obesity, and high triglyceride levels.They were then divided into a control group comprising of 610 men and an intervention group consisting of 612 men and observed for five years.

The intervention group, during that time, received written and oral advice every four months to perform aerobic physical activity, consume a healthy diet, attain a healthy weight, and quit smoking.They also received drugs, like beta-blockers and diuretics, which were recommended during that time to reduce their blood pressure. They were also given lipids like clofibrate and probucol.

Those in the control group received the usual healthcare and were not examined by the investigators. As expected, those in the intervention group enjoyed a lower cardiovascular disease risk of 46% compared to the control group at the end of the study.

A 15-year follow-up conducted in 1989, however, showed more deaths occurred in the intervention group compared to the control group. The surprising discovery made the researchers conduct some deeper investigation. They found that shorter vacations are linked to more deaths occurring in the intervention group.

3 Weeks is the Golden Number

They found that those who only had 3 weeks or less of annual vacation had an increased 37% chance of dying as compared to those who had more. The data they looked at was between 1974 to 2004.

As per the professors who analyzed the findings, they revealed that men who had shorter vacations slept less, and they were the ones to worked more. In short, they had a stressful lifestyle.

In conclusion, Professor Timo Strandberg from the University of Helsinki in Finland said that the results of the study suggest that reducing stress is also essential in programs that aim to reduce cardiovascular risk. A healthy lifestyle and reducing stress may be among the most effective keys to prolonging life.

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Should We Be Color-Blind When It Comes To Skincare? – Longevity LIVE

Thursday, February 20th, 2020

In a society that attempts to be as inclusive as possible, there has been a rise in beauty brands attempting to cater to the different skin tones that occupy the world. However, with the whitewashing of wellness and beauty brands, there has been a disdain and disconnect when it comes to skincare for other skin tones. This then has raised the question of what role race plays when it comes to skincare, and whether its important to take note of someones skin tone as opposed to their skin type.

In fact, an article published in the JAMA Dermatology revealed that black patients preferred, and were more satisfied, when they were in a specialized skin-of-color clinic, and they also preferred a dermatologist of similar race or ethnicity as they believed that said dermatologist understood their specific needs and experiences better.

Unfortunately, it can be quite problematic for darker-skinned women when trying to find and trust products that can work. For one, many beauty products aimed at black women are quite toxic, and ironically, their toxicity is often based on the fact that a lot of these products attempt to enforce a black womans affinity to whiteness.

For instance, a lot of creams marketed at black women are marketed in such a way that they perpetuate the idea that said creams can help to lighten the skin. Unfortunately, the skin-lightening ingredients found in these creams can have an adverse effect on their health.

Hydroquinone is a common bleaching agent, yet research has found that its horrible for your health. According to an animal study published in the Critical Reviews in Toxicology journal, hydroquinone may potentially increase the risk of skin cancer.Its no wonder that its banned in Japan, the EU, Australia, and Kenya. Its important to ensure that your face cream does not contain either hydroquinone or mercury as an ingredient.

Additionally, hair care products that are aimed at straightening black hair also contain toxic ingredients. A study published in the journal Environmental Researchtested 18 popular hair products that black women use. The researchers discovered that 80% of the tested products contained high levels of chemicals that have the potential to disrupt the endocrine system a system responsible for regulating metabolism, reproduction, sleep and growth, and development.

These toxic ingredients include parabens, phthalates, fragrances, nonylphenols, and cyclosiloxanes. Its important to read the ingredients list when it comes to your beauty products to ensure that they do not contain any of the aforementioned ingredients.

Every single person on earth has melanin on their skin, as this compound is responsible for giving us our skin color. There are two types of melanin: eumelanin and pheomelanin. Eumelanin is responsible for darker skin and pheomelanin is responsible for lighter skin. Additionally, eumelanin cells provide further protection from the suns UV rays.

Now, while skin tone does not translate to skin type, it should be noted that there are a few skin concerns that generally affect one skin tone more than the other. This may be a result of old stereotypes and myths such as black dont crack and beige dont age leading to many people not taking care of their skin as well as they should, thus exacerbating common skin concerns.

Yes, black skin contains eumelanin cells which can help to provide additional protection from the sun. However, this doesnt exempt people with darker skin from using sunscreen.

Sun damage is sun damage and everybody needs to protect themselves from it. As such, having black skin, while helpful in this sense, isnt protective enough. Therefore, no matter what skin color you have, you should always apply and reapply a broad-spectrum sunscreen with an SPF50 every day of the year. If youre worried about a ghost-like appearance that is often associated with most sunscreen, try opting for a sunscreen that is free of titanium dioxide and/or zinc oxide.

According to findings from the Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology, the skin structure of darker skins helps to protect them against premature wrinkling, and this is likely where the notion of black dont crack was born.

While hyperpigmentation affects every skin tone, darker skin tones are more prone to it. This is as a result of their melanin and pigment structure. In dark skin, these two factors are more responsive to trauma. This then means increased inflammation and, as such, an increased risk of darker, longer-lasting marks and hyperpigmentation.

As mentioned, white women are more susceptible to sun damage. This then results in the appearance of premature wrinkles, as well asage spots. That said, its important that they practice sun protection at all times.

Aside from the aging effects of sun damage, white women are more susceptible to drier skin. These two factors can serve to accelerate the aging process. That said, some women may adopt an anti-aging regiment early in their lives when compared to other skin tones.

According to research published in the International Journal of Cosmetic Science, Asian skin may be more sensitive than other skin tones.

That said, its important to read the ingredients list on your favorite skincare products in order to prevent irritation. Common ingredients that may irritate skin include sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS) and sodium laureth sulphate (SLES), parabens, fragrances, and even face acids such as glycolic acid.

Yes, there are a few skincare concerns that may be more common in one race than the other. However, this doesnt remove the fact that we should all adopt a skincare routine that can help to maintain the health of our skin.

Regardless of your skin tone, it would be advisable to base your skincare routine on your skin type. Every skincare routine needs to include a gentle cleanser, a moisturizer, as well as a broad-spectrum sunscreen. The ingredients found in your cleanser and moisturizer can help to address your skin type concerns. Any additional products can be aimed at specific areas of concern that may be brought on as a result of your skin tone.

For example, take a black woman with oily skin. Its important for her to ensure that her cleanser and moisturizer help to regulate the excess oil in her skin. She can then add additional products that may help to address any possible pigmentation.

At the end of the day, its important to remember that your skin is unique and theres no reason to generalize and categorize it in one group. If you really want to keep it healthy, its important to understand its needs. Following this, you should then adjust your skincare regime specific to you and your skins needs.

Gorbatenko-Roth K, Prose N, Kundu RV, Patterson S. Assessment of Black Patients Perception of Their Dermatology Care.JAMA Dermatol.2019;155(10):11291134. doi:10.1001/jamadermatol.2019.2063

Helm, J.S, Nishioka, M., Brody, J.G., et al. (2018). Measurement of endocrine disrupting and asthma-associated chemicals in hair products used by Black women, Environmental Research,Volume 165, Pages 448-458,

ISSN 0013-9351, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2018.03.030.

McGregor, D.(2007)Hydroquinone: An Evaluation of the Human Risks from its Carcinogenic and Mutagenic Properties,Critical Reviews in Toxicology,37:10,887-914,DOI:10.1080/10408440701638970

Rawlings, A.V. (2006), Ethnic skin types: are there differences in skin structure and function?1. International Journal of Cosmetic Science, 28: 79-93. doi:10.1111/j.1467-2494.2006.00302.x

Vashi, N. A., de Castro Maymone, M. B., & Kundu, R. V. (2016). Aging Differences in Ethnic Skin.The Journal of clinical and aesthetic dermatology,9(1), 3138.

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