Monthly Archives: July 2012

Fijai Senior High School celebrates Diamond Jubilee

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Regional News of Sunday, 15 July 2012

Source: GNA

The Dean of the Medical School of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Professor Yaw Edu Sarkodie, has advocated the need for educational institutions in the country to establish partnership with small scale industries to train students in vocational and technical skills.

This, according to him, would enable students who are not academically inclined to learn meaningful skills that would make them useful and productive in order to contribute their quota towards national development.

Professor Sarkodie, an alumnus of Fijai Senior High School, gave the advice when delivering a keynote address at a durbar to climax the 60th Anniversary of the school on Saturday.

He observed that countries such as Malaysia and Singapore that took the middle manpower training of their peoples seriously in areas of vocational and technical skills had catapulted their economies and called on educational institutions in the country to learn a cue from them.

The Diamond Jubilee Celebration, which was under the theme: 60 years of Co-Education - The Vision and Mission of the Founding Fathers attracted high profile personalities, old students, traditional rulers and government functionaries to the school premises.

Prof. Sarkodie, a fellow of the West African College of Physicians, appealed to the governments to refrain from playing politics with the duration of the Senior High School.

He said the four-year and three-year experimentation of the duration of the secondary education by successive governments would not help the cause of development of this country and called on authorities concerned to take concrete steps to stop such politics in the education sector.

The Dean of the Medical School of the KNUST admonished the youth to show resilience, dedication, discipline and fear of God in all their endeavours, adding that success could not be achieved on a silver platter but hard work.

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Fijai Senior High School celebrates Diamond Jubilee

Libertarian Party of CT gets largest single donation ever

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The Libertarian Party of CT recently received a $10,000 donation from a North Carolina man, the groups largest single donation ever, according to Chairman Dan Reale of Plainfield.

Paul Burks made the donation to bolster the partys efforts to gain ballot access statewide, Reale said. The Connecticut branch of the party has never raised more than $10,000 in any single year.

Burks donation brings this years fundraising total to $44,000, Reale said. The goal of $60,000 may be exceeded by at least $20,000, the chairman said.

To learn more visit, http://www.lpct.org.

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Libertarian Party of CT gets largest single donation ever

Virgin Islands officials exonerate accused officer

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CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin IslandsJustice officials in the U.S. Virgin Islands have exonerated a police officer accused of destruction of evidence, extortion and embezzlement.

Deputy Attorney General Bruce Marshack announced Sunday that the policeman's recent arrest on evidence-tampering allegations was a regrettable mistake. He said all charges against Officer Anderson Poleon have been dismissed.

Poleon was arrested Wednesday on the island of St. Croix and had faced the possibility of 30 years in prison on all the criminal charges.

But justice officials say they recently discovered a document that has cleared Poleon of any wrongdoing. They did not disclose more details.

A lawyer for the exonerated officer claims his client was the victim of a vendetta by St. Croix police Chief Christopher Howell.

Howell did not immediately return calls Sunday.

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Virgin Islands officials exonerate accused officer

Health Care On Agenda When State Lawmakers Return

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LANSING (AP) - Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and his fellow Republicans could find themselves knee-deep in health care issues Thursday when lawmakers briefly return after a five-week break.

Snyder needs to get reluctant House Republicans on board with his efforts to create an online site where individuals and small businesses can comparison shop for private health insurance.

Hell also likely be comparing notes with GOP legislative leaders over whether it will be a good idea in 2014 to extend Medicaid to around 500,000 more low-income residents with the help of $2 billion annually in federal aid.

Both the health insurance exchange and the Medicaid expansion are required under the Affordable Care Act recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. But the court also ruled that the federal government cant withhold a states entire Medicaid allotment if it doesnt participate in the expansion, and some states now say they dont plan to cover more residents.

Snyder spokeswoman Sara Wurfel said the governor would like the House on Thursday to follow the lead of the GOP-controlled Senate and approve setting up the exchange.

House Republicans initially blocked the administrations efforts to tap $9.8 million in federal planning money for the exchange until the court ruled, hoping the law would be struck down. The state has been granted the money but cant spend it without legislative approval. Nor can it apply for additional federal planning funds if the first grant isnt used.

Now some GOP House members say any action on the exchange should be put off until November, when theyll know if GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney wins the White House and Republicans capture the U.S. Senate, making it possible some parts of the federal health care law will be repealed.

Ari Adler, spokesman for GOP House Speaker Jase Bolger, said its unclear if House Republicans will approve the exchange on Thursday.

Theres a push, obviously, to set up an exchange There is a separate push if we dont set one up that we start some of the planning process, Adler said. And then there is a lot of pressure to delay things a little longer. We are receiving a lot of feedback with a lot of different ideas.

At least one conservative group, Americans For Prosperity-Michigan, has sent campaign literature into more than 20 House districts and three Senate districts trying to discourage lawmakers from approving the exchange or castigating senators who already have.

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Health Care On Agenda When State Lawmakers Return

Health care reform law to tax high earning home sellers

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WASHINGTON When the Supreme Court upheld the health care reform law on federal tax grounds, it restoked a housing issue that had been relatively quiet for the past year: the alleged 3.8 percent real estate tax on home sales beginning in 2013 that is buried away in the legislation.

Immediately following enactment of the health care law, waves of emails hit the Internet with ominous messages aimed at homeowners. A sample: Did you know that if you sell your house after 2012 you will pay a 3.8 percent sales tax on it? When did this happen? Its in the health care bill. Just thought you should know.

Once litigation challenging the laws constitutionality surfaced in federal courts, the email warnings subsided. But with the law scheduled to take effect less than six months from now, questions are being raised again: Is there really a 3.8 percent transfer tax on real estate coming in 2013? Does it pre-empt the existing $250,000 and $500,000 capital gains exclusions for single-filing and joint-filing home sellers, as some emails have claimed?

In case youve heard rumors or received worrisome emails about any of this, heres a quick primer. Yes, there is a new 3.8 percent surtax that takes effect Jan. 1 on certain investment income of upper income individuals including some of their real estate transactions. But its not a transfer tax and not likely to affect the vast majority of homeowners who sell their primary residences next year. In fact, unless you have an adjusted gross income of more than $200,000 as a single-filing taxpayer, or $250,000 for couples filing jointly ($125,000 if youre married filing singly), you probably wont be touched by the surtax at all, though you could be affected by other changes in the code if Congress fails to extend the Bush tax cuts scheduled to expire at the end of this year.

Even if you do have income greater than these thresholds, you might not be hit with the 3.8 percent tax unless you have certain types of investment income targeted by the law, specifically dividends, interest, net capital gains and net rental income. If your income is solely earned salary and other compensation derived from active participation in a business you have nothing to worry about as far as the new surtax.

Where things can get a little complicated, however, is when you sell your home for a substantial profit, and your adjusted gross income for the year exceeds the $200,000 or $250,000 thresholds. The good news: The surtax does not interfere with the current tax-free exclusion on the first $500,000 (joint filers) or $250,000 (single filers) of gain you make on the sale of your principal home. Those exclusions have not changed. But any profits above those limits are subject to federal capital gains taxation and could also expose you to the new 3.8 percent surtax.

Julian Block, a tax attorney in Larchmont, N.Y., and author of Julian Blocks Home Sellers Guide to Tax Savings, says it will be more important than ever to pull together documentation on the capital improvements you made to the property and expenses connected with the house including settlement or closing costs, such as title insurance and legal fees that increase your tax basis in order to lower your capital gains.

Since the health care law targets capital gains, you could find yourself exposed to the 3.8 percent levy on the sale of your home next year. Heres an example provided by the tax staff at the National Association of Realtors. Say you and your spouse have adjustable gross income (AGI) of $325,000 and you sell your home at a $525,000 profit. Assuming you qualify, $500,000 of that gain is wiped off the slate for tax purposes. The $25,000 additional gain qualifies as net investment income under the health care law, giving you a revised AGI of $350,000. Since the law imposes the 3.8 percent surtax on the lesser of either the amount your revised AGI exceeds the $250,000 threshold for joint filers ($100,000 in this case) or the amount of your taxable gain ($25,000), you end up owing a surtax of $950 ($25,000 times .038).

The 3.8 percent levy can be confusing, and can bite deeper when your taxable capital gains are far larger or you sell a vacation home or a piece of rental real estate, where all the profits could subject you to the investment surtax. Definitely talk to a tax professional for advice on your specific situation.

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Health care reform law to tax high earning home sellers

In Mass. Senate Race, Health Care Still Hot Topic

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BOSTON (AP) In Massachusetts contentious U.S. Senate race, few issues divide the two candidates more sharply than the health care law signed by President Barack Obama and upheld by the Supreme Court.

Republican Scott Brown ran for the Senate in 2010 vowing to be the crucial 41st vote needed to block the initiative, which ultimately passed despite his opposition. He remains critical of the law.

His Democratic challenger, Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren, has praised the Affordable Care Act, which was modeled after a 2006 Massachusetts law signed by then-Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican. Warren said the federal law has helped expand access to health care in Massachusetts and the nation.

Last months Supreme Court ruling has only intensified the debate.

The latest salvo came from Brown in response to reports that U.S. employers added only 80,000 jobs in June, a third straight month of weak hiring. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2 percent.

Brown called the numbers grim and faulted in part what he said were the job-killing taxes on individuals, families and small businesses that Warren supports, including those in the health care law.

These are bad ideas under normal circumstances, but with our economy teetering on the brink, Professor Warrens economic prescription would push us over the precipice, Brown said in a statement.

Warren has been equally emphatic in her support of the law and her criticism of Brown.

This decision ensures that millions of children, seniors, and families will continue to benefit from health care reform, Warren said in a statement after the ruling was announced.

Warren has highlighted some of the laws more popular elements including banning insurance companies from denying coverage to those with pre-existing medical conditions and allowing adult children to stay on their parents insurance until age 26.

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In Mass. Senate Race, Health Care Still Hot Topic

Olympians given freedom of Wells

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15 July 2012 Last updated at 05:21 ET

Two former Olympic gold medallists have been presented with the freedom of Wells.

Mary Rand became the first British female athlete to win a track and field Olympics gold medal, in the long jump at the Tokyo Games of 1964.

Danny Nightingale also received the award on Sunday afternoon. He won a team gold in the modern pentathlon at the 1976 games in Montreal.

The ceremony took place at Wells Town Hall at 14:00 BST.

Following the ceremony the Wells City Band and the Town Crier led a march to St Cuthbert's Church for a service of celebration.

Ms Rand visited her former school in Wells on Friday.

She met pupils at Stoberry Park Junior School to show her medals and later judged a long jump competition.

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Olympians given freedom of Wells

Freedom Fall in 10 Innings and Drop Series against Gateway

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July 15, 2012 - Frontier League (FL) Florence Freedom SAUGET,IL-Peter Fatse drove in three runs on Saturday night, but it was the Gateway Grizzlies(27-24) defeating the Freedom(28-23) 4-3 in 10 innings. Justin Dunning hit a game winning single off Matt Kline(0-2)scoring John Shelby in the 10th, giving the Grizzlies the series win over the Freedom. Richard Barrett(1-3) collected the win pitching scoreless innings in the 9th and 10th.

The Freedom jumped on Gateway's all-star pitcher Tim Brown for two runs in the 1st inning. Junior Arrojo led off the game with an infield single, and John Malloy hit a double to right field. Fatse then lined a 2 run single to left field which he tried to stretch into a double, but was thrown out by Shelby.

The Grizzlies led 3-2 going into the 9th inning as Brown attempted to go the distance and pitch a complete game. Malloy greeted him with a leadoff single, and then Fatse crushed one to center field scoring Malloy with an RBI double to tie the game at 3-3. The Freedom had a chance to take the lead in the inning, with runners on the corners and nobody out. However, Barrett came out of the bullpen and retired David Harris, and Jim Jacquot on a pair of infield pop outs, and then struck out Drew Rundle to end the threat.

Brown went 8 innings allowing 9 hits and 3 runs, while striking out, earning a no decision. Andres Caceres started the game for the Freedom as he struggled with his command only going 2 innings allowing 3 hits, and 2 earned runs while walking two.

The Freedom will have Sunday off, before beginning a three game series Monday night in Traverse City, Michigan against the Beach Bums. Monday's game can be heard with Steve Jarnicki starting at 6:50 pm on Real Talk 1160 and realtalk1160.com.

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The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

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Freedom Fall in 10 Innings and Drop Series against Gateway

Sweeping the beaches of seaweed

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With an abundance of seaweed on town beaches this season, Scituate officials on Tuesday voted a new seaweed policy into effect. According to selectmen, officials will look at the sections of public beaches with lifeguards every Wednesday and Thursday from the third week in June until Labor Day. The Recreation Department and Board of Health will jointly decide if the seaweed needs to be removed. The seaweed will be raked up and disposed of at a landfill in Bourne, selectmen said. The effort will also ensure that there is enough seaweed on the beach for animal feeding and habitat needs. Not only is the regulation for town workers, but people on private beaches who want to do their own cleanup work will know the right steps to follow, Selectman Tony Vegnani said.

Copyright 2012 Globe Newspaper Company.

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Sweeping the beaches of seaweed

West Australia 5th Fatal Shark Attack in Year Shuts Beaches

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By Jason Scott - 2012-07-15T05:30:44Z

Western Australia state closed beaches and began hunting for a great white shark believed to be responsible for the fifth fatal attack in less than a year, the fisheries department said.

The shark yesterday took a surfer off an isolated beach at Wedge Island, 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of the state capital, Perth, the departments Shark Response Unit spokesman, Tony Cappelluti, said in a phone interview today. The mans remains havent been recovered.

Weve had officers patrolling the beach since first light today and theres been no further sightings of the shark, Cappelluti said. Beaches in the area will remain closed until tomorrow morning, he said.

There are 165 shark species in Australian waters and several, including great white, tiger and bull sharks, are dangerous to humans. Western Australia, which is spending A$14 million ($14.3 million) over the next four years to reduce the risk of attacks, had four fatal shark attacks in a six-month period from last September to last March, according to website sharkattackfile.

Tourism operators in Western Australia, the region at the forefront of the nations mining boom, attempt to lure domestic and international visitors to the states 12,000-kilometer-long coastline which is studded with pristine beaches. The tourism industry reaps about A$8.1 billion a year and creates 73,300 jobs, according to a Tourism Council document released last year.

The 24-year-old man who died was paddling his surf board when he was taken, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported, citing a witness whose jet-ski was also attacked by the shark he described as being five meters (16 feet) long. The man tried to recover the body before the shark took it, he said.

Western Australia may have to review the policy of protecting great white sharks, said the states fisheries minister, Norman Moore, according to ABC. He was cited as saying he was perplexed as to how to counter the shark attacks, which have become a serious problem.

Tourism operators will be banned from feeding the predators to attract them to cage dives, a practice that might change their behavior in ways posing potential risks to the public, the state government said July 8.

Studies by Australias government scientific agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, werent clear about whether feeding great white sharks changed their behavior in the long term, the government said. Such risk must be set against any economic benefits, it said.

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West Australia 5th Fatal Shark Attack in Year Shuts Beaches

Sky watching

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Photo by Suzanne Thompson

Suzanne Thompson/Special to the Commercial Appeal James Rickman went to Shelby Farms where members of the Memphis Astrological Society set up telescopes to view Venus' transit across the sun.

Recently, when Venus made its transit across the Sun, it drew the attention of people around the world to astronomy.

People gathered on the lawn of the Pink Palace Museum and at Shelby Farms Park to view this rare occurrence, which takes place once every 105 years.

Members of the Memphis Astronomical Society, brought telescopes, both modern and traditional, and let people use them to observe Venus as it passed in front of the sun.

John Smith, who joined MAS about a year ago, said he has had an interest in stargazing for some time, but has just taken his interest to the next level, and now considers astronomy a hobby.

"I've always wanted a telescope and finally I decided to break down and buy one."

Smith's telescope is a modern one, called a "Go To Telescope," which contains a database, and tracks the movement of stars as the earth rotates.

By entering GPS coordinates the telescope will automatically move to the desired location, which can be adjusted by remote control.

This was convenient when Venus made its transit across the sun, because the planet was slowly moving, and Smith could easily change the telescope's direction to keep the best view.

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OCEANSIDE: Eye on the sky

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About Oceanside

City Hall 300 N. Coast Highway, Oceanside, CA 92054; 760-435-3065

Oceanside Police Department 3855 Mission Ave., Oceanside, CA 92054; 760-435-4900

Graffiti Hotline 760-435-4466

Public Works 760-435-4500

Oceanside Fire Department 300 N. Coast Highway, Oceanside, CA 92054-2824; 760-435-4100

Oceanside employee salaries

More listings of community groups, services and resources. Oceanside Camp Pendleton

In the Newsroom

Coastal Editor: Melanie Marshall 760-901-4079, mmarshall@nctimes.com

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OCEANSIDE: Eye on the sky

Fijai Senior High School celebrates Diamond Jubilee

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Regional News of Sunday, 15 July 2012

Source: GNA

The Dean of the Medical School of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Professor Yaw Edu Sarkodie, has advocated the need for educational institutions in the country to establish partnership with small scale industries to train students in vocational and technical skills.

This, according to him, would enable students who are not academically inclined to learn meaningful skills that would make them useful and productive in order to contribute their quota towards national development.

Professor Sarkodie, an alumnus of Fijai Senior High School, gave the advice when delivering a keynote address at a durbar to climax the 60th Anniversary of the school on Saturday.

He observed that countries such as Malaysia and Singapore that took the middle manpower training of their peoples seriously in areas of vocational and technical skills had catapulted their economies and called on educational institutions in the country to learn a cue from them.

The Diamond Jubilee Celebration, which was under the theme: 60 years of Co-Education - The Vision and Mission of the Founding Fathers attracted high profile personalities, old students, traditional rulers and government functionaries to the school premises.

Prof. Sarkodie, a fellow of the West African College of Physicians, appealed to the governments to refrain from playing politics with the duration of the Senior High School.

He said the four-year and three-year experimentation of the duration of the secondary education by successive governments would not help the cause of development of this country and called on authorities concerned to take concrete steps to stop such politics in the education sector.

The Dean of the Medical School of the KNUST admonished the youth to show resilience, dedication, discipline and fear of God in all their endeavours, adding that success could not be achieved on a silver platter but hard work.

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Fijai Senior High School celebrates Diamond Jubilee

Trehalose Boosts Autophagy, Reduces Neurodegeneration

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Trehelose is known to be involved in yeast life span, and given in the diet can extend life in nematode worms. In animals closer to we humans, it has been show to stimulate autophagy, the collection of processes by which cells recycle damaged components and remove the unwanted build-up of metabolic byproducts. More autophagy seems to be an unqualified good, and shows up as a mechanism of action by which healthy life span is extended via calorie restriction (CR), exercise, and drugs that aim to mimic some of the biochemical changes caused by CR and exercise. This all makes sense: if damaged components are removed from cells more rapidly, they have less time to cause further damage themselves. The system as a whole is better maintained. So there is some impetus in the research community to develop the means to enhance autophagy in humans.

I noticed one small portion of that line of work today - an open access study in mice that used trehalose to stimulate greater levels of autophagy, and showed a reduction in the level of degeneration expected in their brains. Like many animal studies, the mice here were engineered to develop a form of neurodegeneration comparatively rapidly, so as to provide a model for assessment of possible treatments at a lower cost:

The accumulation of insoluble proteins is a pathological hallmark of several neurodegenerative disorders. Tauopathies are caused by the dysfunction and aggregation of tau protein and an impairment of cellular protein degradation pathways may contribute to their pathogenesis. Thus, a deficiency in autophagy can cause neurodegeneration, while activation of autophagy is protective against some proteinopathies. Little is known about the role of autophagy in animal models of human tauopathy.

In the present report, we assessed the effects of autophagy stimulation by trehalose in a transgenic mouse model of tauopathy, the human mutant P301S tau mouse ... Autophagy was activated in the brain, where the number of neurons containing tau inclusions was significantly reduced, as was the amount of insoluble tau protein. This reduction in tau aggregates was associated with improved neuronal survival in the cerebral cortex and the brainstem. We also observed a decrease of p62 protein, suggesting that it may contribute to the removal of tau inclusions. ... Our findings provide direct evidence in favour of the degradation of tau aggregates by autophagy. Activation of autophagy may be worth investigating in the context of therapies for human tauopathies.

Pleasantly, the authors paid some attention as to whether providing mice with trehalose causes inadvertent calorie restriction, something that plagues the studies of incautious researchers. The effects of calorie restriction are very strong, and if your prospective treatment happens to make the mice in your study eat less - well, those mice will usually do better than their counterparts, all other things being equal. But here:

Water consumption of the three groups (no treatment, sucrose-treated and trehalose-treated) was similar. Sucrose and trehalose had no impact on the animals' weights or coat aspects, suggesting that the health of the mice was similar among the three groups.

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http://www.longevitymeme.org/newsletter/latest_rss_feed.cfm

Trehalose, Calorie Restriction, and Longevity in Yeast

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You might recall that a few years ago, researchers extended life in nematode worms by feeding them trehalose. Here, scientists link normal abundances of trehalose in yeast cells with the longevity induced by calorie restriction: "Our recent investigation of how a lifespan-extending caloric restriction (CR) diet alters the metabolic history of chronologically aging yeast suggested that their longevity is programmed by the level of metabolic capacity - including trehalose biosynthesis and degradation - that yeast cells developed prior to entry into quiescence. To investigate whether trehalose homeostasis in chronologically aging yeast may play a role in longevity extension by CR, in this study we examined how single-gene-deletion mutations affecting trehalose biosynthesis and degradation impact (1) the age-related dynamics of changes in trehalose concentration; (2) yeast chronological lifespan under CR conditions; (3) the chronology of oxidative protein damage, intracellular ROS level and protein aggregation; and (4) the timeline of thermal inactivation of a protein in heat-shocked yeast cells and its subsequent reactivation in yeast returned to low temperature. Our data imply that CR extends yeast chronological lifespan in part by altering a pattern of age-related changes in trehalose concentration. We outline a model for molecular mechanisms underlying the essential role of trehalose in defining yeast longevity by modulating protein folding, misfolding, unfolding, refolding, oxidative damage, solubility, and aggregation throughout lifespan." Trehelose stimulates autophagy in higher animals, the all-important set of mechanisms that recycle damaged cell components, so one would expect it to be beneficial there as well.

Link: http://www.frontiersin.org/Integrative_Physiology/10.3389/fphys.2012.00256/full

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http://www.longevitymeme.org/newsletter/latest_rss_feed.cfm