The ongoing biotechnology revolution is less discussed than the digital one, but is on par with it, if not more prevalent. While less visible to the everyday eye, progress in healthcare and genetics will dramatically alter the way and where we live. Indeed, it feels like science fiction has crept into reality.

For some time now, it has been possible to create an embryonic precursor from someones blood cells. Essentially, this means that scientists can recreate a younger you in the form of an unevolved and unaged specimen, which could eventually turn into a fetus that will grow into an adult, with your DNA. Some scientists are suggesting that DNA doesnt age much; what does is the epigenetic, or the molecular processes that regulate the expressions of DNA.

Nowadays, a growing scientific movement views aging not as a consequence of growing older, but as a condition in and of itself, a pathology. In other words, aging is a disease that is not a result of a degradation of DNA, but of the epigenetic. Once we understand how to reboot it and restore the functioning of DNA, we could have treatments for aging and perhaps even the possibility to reverse it.

Highly controversial, of course. Nevertheless, we are slowly but surely moving toward dramatically extending human longevity and eventually, towardcellular regeneration (i.e., regrowing limbs).

There are substantial investments being made with this goal in mind, and results will be obtained much faster than we are aware. As an example, in the 1990s, gene therapy was perceived as high-risk and elusive. Today, a group of technologies named CRISPR-Cas9 enables scientists to edit genomes and alter DNA sequences, with the potential to correct genetic diseases and cure cancer.We may even be able to create immortality. Scientists have not yet found how to do it, but at some point, they well could.

Think of the luminaries the world lost early, of diseases or from causes that genetics research seeks to cure. Steve Jobs lived to be 56. He died as Apple just started really growing exponentially in a business sense, and in creativity benefiting from his decades of experience.

Zaha Hadid, the first woman to win the Pritzker prize (considered the Nobel prize for architects) died in 2016 at age 65. She really began to be at the top of her field after 2000, or age 50. Considering that she still might have had her best years ahead, advances in longevity could have an enormously positive effect on our cities, if world-class architects and real estate developers are able to exponentially leverage their experience for longer. Good news.

Urbanism is turning into one of the worlds most pressing issues. Desirable cities are so unaffordable that housing negatively impairs national GDP growth by several points. And well-planned architecture has been found to reduce crime. Boosting longevity could have a direct correlation with much faster economic growth and lower crime. And immortality, all the more. All in all, as human progress accelerates, so should that of our cities and lifestyles.

Living longer would indeed drastically affect the demographic makeup of our cities. With the nationwide trend of migration back toward cities, downtowns have again become gravity centers as jobs, social life and opportunities are all located next to one another. In other words, cities are becoming harder to leave. As their inhabitants have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and live longer, the populations of cities like New York could explode. And so could real estate prices, by the sheer force of supply and demand not to mention that the older the population grows, the higher the amount of savings in the economy, hence additional capital increasing housing prices.

There urgently need to be solutions. Just based on migration trends, nearly 70% of the worlds population will live in cities in 2050. (That number is over 54% today, and was 34% in 1960.)

One solution could be a movement that is already making a comeback in todays world: multigenerational housing, through which several generations of a same family coexist under the same roof. Would the United States then become more like traditional Europe, where close-knit families often live together for decades into adulthood? The potential societal changes are enormous. Cities would, in this case, revert to what they had always been before: homes for whole families, as opposed to, say, downtowns of solely high-earning young professionals.

Additionally, advances in transportation such as ride-sharing will reduce the need to own our own cars. If we need fewer roads, we will have more space to build probably taller, if the aforementioned experts live longer and are able to develop the appropriate real estate structures. There's another factor increasing urban density.

And what about zoning? If we know we will live until 150, will we take a different outlook at community board meetings, and be more open to rezonings to allow the additional housing that enables our family members to stay close to us? Longevity could lead to less friction on hot-button local issues.

The science fiction of longevity and immortality is much closer to reality than we think. It should be embraced, as it features the potential to drastically improve the way we live together. Optimism is de rigueur for one of the planets most challenging and divisive issues. Public policy must follow and allow cities to shape themselves and grow in a way that retains all this means allowing sound, large-scale construction and urbanism.

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Between Real Estate And Science Fiction: Cities Of Immortals - Forbes

The Covid-19 outbreak marks the end of a golden age. For 75 years, we have been getting richer, freer and more interconnected. The economic liberalisation that followed the Second World War led to an unprecedented increase in human happiness. Wars became rarer. Famines, long considered inescapable, were all but eliminated. Literacy and longevity soared; violence and oppression plummeted. Why? Because countries that had previously had closed or communist economies gradually joined the global market.

The trouble is, we never made the effort to understand what was driving the enrichment. Indeed, we mulishly refused to believe that it was happening at all. Since 1945, the population of the world has roughly tripled, while the number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen by roughly two thirds. The proportion of people living in extreme poverty has fallen by around 90 per cent. Yet only 10 per cent of us believe that there has been any decline at all.

We are equally gloomy, and equally mistaken, about life expectancy, global inequality and access to education. The Swedish physician, Hans Rosling, who used to poll people about the state of the world, liked to joke that if the answers were written on bananas and tossed to chimpanzees, the chimps would pick the correct banana far more often than the temperamentally pessimistic humans.

That innate pessimism, so useful to our hunter-gatherer forebears but so misleading today, explains why we are reacting to the coronavirus by hunkering down, banning flights and moaning about global supply chains. We are thinking primevally, not rationally. Our lizard brains respond to an unfamiliar illness by wanting to shut everything out.

There is no scientific case for banning travel especially not from countries with similar rates of infection to your own. But, in times of stress, we fall back on our tribal heuristics, seeing strangers as likelier carriers of pathogens. Our mood will almost certainly harden as fear of infection gives way to actual infection.

Psychologists have long known that people who are suffering from cold or flu-like symptoms become grumpier in their personality and more authoritarian in their politics.

For two weeks now, we have been reading articles about how pandemics are a product of globalisation. We ought, say a hundred armchair experts, to reduce our dependence on places like China. We should grow more of our own food and, come to that, manufacture more of our own vaccines.

Again, these are arguments that address themselves to our inner caveman. They feel intuitive, but they are quite wrong. Pandemics are not a product of globalisation. In 1348, the Bishop of Bath wrote that a catastrophic pestilence from the East has arrived in a neighbouring kingdom and threatened to stretch its poisonous branches into this realm.

He was right. Around 50 per cent of the population perished. The central expectation this time is that the mortality rate will be around half of 1 per cent catastrophic enough by modern standards, but hardly a product of globalisation.

Nor does self-sufficiency offer security. Many countries used to aim to produce most or all of their food, and the consequences were often calamitous. Localised production is vulnerable to localised shocks: bad harvests, natural disasters, vermin.

The true guarantor of food security is the ability to draw on a dispersed web of global supply. The country with the cheapest food in the world is Singapore, which does not produce one edible ounce itself. At the other end of the scale, the only state which still experiences man-made famines is North Korea, where self-sufficiency is the ruling ideology.

The globalisation on which our wealth rests was never the subject of much debate. Few electorates were convinced by it. It simply happened and, because it worked, people went along with it. The trouble is that its foundations were always fragile. Bad is stronger than good, as the pioneering behavioural psychologist Amos Tversky liked to say. People will take for granted the creation of any number of jobs in retail, financial services, biotech, law, programming or the audio-visual sector. But close one shipyard and, supposedly, globalisation has failed.

Even before the epidemic began, a reaction was setting in. Protectionism was on the rise in Washington, Brussels and Beijing. Even in Right of centre circles, people were warning against the dogma of capitalism, and mouthing platitudes about markets serving society rather than the other way around. But there is nothing dogmatic about support for free markets.

It is based on what works empirically, not what feels right. Far from being ideological, it rests on the idea that we shouldnt impose our ideologies on other people. As for the idea of a market serving society, abstract nouns make poor servants. The market is not a living entity that can be put to work. It is better understood as an absence of coercive rules, a readiness to let affairs arrange themselves.

These arguments, hard to win at the best of times, are almost impossible to voice when people are panicking in the face of an impending plague.

We will look back at the period from 1945 to 2020 as the moment when freedom was given its chance and proved its worth, but was abandoned anyway. Open markets lifted billions from poverty, added decades to our lives, gave us powers that previous generations attributed to wizards or gods. And we never noticed.

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Globalisation brought us unprecedented riches. Now were throwing them away - Telegraph.co.uk

The global longevity and anti-senescence therapies market should grow from $329.8 million in 2018 to $644.4 million by 2023 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.3% during 2018-2023.

Report Scope:

The scope of this report is broad and covers various therapies currently under trials in the global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market. The market estimation has been performed with consideration for revenue generation in the forecast years 2018-2023 after the expected availability of products in the market by 2023. The global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market has been segmented by the following therapies: Senolytic drug therapy, Gene therapy, Immunotherapy and Other therapies which includes stem cell-based therapies, etc.

Get Sample Copy Of The Report@https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/11698

Revenue forecasts from 2028 to 2023 are given for each therapy and application, with estimated values derived from the expected revenue generation in the first year of launch.

The report also includes a discussion of the major players performing research or the potential players across each regional longevity and anti-senescence therapy market. Further, it explains the major drivers and regional dynamics of the global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market and current trends within the industry.

The report concludes with a special focus on the vendor landscape and includes detailed profiles of the major vendors and potential entrants in the global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market.

Report Includes:

71 data tables and 40 additional tables An overview of the global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2017 and 2018, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2023 Country specific data and analysis for the United States, Canada, Japan, China, India, U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Middle East and Africa Detailed description of various anti-senescence therapies, such as senolytic drug therapy, gene therapy, immunotherapy and other stem cell therapies, and their influence in slowing down aging or reverse aging process Coverage of various therapeutic drugs, devices and technologies and information on compounds used for the development of anti-ageing therapeutics A look at the clinical trials and expected launch of anti-senescence products Detailed profiles of the market leading companies and potential entrants in the global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market, including AgeX Therapeutics, CohBar Inc., PowerVision Inc., T.A. Sciences and Unity Biotechnology

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Summary

Global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market deals in the adoption of different therapies and treatment options used to extend human longevity and lifespan. Human longevity is typically used to describe the length of an individuals lifetime and is sometimes used as a synonym for life expectancy in the demography. Anti-senescence is the process by which cells stop dividing irreversibly and enter a stage of permanent growth arrest, eliminating cell death. Anti-senescence therapy is used in the treatment of senescence induced through unrepaired DNA damage or other cellular stresses.

Global longevity and anti-senescence market will witness rapid growth over the forecast period (2018-2023) owing to an increasing emphasis on Stem Cell Research and an increasing demand for cell-based assays in research and development.

An increasing geriatric population across the globe and a rising awareness of antiaging products among generation Y and later generations are the major factors expected to promote the growth of global longevity and anti-senescence market. Factors such as a surging level of disposable income and increasing advancements in anti-senescence technologies are also providing traction to the global longevity and anti-senescence market growth over the forecast period (2018-2023).

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the total geriatric population across the globe in 2016 was over REDACTED. By 2022, the global geriatric population (65 years and above) is anticipated to reach over REDACTED. An increasing geriatric population across the globe will generate huge growth prospectus to the market.

Senolytics, placenta stem cells and blood transfusions are some of the hot technologies picking up pace in the longevity and anti-anti-senescence market. Companies and start-ups across the globe such as Unity Biotechnology, Human Longevity Inc., Calico Life Sciences, Acorda Therapeutics, etc. are working extensively in this field for the extension of human longevity by focusing on study of genomics, microbiome, bioinformatics and stem cell therapies, etc. These factors are poised to drive market growth over the forecast period.

Global longevity and anti-senescence market is projected to rise at a CAGR of REDACTED during the forecast period of 2018 through 2023. In 2023, total revenues are expected to reach REDACTED, registering REDACTED in growth from REDACTED in 2018.

The report provides analysis based on each market segment including therapies and application. The therapies segment is further sub-segmented into Senolytic drug therapy, Gene therapy, Immunotherapy and Others. Senolytic drug therapy held the largest market revenue share of REDACTED in 2017. By 2023, total revenue from senolytic drug therapy is expected to reach REDACTED. Gene therapy segment is estimated to rise at the highest CAGR of REDACTED till 2023. The fastest growth of the gene therapy segment is due to the Large investments in genomics. For Instance; The National Human Genome Research Institute (U.S.) had a budget grant of REDACTED for REDACTED research projects in 2015, thus increasing funding to REDACTED for approximately REDACTED projects in 2016.

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Longevity And Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Overview, Consumption, Supply, Demand & Insights - Kentucky Journal 24

By Eric Dietrich and Brad Tyer | March 12, 2020

Graying Pains: Challenges and Opportunities in the Wests Oldest State is a six-month series of weekly stories and broadcasts exploring the economic, cultural, and personal impacts of Montanas aging demographics. The series is coordinated by Montana Free Press and produced by The Montana Fourth Estate Project, a collaboration among 15 Montana newspapers, Yellowstone Public Radio, and the University of Montana School of Journalism.

For our publishing partners: This article is subject to reprint restrictions as detailed here. This story may not be republished prior to Thursday, March 26, 2020.

People have been parsing the human lifespan into a taxonomy of ages forever. Aristotle proposed three categories: youthful, prime of life, and elderly. Two thousand years later, Shakespeares Seven Ages of Man carved human chronology into seven slices, with the bodys final frailty circling back to the original oblivion of infancy. And in the 1980s, British historian Peter Laslett proposed a revised map of three ages, with a caveat for the third: it could be a time of post-retirement fulfillment and achievement, or it could collapse, a la Shakespeare, into dependence and decrepitude.

The character of any individuals third age hinges on some key factors, including health, wealth, community, and the government policies and cultural customs that influence them. Navigating those factors requires independence, assistance, access, and education. The latter, especially, is lacking. Missoula Aging Services Executive Director Susan Kohler told a room full of Montana journalists in November that one of the biggest impediments to a fulfilling third age is lack of preparedness.

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Already, Montana is the oldest state west of the Mississippi, according to median age statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau. With half the states population 40 or older, were the 9th oldest in the nation, out-grayed only by Florida, Maine, and a few other eastern states.

Peak age is yet to come, according to demographic projections produced for the state Department of Commerce by consulting firm REMI. As of 2017, the baseline year used by those projections, 18% of Montanans were 65 or older, up from 14% in 2001. The figure is expected to climb to 22% by 2030 then plateau through 2040 as boomers reach the end of their lives.

Different parts of the state, however, are on very different trajectories. Sparsely populated rural counties tend to have higher percentages of seniorsand are, in many cases, on track to become even more disproportionately older. Petroleum Countys 520 residents make it the lowest-population county in Montana, and by 2030, 37% of county residents will be past retirement age,up from 23% in 2017. For Teton County, northwest of Great Falls, the 2030 figure is projected to be 27%, up from 22%.

Population centers like the Billings area tend to trend closer to the state as a whole, age-wise, though college towns Missoula and Bozeman are substantially younger than other urban areas, and are expected to stay that way. Seniors 65 and over accounted for 16% of the population of Yellowstone County (including Billings) and 12% of the population of Gallatin County (including Bozeman) in 2017. Those figures are projected to rise to 21% and 15%, respectively, by 2030.

Counties with sizable Native American populations, such as Roosevelt County (including Wolf Point), Big Horn County (including Hardin and Crow Agency), and Glacier County (including Cut Bank and Browning) are also younger than neighboring rural areas. Roosevelt County, with only 11% of its population over 65, is the states youngest by that measure.

WHY THE STATE IS AGING

Driving those trends are three key demographic forces: birth, death, and migration. Higher birth rates pull areas younger while longer lifespans populate communities with more elders. Migration, in turn, tends to siphon young, mobile residents away from some places and toward others.

Montanas population is skewing older,in part, as the oversized generation of baby boomers born in the aftermath of World War II, between 1946 to 1964, reaches retirement age. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, longer life expectancies and declining birth rates are also a factor thats aging American communities across the nation. While average life expectancy in the U.S. was 68.2 in 1950, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, it was a decade longer, 78.6, in 2017.

In Montana, the median age of death is now 75 for men and 82 for women, according to the state Department of Public Health and Human Services. Montanas Native communities are younger in part because death typically comes much earlier for American Indian Montanans, with DPHHS reporting a median age of death at 60 for Native men and 63 for Native women.

Counties with larger Native populations also tend to have higher birth rates, which means more young residents. For example, Roosevelt County, which is 57% Native, saw a rate of 22.3 births per 1,000 residents annually between 2010 and 2018, according to a Montana Free Press analysis of census data. The equivalent figure for Yellowstone County, in comparison, was 13.2.

Migration rounds out the picture. While Montana attracts some older migrants looking for a change of scenery in retirement, migration is on the balance a youthening force for destination communities, because young people constitute the lions share of movers. According to census estimates based on surveys conducted between 2014 and 2018, 58% of Montanas new arrivals to Montana are under the age of 30, versus just 11% who are 60 or older.

As such, migration patterns also contribute to the graying of places where there arent enough new arrivals to balance the number of young people moving away for school or work, creating the brain drain dynamic that has posed a challenge for swaths of rural Montana for decades.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR MONTANA

Those trends create challenges.

At a community level, an older population means more demand for health care services. A 2012 study by economists at Montana State University, for example, estimated that the states aging demographics would necessitate increased state Medicaid spending. And with large portions of the health care system funded by the state-administered Medicaid program, aging creates public policy questions at the state government level as well.

At the same time, an aging population is predicted to diminish the proportion of states residents who are in the workforce and available to staff nursing jobs,not to mention other businesses. Montanas working-age population of residents between the ages of 15 and 64 was 64% of the populace as of 2017. While the total number of working-age Montanans is projected to increase with population growth, the working-age share of the population is expected to decrease slightly, to 60%, by 2030.

That study also concluded that the aging of Montana will produce a modest shift in state revenue sources away from income taxes, which are highest for workers in the peak of their careers, and toward property taxes, which are higher for older adults, including retirees, who tend to live in more valuable homes than younger residents.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU

An aging population doesnt just influence tax projections and hospital budgets and worker supply.

It affects family farming and Elks Clubs.

It affects churches and nonprofits and all manner of governmental safety nets, whose funding structures are already strained.

It affects the aging and the aged, many of whom face financial insecurity and isolation. And it affects the generations behind them, who are increasingly called on to care for elderly parents, even as many raise their own children, who may one day help care for them.

The average American life expectancy has increased by three decades over the course of the 20th century, contributing to the aging of America and suggesting the need for what a 2018 Stanford Center on Longevity initiative calls a new map of life that reimagines education, work, retirement, intergenerational relationships, financial planning, and health care to support a society in which more of us than ever are living in Lasletts third age.

Montana is on the forefront of that national trend, giving Montanans an opportunity to, as Center on Longevity Director Laura Carstensen wrote in the Washington Post, redesign how we live.

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Montana: the grayest state in the West - Montana Free Press

Sen. Bernie Sanders addresses a news conference in Burlington, Vt., March 11, 2020. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)Bernie Sanders isnt a relic. Hes a preview of things to come.

Democrats are breathing a sigh of relief. Joe Bidens victories on Mini Tuesday make his delegate lead all but insurmountable. Bernie Sanderss electoral weakness, compared with his performance four years ago, has dulled the fear of an incipient socialist takeover of the worlds oldest political party. The left is said to have talked itself into believing its own propaganda and helped President Trump equate Democrats with socialism. Victory in the primary did not come from pledges to eliminate private health insurance or impose wealth taxes. It followed from the perception that Biden is the candidate best able to defeat Trump.

Dont write off the socialist revival just yet. Sanders might not win the Democratic nomination. But this outcome does not mean the forces that propelled him to second-place finishes in the two most recent Democratic primaries will vanish overnight. Abandoning the intellectual fight against socialism, both inside and outside the Democratic Party, would cede the field to an increasingly sophisticated and networked band of ideological activists whose influence in media and politics is greater than their numbers. Such ambivalence could have devastating consequences for American society.

The resurgent left has pushed Biden far beyond where he stood as vice president. And a socialist infrastructure guarantees the philosophys longevity. Aspiring Democratic politicians must at least deal with, if not pay obeisance to, groups such as the Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America. Especially if they inhabit a deep-blue district ripe for picking by the Squad.

Fashionable, lively, radical, and controversial outlets, including Jacobin, Current Affairs, the Young Turks, Chapo Trap House, and Secular Talk, complement popular Instagram and Twitter accounts. And the New York Times magazines 1619 Project shows that the mainstream media is responsive to, and willing to participate in, the latest trends in anti-Americanism.

The most obvious reason not to dismiss the Sanders phenomenon is demographic. On Super Tuesday, Sanders won 30- to 44-year-olds by 18 points, and 18- to 29-year-olds by a staggering 43 points. He defeated Biden by nine points among Hispanic voters and by 25 points among Asian voters. Asian Americans are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the country. Hispanics are second. Sanderss protege, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 30-year-old woman of Puerto Rican descent, represents this ethno-generational cohort. Their place in American life will not be denied.

Right now, socialism is unpopular. Last month, only 45 percent of adults told Gallup they would vote for a socialist for president. Last year, a 51-percent majority said socialism would be a bad thing for the United States. But Gallup also found that the number who said socialism would be a good thing had risen to 43 percent in 2019 from 25 percent in 1942. A majority of Democrats have held positive views of socialism since 2010. A willingness to adopt the socialist ideal is most pronounced among the young. A YouGov poll conducted last year for the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation found that 70 percent of Millennials are either somewhat or extremely likely to vote for a socialist.

It is the decline in institutional religion that drives the resurgence of socialism. Gallup found that church membership among U.S. adults has dropped precipitously over the last two decades, to 50 percent in 2018 from 70 percent in 1998. Why? Because the percentage of adults who profess no religious affiliation has more than doubled. It has gone to 19 percent from 8 percent. The Millennials exhibit the lowest percentage of church membership among generations. Pew says the number of Americans who identify as Christians fell more than ten points over the last decade as the number of religiously unaffiliated spiked. Here too the largest falloff was among Millennials.

Religion not only offers answers to the most powerful, definitive, and ultimate questions of human existence and purpose. It anchors individuals in a particular authoritative tradition defined by doctrinal orthodoxy and refined through multigenerational practice. People released from these bonds are capable of believing anything. Thus, socialism has returned at the same time as climate apocalypticism, transhuman and transgender ideology, anti-vaccination movements, anti-Semitism, conspiracies, and ethnonationalism. In this climate of relativism and revisionism, where the most outlandish theories are a Google search away, both Marxism and utopian socialism seem credible. Nothing is too absurd.

Irving Kristol said that it is easy to point out how silly and counterproductive and even deadly socialism has been, in so many respects, but difficult to recognize its pull as an emotional attachment. The love of equality and progress makes for a special and durable political passion. Socialism, wrote Irving Howe in 1954, is the name of our desire. In the absence of an intellectually coherent and morally compelling account of the inequalities inherent to liberal democracy, so will the desire remain.

This piece originally appeared on the Washington Free Beacon.

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The Fight against Socialism Isnt Over - National Review

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There's a new trend emerging of AAA open world games built for longevity that flop at launch, only for the studios behind them to spend months, even years trying to save them.

No Man's Sky is one shining example of a rally that worked. Anthem, despite sputtering along for a year already, is just now beginning the process. And in about a month we'll see whether the results of Bethesda's attempt to save the flopped launch of Fallout 76 will bear any fruit.

That's because on April 7, Bethesda is launching the Wastelanders expansion, a supposedly massive free overhaul that adds -- among many other standard expansion components -- a huge change for the world of Fallout 76: non-player characters.

"We learned from launch was that there was a lot to do, but what we needed for a lot of our audience was to bring the humanity back"

If it seems odd that an open world game in a series known for its characters and writing might launch without any NPCs to support its world-building or quests, yeah, everyone else thought so too. The game launched in late 2018 to criticism for being "soulless," lacking a "strong focus," and "boring" -- problems which were all tied in some way to the lack of in-world characters with stories and stakes to provide motivation. While all the other additions included with Wastelanders -- new locations, enemies, equipment, and quests -- will likely improve Fallout 76's chances, lead designer Ferret Baudoin feels the NPCs are the most important key to righting the ship.

"There was quite a lot that worked at launch," he says at Bethesda's PAX East fan event. "If you're a person who liked exploration, for example, from our traditional games, it was possibly one of the best worlds to explore that we've ever had. It was just huge, full of stories and stuff like that. But there was a large portion of our audience that wanted people. They wanted an emotional connection. And if you know everyone is dead, and you come across a holotape from someone, it loses that hope that you might meet that person and help them out.

"I think what we learned from launch was that core combat was fun, it was great to explore, there was a lot to do, but what we needed for a lot of our audience was to bring the humanity back."

Baudoin acknowledges the humorous contradiction of needing computer-controlled NPCs to provide "human" experiences, but he adds that Fallout 76 isn't totally devoid of humanity. Because players only have one another to interact with, he says, the team has seen all sorts of unusual and uniquely human stories unfold just from players interacting in strange and often wonderful ways.

"The funny thing is that in some respects [the players] added the most human things of all," he says. "The role-playing, for example, or some of the stories you hear about people dressed up as Santa Claus giving out gifts. That was something we didn't anticipate.

"We had whole plans for ways to let players murder each other, and they just wouldn't do it"

"We had all these plans for PvP, and actually, we have the least PvP audience ever. We had whole plans for ways to let players murder each other, and they just wouldn't do it. We have a weird, wonderful audience that would rather help each other out even when they have the other options."

Baudoin is also candid about launching the game without a world full of characters not being the best decision. Had the team known what the response would have been at the time, he admits, they would have included more of what's coming in Wastelanders in the launch version of the game. But because of Fallout 76's relative novelty, Baudoin doesn't think there was any way the team could have known that not having NPCs would be so frustrating.

"At the time, there was no clear analog to what we were making," he says. "So it was very tricky, because you would make arguments as to what you think the game should be, but there was no clear right decision.

"As soon as we saw what people were saying, there was a real fire in the belly to say, 'No, we can address this.' If we solve these problems, there's a whole package here that is very enticing to people, and we just need to provide that extra step... It's far more of a Bethesda experience than we were at launch."

"At the time, there was no clear analog to what we were making"

Because it's such a well known series, Fallout 76 was met with rapid, vocal disapproval at launch. There have been plenty of suggestions across forums and social media outlets for how to improve the game, and while Baudoin says he tries to read as many of them as possible -- he checks one particular popular message board at least twice a day for feedback -- there's a degree of filtering that takes place when the team designs what to change, and how.

"In some respects, our own internal team makes suggestions which are mirrored by the community. We're experts at dealing with that. But you can definitely notice trends.

Originally, Fallout 76 was empty, with the player character the first to leave the vault after a nuclear apocalypse. But in Wastelanders, new faces arrive from outside Appalachia

"Neil Gaiman has that quote, 'When people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.' If there's an itch somewhere and it's bugging people, it's our job to figure out as experts how we can address the problem. Sometimes communities get it right, but you have to think of the millions of factors that go into that and make the best decision to address the problem that makes the itch go away and doesn't create further itches down the road."

"This is one of the first times I've been able to, before launch, see what people are reacting to and course-correct"

Later on, he adds:

"As a developer this is one of the first times I've been able to, before launch, see what people are reacting to and course correct. It's been fantastic."

Because the Wastelanders update is free, Baudoin is optimistic that a good chunk of the community that bought the game over a year ago will make their way back to see what's changed. He's hopeful, too, that an overarching love for the Fallout series among the community will keep them in the game.

"I think [Wastelanders] looks a lot more like a traditional Fallout game," he says. "The tagline in my head a lot of the time is: 'Fallout 76 is Fallout with friends.' I think now we've added more of the Fallout into it, the things you expected from Fallout 3, Fallout 4, are now in there. I think we're more properly delivering on that expectation that some people had."

Though Bethesda isn't revealing anything else new for now, Baudoin says that Wastelanders won't be the end of the team's work on Fallout 76. He describes the game as "a chance to tell an evolving story," with those opportunities only expanded by the addition of the characters and plotlines of this new update.

"You have to take risks," Baudoin says. "You have to reach for the stars sometimes. Sometimes you'll fall short, but if you don't, if you lack that ambition, the game is going to feel flatter. It's not going to be as interesting. Some of the things we've done...at the time sounded insane, but then we worked on it and we did it and lo and behold it really works. If we hadn't been willing to take that risk, it wouldn't've been there."

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Bethesda wants to bring humanity to Fallout 76 through NPCs - GamesIndustry.biz

Philippines, Mar 10: Passengers wear protective masks inside a crowded train following new cases of coronavirus in Manila. Image Credit: ANI

Dubai: As people across the globe look at the growing number of COVID-19 cases, now over 116,000, and the death toll of over 4,091, one key figure is being ignored - the recovery rate.

On Tuesday, China reported that a whopping 70 per cent of coronavirus cases in the country had'recovered'.

The total global number of recoveries, at the time of publishing, stands at 64,750 with 60,113 recoveries in China alone. Iran, the worst affected in the region, reported 2,731 recoveries.

recoveries out of over 116,000 coronavirus cases worldwide

In Macao, all 10 cases reported recovered, showcasing a 100 per cent recovery rate as of March 10. Sri Lanka, Gibraltar and Nepal also reported 100 per cent recovery - one case reported and recovered for each.

China

In China, recent days have seen more recoveries than new cases.Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the coronavirus epicenter of Wuhan for the first time since the disease emerged, state media said, a trip intended to project confidence that his government has managed to stem its spread domestically.

Xi arrived Tuesday morning in the capital of hard-hit Hubei province, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Wuhan, where the disease first emerged in December, has been quarantined since January 23.

What does a COVID-19 infection look like

In most cases, a person with COVID-19 or coronavirus infection has a fever which then goes away without specific treatment. This progression is called a 'mild case' and the World Health Organization reported thatnearly80 percent of all COVID-19 cases are mild.

Most involve fever, dry cough and, in some cases, shortness of breath. People with mild cases are expected to recover without any issues, and in many cases they may not be aware they're ever sick.

A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) studied the COVID-19 infection in 138 patients in Wuhanand came up with the most common progression seen in cases. 99 per cent of the cases surveyed,all of whom were hospitalised at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University during January had fever as a recorded symptom. Dry cough and fatigue were also common symptoms.Patients who developed complications did so within five days after they first started having the symptoms.

In the cases that do get worse, pneumonia is a common ailment which then could lead to further organ dysfunction.

What aids in the recovery?

The new coronavirus has no vaccine or cure yet, but what can be attributed to the 70 per cent recovery rate then?

Nothing in particular yet, studies and accounts show, except the humanimmune system. Many people who recovered had mild symptoms to begin with and did not develop further complications.

She initially tested negative for the virus on her return to India from Wuhan (January 24) but later developed symptoms. The student, who preferred to withhold her name and details, said she put herself in home-quarantine despite testing negative and having no symptoms. She got her temperature recordedregularly before getting a sore throat and she alerted her local government facility (January 27).

Despite no fever at the time, she was put on antibiotics and kept in quarantinewhile tests were done. In 48 hours her test came back positive (January 30), by which she also had a fever.The student prescribed anti-viral drugs,Oseltamivir IP 75 mg also known by the brand name Tamiflu, for five days.

She said, "I had no diet restrictions or anything. I continued in quarantine until February 20 and was tested every alternate day. A blood, urine, stool sample and nasal or throat swab was taken and samples sent to the NIV Pune. After testing negative for nearly a week I was declared free of COVID-19 and have returned home, resumed normal life."

None of her family members or friends contracted the virus from her, she said, as she had put herself in quarantine and followed necessary protocol.

From the time she tested positive, according to her account, it was 14 days before she started testing negative for nearly one week and being declared free of the virus.

Not every recovery story is the same

In Italy, a 38-year-old man named Mattia - who is believed to be patient one in the Lombardy area - was moved out of the intensive care unit and is on the way to recovery, authorities reported on Tuesday.

At the San Matteo hospital in Pavia, there was a sigh of relief after Mattia began breathing on his own Monday with just a small amount of oxygen assistance, said Dr. Francesco Mojoli, head of intensive care. He was moved out of the ICU to a sub-ICU unit and was speaking with doctors.

"This disease has a long life,'' Mojoli told RAI state television. "Now we hope that the fact that he was young and in good shape will help him get back to his normal life.''

Mattia first went to the hospital in Codogno on February18 complaining of flu-like symptoms. He was sent home but came back the next day after his condition worsened dramatically. He was only tested for coronavirus after doctors learned that in early February he had met with a man who had been to China.

By then, however, he had infected his wife and several doctors, nurses and patients at the Codogno hospital, creating what was thought initially to have been Italy's main cluster.

This case is an example of a case that went well over the 14-day mark due to complications and a lack of awareness. In most cases, however, 14 to 20 days is considered standard for monitoring symptoms and getting a conclusive positive/negative test.

The best route to recovery

As seen from many cases worldwide, the best way prevent infectionis basic hygiene and following quarantine protocols when necessary. The best route to recovery is to depend on one's own immune system.

Following the first reported recovery in the UAE,Gulf News spoke to a specialist in internal medicine, Dr Smitha Muraletharan, from Aster Hospital in Al Ghusais, to find out how patients can be cured of coronavirus infection in general.

UAE has reported 17 recovered cases as of March 10.

If you are healthy, you could just pass it off as a cough or cold, Dr Muraletharan told Gulf News. Theres no treatment or cure just support to help your immune system clear it.

Patients with mild to moderate infection when detected early and isolated can get their immune system strong enough to fight the virus, she added.

Risk of getting COVID-19 a second time

Reuters reported that Japan reported its first case who recovered from coronavirus and then became ill with the disease for a second time. This gave way to fears of getting re-infected post recovery and questions regarding the virus's life span.

A small study out of China on four medical professionals who had the virus, published by JAMA, suggests that the new coronavirus can persist in the body for at least two weeks after symptoms of the disease clear up.All of the cases recovered, and only one was hospitalized during the illness.

Recovery is determined if tests for COVID-19 come out negative for two or more consecutive days.The cases studied in Chinacontinued to get throat swabs for the coronavirus after five days for up to 13 days post-recovery - which showed positive.

"These findings suggest that at least a proportion of recovered patients still may be virus carriers," the study concludes.

It is not uncommon for a virus to live on in the human body despite 'recovery'. Viruses such as the Zika virus, Ebola etc. tend to live on in recovered patients for months. The mono virus or the Epstein-Barr Virus can exist in the body for an entire lifespan, in most cases staying dormant and without any issues. The virus that causes chicken pox, for example, remains in your nerve tissues after infection in a dormant state.

Immunity against coronavirus

The human body's response to viruses is what is called 'immunity' where antibodies are created to recognise and destroy viruses. The reason most people are immune to chicken pox post an infection is because of the antibodies created to respond to that particular virus -varicella zoster virus - which is still in the human system but is dormant. In another example, when testing recovered cases from the 1918 Spanish flu in a 2008 paper published in Nature science journal, 90 per cent of survivors still had a high concentration of antibodies against that specific virus strain.

In the coronavirus infection, the immune system is able to create antibodies as it does with all viruses which is what ultimately results in recovery. However, factors such as the strength and longevity ofthese antibodies along with the mutation pattern of the virus could lead to possible relapse.

- Krys Johnson, an epidemiologist at Temple University's College of Public Health

In the case of the Japanese woman who got sick again post a COVID-19 recovery, experts have various opinions.

The efficacy of antibodies created and the longevity of these is one angle.

Zhan Qingyuan, director of pneumonia prevention and treatment at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital, had warned that this could happen. "For those patients who have been cured, there is a likelihood of a relapse," Zhan said in a press briefing on January 31. "The antibody will be generated; however, in certain individuals, the antibody cannot last that long."

In another angle, experts suggested dormancy of the virus andlater exacerbation.

Once you have the infection, it could remain dormant and with minimal symptoms, and then you can get an exacerbation if it finds its way into the lungs, Philip Tierno Jr., Professor of Microbiology and Pathology at NYU School of Medicine told Reuters.

Yet another angle is the mutation rate of the new coronavirus which is unknown as of now.

Krys Johnson, an epidemiologist at Temple University's College of Public Health told Live Science that viruses that stay behind in dormant states have a low chance of re-infection.

However, he added, there is always the possibility that the new coronavirus would mutate as it moves through populations, changing into a version that already-exposed immune systems can't recognize.

"The challenge is, how fast does this mutate?" Johnson said.

Testing for re-infection, recovery: Methods

There are many tests being researched as the best way to determine the presence of the virus. Some are very sensitive while others are not as sensitive in possibly dormant cases.

The study of the four Chinese medics with COVID-19, for example, showed positive results days after recovery from symptoms in a highly sensitive test that amplifies even the smallest viral molecule - the RT-PCR test (Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction). This test studies RNA and DNA to analyse the presence of the virus.

In a paper published on February 26 in the Radiological Society of North America, it was found that a chest CT scan has a high sensitivity for diagnosis of COVID-19 and that it could be used as a primary tool for the current COVID-19 detection in epidemic areas.

As of now, the most common and easily accessible method of testing is the throat swab which is widely used in airports, hospitals and other quarantine facilities globally. TheCentre for Disease Control (CDC) recommends four swabs daily to determine recovery.

What does a recovery mean?

When the viral load or concentration goes down in a person, so much so that his immune system is able to fight back symptoms, his throat swabs start showing low or no evidence of the COVID-19 virus. This usually happens in a span of 15-21 days. The patient is tested every alternative day until his swabs test negative for the virus. Under such circumstances the patient is said to have recovered from COVID-19.

Explaining the process, Dr Mohammad Rafique, Medical Director of Prime Hospital, Head of Infection Control and specialist pulmonologist said recovery from COVID-19 infection did not mean one was completely virus free but the virus load had become lower and the bodys immune system had created antibodies to fight back.

Dr Mohammad Rafique

In general from studies conducted on patients one has learnt that the virus presents mild to moderate symptoms with headache, fever and cough, gastro-intestinal symptoms and so on, in younger people. Only those above 60 and with co-morbidities have severity and fatality. What makes it contagious is its high shedding rate. But when kept in isolation and with symptomatic treatment in many cases with double dose of anti-virals, the load of the virus comes down.

Dr Rafiqe added that simple Polymerase Chain Reactor tests (PCR) records the ability of the virus to replicate. When the PCR rates fall and the virus is present in very low copies it does not show in the assay. Naso-pharyngeal and throat swabs are taken every 24 hours and when these turn up negative, a person is said to have recovered. It means that the virus load is so low that it does not show up in the swab tests. That is when a persons immune system has be activated creating enough anti-bodies to combat it and he or she is said to have recovered.

Dr Satyam Parmar, head of Pathology at RAK Hospital explained : As per the guidelines of the Centre for Disease Control, four swabs, in 24 hours gaps are taken totally from the nasopharyngeal and throat area to check if the patient has recovered.

Dr Satyam Parmar

"When all of these turn negative only then is patient declared to have recovered from COVID-19. it is advisable that a patient who has recovered must still continue to be in isolation for four to five days as his immune system has developed antibodies but the virus might still be lurking in small numbers.. This is what happens in other strains of coronavirus such as MERS and SARS, explained Dr Parmar.

*All numbers and toll taken fromhttps://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ as of 6pm onMarch 10.

Link:
Coronavirus: What does a COVID-19 recovery mean for you - Gulf News

The number of Pennsylvania state government employees who make at least six figures currently includes nearly 10,000 workers, according to a Pennlive.com report published Tuesday.

There were 9,751 state employees who surpassed $100,000 in earnings in 2019, the news organizationfound. That number increased by 7.5% from the prior year and has grown by about 27 percent over Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's five years in office, Pennlive reported.

About one in every 11 stateemployees across all three governmental branches are paid more than $100,000 a year, it reported.

The total payroll cost for the $100,000 club is now more than $1.2 billion per year, based on 2019 records.

The highest earners are three people who get paid more than $400,000 a year a Department of Human Services supervisory physician, the chief investment officer at the Public School Employees Retirement System and the chancellor at the State System of Higher Education.

Others in the earnings top 10 include other physicians, deputy chief investment officers and a university president.

The earnings can include more than salary to encompass overtime, longevity payments, bonuses and other compensation.

Pennlive said the administration's own statistics show theaverage full-time salary of the more than 80,000 peopleunder Wolf's jurisdiction was $58,332 last year.

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Nearly 10K State Government Workers Are Paid At Least $100K - 90.5 WESA

In Parks and Rec, Rob Lowes Chris Traeger is a perennially positive, supplement-popping 45-year-old who glides through the rooms of Pawnee City Hall with golden retriever energy. He brings vegetable loaves to birthday parties, regularly runs 10 miles during his lunch breaks and touts just 2.8% body fat. In Season 2 of the show, Traeger reveals his lifes goal: to live to 150.

Scientists believe that the first human being to live to a 150 years has already been born I believe I am that human being. At first, it sounds like just another quotable line from a show thats famous for them. Traeger isnt to be taken seriously, after all. One of his other signature adages is simply Stop pooping. (On the exceedingly rare occasions that Traegers body fails him, he lands in a dark place.)

Believe it or not, though, Traegers right. At least one scientist has been predicting humankinds potential to live to 150 for the better part of a decade, a man whos furthered the notion of aging as disease since he arrived at MIT in the late 1990s. That would be Australian Dr. David Sinclair, a biology rockstar and former Time 100 honoree with an Order of Australia (Down Unders version of knighthood), and his own genetics lab at Harvard Medical School.

In September of last year, Dr. Sinclair released Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Dont Have To. Its an explosive call to arms detailing Dr. Sinclairs core belief, which hes spent decades researching: most humans leave decades of high-quality life on the table simply because society doesnt afford aging the same attention and dollars it reserves for other health crises like cancer and heart disease. The book is one part memoir (Dr. Sinclair recalls the drawn-out final decades of his mother and grandmothers lives), one part crash-course in epigenetics (we hold far more in common with yeast cells than the common person knows) and one part sneak peek into the advancements being made in the worlds preeminent genetics labs (Dr. Sinclairs team has successfully cured blindness in mice).

Most refreshingly, though, Lifespan delights in giving answers. On top of the many science-fiction-esque wonders on display at Harvard Medical School each week (Dr. Sinclair is a pioneer of a practice called cellular programming, which effectively means resetting cells back to a younger age), the book includes functional day-to-day advice on how the layman or woman can activate survival processes in their epigenome, engaging specific sirtuin proteins (a class of protein that helps regulate cellular aging) to help foster greater longevity.

Basically, Sinclairs hypothesis is that eating a certain way, working out a certain way and exposure to a certain kind of temperature can make living past 100 a relative breeze. We recently caught up with Dr. Sinclair to discuss his book, intermittent fasting, Benjamin Button and more.

InsideHook: This book definitely doesnt mince concepts or words. Why was it important to you to write so boldly on aging as a disease?

Dr. David A. Sinclair: The world is in a stupor when it comes to aging. Theres a blind spot. I wrote the book to shake things up, and hopefully wake up those who dont think aging is important or worth working on. We focus as a society far too much on the end consequence of aging, playing whack-a-mole with these diseases that kill us. We ignore whats actually driving these diseases. The more we study aging, though, the more we realize that the diseases we treat are all manifestations of an underlying process. And its treatable.

Some of your peers in the field have said it isnt a good look to be so declarative in your predictions on aging. Have they changed their tune since the book was released?

I havent had any criticism from colleagues since the book came out. Either they havent read it, or theyre okay with my arguments. But also, the world is changing. What used to be considered crazy 10 years ago is no longer crazy. For example, scientists didnt used to say the phrase reversal of aging. But now, its a fact thats doable. Our field has proven that many aspects of aging are reversible, including blindness. Its also partly that I was ahead of the curve, and that things which were once forbidden are now in the realm of discussion and debate.

Im fascinated by the cellular reprogramming work your lab has done. In the book, you invoke F. Scott Fitzgeralds Benjamin Button story to describe how a 50-year-old could soon begin a routine that will have him/her feeling and looking 30 again. Are we actually close to seeing that sort of treatment in the developed world?

The first thing to say is we now understand that changes in your lifestyle can dramatically improve your age and physiology. We used to think that aging was just something that was in our genes, something that we couldnt modify. But very rapidly, within months of changing diet and exercise, you can reverse many aspects of aging. Its never too late, unless youre on your last legs. The fact that its that easy to slow down and reverse aspects of aging just with lifestyle changes totally fits with our understanding of molecular mechanisms. We should be able to slow aging even better with the reprogramming of cells. I see the work weve done as a proof of concept. While its true that Im working hard towards restoring eyesight in people whove lost their vision, its really just the beginning. This work is proof that its possible to restore the age of a complex tissue. In the same way that the Wright brothers werent building rockets to the moon, they could at least imagine that one day it would be possible. Weve shown that there is a backup copy of a youthful epigenome that we can turn on to reset the cell and get it to work again. If thats doable in the eye, it would be rather pessimistic to say we were just lucky to choose the right body part for this to work.

High-intensity training is one of the practices you cite as vital to this process. What about it encourages longevity genes?

Weve found that high-intensity training will induce the sirtuin defenses in the body, similar to what intermittent fasting does. When those genes come on, they defend the cell against diseases, and aging itself. When we dont engage those sirtuin genes, we dont reap the benefits. High-intensity training is particularly good at turning on the sirtuins, because it encourages a hypoxic response, which weve shown leads to the activation of these defense mechanisms. While walking is good, its not as good as doing high-intensity training.

Im glad you mentioned intermittent fasting, another practice you endorse. Are there any mistruths or misunderstandings in the way that popular media portrays it?

Based on recent results in animal studies, its not so much what you eat but when you eat. Of course, you cant eat a hamburger morning, noon and night, then fast the next day and expect to get the maximum benefits. That said, it seems to be more about just having a period of fasting in general. Theres one misconception that people need an optimal mix of protein, carbohydrates and fat, and that thats the most important thing to get right. Id say worry about that less, as long as youre getting nutrients and xenohormetic molecules, which are molecules produced by plants when theyre under stress. As long as youre doing those things, its far more important to skip meals.

One other thing: people claim that there is an optimal intermittent fasting protocol. The truth is, we dont know what the optimal is. Were still learning, and its individual. There are individual differences in all of us. There is a subset of people, myself included, who start producing glucose out of their livers early in the morning, at around 6 a.m. Which means, for me, to start eating breakfast around 7 a.m. makes no sense. Some people, though, have such low blood sugar in the morning that they can barely function. We also dont know the best method. Is it the 16/8 [hours, first on and then off of the fast]? Two days fasting out of every five? We really dont know yet. But we do know that if youre never hungry, if youre eating three meals a day and snacking in between, thats the worst thing you can do. It switches off your bodys defenses. Some fasting is better than none.

Do you eat meat?

I do, but its a gradient. Its mostly plants, then fish, rarely chicken, and almost never red meat.

From an aging perspective, do you recommend that people give up meat?

For the average person, focus on plants. Meat isnt going to kill you if you eat it once in a while, but the reason for the plant-based diet is we know where the hot spots are for longevity. We know what theyre eating. Its not a mystery. Theyre not carnivores. Theyre eating mostly plants, and a little bit of meat maybe, a bit of fish. Theyre consuming olive oil, avocados, red wine and other plants that have xenohormetic molecules. I dont think that thats a coincidence.

Theres been some coverage recently about the rise of wild swimming. In the UK, especially, people have started jumping into freezing cold water and claiming all sorts of health benefits. It reminded me of your points in the book about challenging the thermoneutral zone. Does one need to frequently experience extremely cold temperatures to reap benefits?

Cold baths, cryotherapy I was skeptical. I started out skeptical until proven otherwise. But theres some evidence that making brown fat is good. Adult humans can make brown fat as long as theyre not super old, and cold is a good way to do that. One of my favorite genes, the third of the seven sirtuin genes, boosts brown fat. All of these things that were talking about exercise, fasting, cold therapy, even a sauna its best to mix it up. You dont want to be constantly exercising, constantly hungry, or constantly at one temperature or another. You want to shock the body. Putting a few days of recovery in between makes a lot of sense. As for exposing yourself to cold, a little is still better than nothing. I do it once a week. But Im still trying to figure out when to do these ice baths. There was a study that an ice bath after a workout potentially lowers the benefit of the workout.

Lifespan devotes a ton of pages to metformin, the anti-diabetic medication thats been discovered to activate longevity genes. Are there adverse side effects from taking metformin? It seems a little too good to be true.

As far as drugs go, metformin is very safe. The World Health Organization declared it one of the essential medicines for humanity. One in 10,000 people have an adverse side reaction and have to stop taking it. The majority of complaints are attributed to a queasy stomach feeling until you get used to it. I actually dont mind, because it stops me from getting hungry. [Editors note: Dr. Sinclair takes metformin daily.] It doesnt give you anything like a greater risk of cancer or heart disease. The data actually suggests the opposite. The risk of getting old is pretty high, but the risk of taking metformin is pretty low, based on millions of people taking it.

Youre on the record saying the first person to live to 150 has been born. Would that person need to combine every single practice and innovation that you outline in this book in order to do so?

An important point of clarification: I dont think we have any technology today that would get us to 150. But if youre born today, you can be around until the mid-22nd century. Theres a lot thats going to happen between now and then. Were on a path of technological development. Once you see the trajectory and barriers are broken down, it gives me the license to say someone born today will live far longer than we can imagine. People born today will benefit from technologies that come about after were dead. The big breakthrough is being able to reprogram the body. If we can get that to work, wed be literally able to turn the clock back on cells. Weve done it once we managed to restore vision in mice but you might be able to reset cells twice. Or 100 times. Well just have to see.

Related: The Healthiest Blue Zone in Every State, Mapped

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A Conversation With a Harvard Geneticist on How to Live (Well) Past 100 - InsideHook

Even large ecosystems the size of the Amazon rainforest can collapse in a few decades, according to a study that shows bigger biomes break up relatively faster than small ones.

The research reveals that once a tipping point has been passed, breakdowns do not occur gradually like an unravelling thread, but rapidly like a stack of Jenga bricks after a keystone piece has been dislodged.

The authors of the study, published on Tuesday in the Nature Communications journal, said the results should warn policymakers they had less time than they realised to deal with the multiple climate and biodiversity crises facing the world.

To examine the relationship between an ecosystems size and the speed of its collapse, the authors looked at 42 previous cases of regime shift. This is the term used to describe a change from one state to another for example, the collapse of fisheries in Newfoundland, the death of vegetation in the Sahel, desertification of agricultural lands in Niger, bleaching of coral reefs in Jamaica, and the eutrophication of Lake Erhai in China.

They found that bigger and more complex biomes were initially more resilient than small, biologically simpler systems. However, once the former hit a tipping point, they collapse relatively faster because failures repeat throughout their modular structure. As a result, the bigger the ecosystem, the harder it is likely to fall.

Based on their statistical analysis, the authors estimate an ecosystem the size of the Amazon (approximately 5.5m km2) could collapse in approximately 50 years once a tipping point had been reached. For a system the size of the Caribbean coral reefs (about 20,000 km2), collapse could occur in 15 years once triggered.

The paper concludes: We must prepare for regime shifts in any natural system to occur over the human timescales of years and decades, rather than multigenerational timescales of centuries and millennia.

Humanity now needs to prepare for changes in ecosystems that are faster than we previously envisaged through our traditional linear view of the world, including across Earths largest and most iconic ecosystems, and the social-ecological systems that they support.

The paper says this could be the case in Australia where the recent Australian bushfires followed protracted periods of drought and may indicate a shift to a drier ecosystem.

Scientists were already aware that systems tended to decline much faster than they grew but the new study quantifies and explains this trend.

What is new is that we are showing this is part of a wider story. The larger the system, the greater the fragility and the proportionately quicker collapses, John Dearing, professor in physical geography at the University of Southampton and lead author of the study, said.

What we are saying is dont be taken in by the longevity of these systems just because they may have been around for thousands, if not millions, of years they will collapse much more rapidly than we think.

Dearing said he was concerned that one of the possible implications of the study was that complete destruction of the Amazon could occur within his grandchildrens lifetimes.

This is a paper that is satisfying from a scientific point of view, but worrying from a personal point of view. Youd rather not come up with such a set of results, he said.

A separate study last week warned the Amazon could shift within the next decade into a source of carbon emissions rather than a sink, because of damage caused by loggers, farmers and global heating.

Experts said the new findings should be a spur to action.

I think the combination of theory, modelling and observations is especially persuasive in this paper, and should alert us to risks from human activities that perturb the large and apparently stable ecosystems upon which we depend, said Georgina Mace, professor of biodiversity and ecosystems at University College London, who was not involved in the studies.

There are effective actions that we can take now, such as protecting the existing forest, managing it to maintain diversity, and reducing the direct pressures from logging, burning, clearance and climate change.

These views were echoed by Ima Vieira, an ecologist at Museu Emlio Goeldi in Belm, Brazil. This is a very important paper. For Brazil to avoid the ecosystem collapse modelled in this study, we need to strengthen governance associated to imposing heavy fines on companies with dirty supply chains, divestment strategies targeting key violators and enforcement of existing laws related to environmental crimes. And we have to be quick.

However, the methodology was not universally accepted. Erika Berenguer, a senior research associate at the University of Oxford and Lancaster University, said the regime shifts paper relied too much on data from lakes and oceans to be useful as an indicator of what would happen to rainforests.

While there is no doubt the Amazon is at great risk and that a tipping point is likely, such inflated claims do not help either science or policy making, she said.

The authors said their study was not a forecast about a specific region but a guide to the speed at which change could occur.

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Ecosystems the size of Amazon 'can collapse within decades' - The Guardian