The golden years: when you can sit back and enjoy endless relaxation and leisure. Many look forward to this time as the best years of their life. But for countless others, aging is a bit more gray than gold. With our modern healthcare systems, people are living longer than ever before but as too many find out, length of life and quality of life are two very different things.

Our modern lifestyles have contributed to an increase in the litany of diseases relegating old age as a painful, unhealthy state of being. Diabetes, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimers these are just some of the laundry list of age-related diseases. As science gets a better handle on the physiological changes associated with aging, were getting closer to unlocking the secret to remaining as healthy as possible for as long as possible. And one of the keys to healthy aging could very well be what we put in our mouths.

In 2018, Bruce Ames the famous American biochemist, author, and inventor of the Ames test introduced the scientific community to what he calls longevity proteins. In an opinion piece for the journal PNAS, Ames expounded upon the triage theory: if the body experiences a moderate deficiency in a specific nutrient, it will use the small amounts of that nutrient that are available to make proteins needed for immediate survival, neglecting to make those that can protect the body against future damage.

Ames calls the nutrients needed by longevity proteins longevity vitamins. Without them, the body remains ill-equipped to suppress the factors that contribute to disease. And so it follows that supplementing the diet with such vitamins could help stave off illness.

One of the longevity vitamins Ames identifies is called ergothioneine (Ergo) an amino acid derived from histidine. Ergo is an especially potent amino acid because it is so good at scavenging toxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) that cause critical damage to cells. ROS are particularly damaging to mitochondria, the energy powerhouses of the cell, and ROS-induced mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with several diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and neurodegeneration.

Interestingly, Ergo is one of only a few antioxidants specifically concentrated in the mitochondria, suggesting that it could be a key player in protecting cells against age-related damage. Indeed, ergothioneine levels are lower in the elderly, a phenomenon that correlates with mild cognitive impairment. A recent effort to characterize metabolites associated with aging additionally showed that Ergo increases as both mortality rate and incidence of cardiovascular disease decrease. It even plays a role in wound healing and has other protective properties for the skin. Some studies have also shown it is even more potent than CoQ-10 at reducing fine lines and wrinkles. Its no surprise that Ames narrowed in on Ergo as a potentially powerful aid for healthy aging.

We get Ergo from our diets, mainly from mushrooms, although lower levels can be found in beef, pork, and King crab. Earlier this year, researchers in Singapore found that older adults consuming mushrooms regularly experienced higher cognitive function and were at a lower risk for mild cognitive impairment. And a Japanese study made quite a splash reporting that among nearly 37,000 middle-aged to older men, those who ate mushrooms once or twice a week had an 8% lower risk of developing prostate cancer. Eating mushrooms three times a week or more was associated with an impressive 17% reduction in cancer risk. In both cases, the researchers suggest the protective effects of mushrooms could be due, at least in part, to the Ergo they produce.

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But the researchers were also careful to point out that these studies are correlative they dont definitively demonstrate that mushrooms or Ergo supplementation will decrease the incidence of disease or mortality rates. For that, clinical trials are needed. Nevertheless, the studies were tantalizing enough to draw serious attention to Ergo. One company keeping a particularly close eye on emerging research on the health benefits of ergothioneine is Conagen, located in the greater Boston biotech corridor.

Co-founded by molecular plant biology expert Oliver Yu, Conagen leverages synthetic biology and fermentation science to produce molecules closest to what you can find in nature. Many high-value molecules today come from endangered plants, or the process to extract them from their plant sources is highly damaging to the environment and local ecosystems. By discovering metabolic pathways in nature, and then optimizing and leveraging those pathways in fermentation tanks, Conagen makes natural, high-value molecules available to customers without further harming our already injured environment.

Theyve also cracked the code on rapidly bringing products from design to industrial scale fermentation without outsourcing any part of the process. Their microbial platform currently churns out 35 different products for customers in the food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, flavors and fragrances, and renewable materials industries. Through a project driven by Lead Scientist Dr. Jixiang Han, one of those products is L-ergothioneine the biologically active form of Ergo.

Ergothioneine has powerful antioxidant properties and mitigates against oxidative cell stress perhaps L-ergothioneine could be the next powerful ingredient in food, beverages, cosmetics and nutraceuticals, posits Ana Arakelian, head of public relations and communications at Conagen. Currently, she says, Conagen is the only biotech company in the market that can develop and scale-up natural ergothioneine.

That the L-ergothioneine Conagen produces is the natural and not synthetic form is significant, says Casey Lippmeier, Vice President of R&D at Conagen not only because it can be costly to produce the exact, correct structure at high purity by chemical synthesis, but also because it matters to consumers.

The way you make certain food ingredients is something thats coming under more and more scrutiny by many consumers, he says, adding that for food ingredients companies it could be critical to be able to claim no artificial ingredients. He also points out that synthetic forms of ergothioneine are mixtures of the inactive R form of the amino acid and the active L form so you may be paying for more than your body can use if you buy a synthetic form of Ergo.

But what Conagen is particularly interested in are the potential applications of L-ergothioneine to promote healthy aging. They have several customers and partners already using Conagens L-ergothioneine in products ranging from supplements to cosmetics (Conagen secured GRAS status for their L-ergothioneine early in the production process). Conagens sister marketing company, Blue California, is selling Conagens L-ergothioneine as ErgoActive, a product that is being used by companies in the functional foods, dietary, and cosmetics spaces.

Its important to address aging both physically but also internally on the cellular level as well its like a one-two punch, says Katie Ferren, VP of Sales and Marketing at Blue California. One of the companies currently offering ErgoActive in a dietary supplement formula came back a couple of weeks ago and said, I had people tell me my skin looks better, and I wasnt expecting that. We get these personal testimonials, and it is all connected to healthy aging.

But such personal testimonials are anecdotal, much like the correlative studies from Singapore and Japan. Conagen wants to change that, so they are actively engaging in and pursuing partnerships with other companies and organizations that want to put Ergo on the map as a critical nutrient for healthy aging. Ferren imagines a future where Ergo could be in every single multivitamin product, making it as normal to take as Vitamin C, for example.

The goal is to be interventional, agrees Lippmeier. But most of the work that has been done is correlative. We need to make it stronger.

Imagine human clinical trials supporting the correlative studies, says Arakelian.

I can see why shes so enthusiastic. Perhaps with the work Conagen and their partners are doing with L-ergothioneine, the tides will begin to turn. Perhaps we will be able to live longer and healthier, merging quality and quantity of life. Thinking about such a future, I am reminded of the Biblical patriarch Moses: when he died, the Bible records, he was as strong at 120 as he was at 40.

Now wouldnt that be golden?

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Fermenting the future of healthy aging - SynBioBeta

Engage employees and carry on a message every HR professional needs to hear as the transformation of work continues. As a strategy, employee engagement has always been a chief concern for human resources and leaders within any given company, but no one could have predicted when the concept was first introduced nearly 30 years ago, that it would have the impact on the business strategy that it does now.

Having said that, engagement isnt just about getting better results for the business, its about ensuring the companys longevity. And given recent statistical data, its become a financial imperative.

Thats an astonishing number, one that should spur every HR professional to place more focus on their organizations engagement strategy. Low engagement from employees can and will have a negative impact every part of the business from recruitment to retention.

In the guide below, the HR Exchange Network explores the topic of engagement in more detail. It takes a look an in depth look at what engagement is, the current state of affairs, effective strategies and a prediction of what is to come.

If one were to ask HR professionals from different companies to define engagement, there is a high likelihood different responses would be received. Some might take a numbers approach while others would take a psychological approach or a different approach altogether. As is often the case with other HR concepts, the definition really lies in the eyes of the beholder.

The term was first coined by psychologist William Kahn in a 1990 study titled Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work. In the piece, Khan studied two different workplaces: a very structured and formal architecture firm and a casual summer camp. From his observations, he defined engagement as the harnessing of organization members selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances.

Additionally, Kahn outlined three psychological conditions that allow engagement to exist:

Kahn further stated those individuals who are fully engaged with the organization will take ownership of their work and will be loyal to the organization. Additionally, he says engagement isnt a constant. Any number of experiences can cause engagement to change.

Of course, Kahns original definition has changed somewhat over the three decades since it was first coined. Instead of engagement being focused solely on the person bringing their full-selves to work, its more about the employees willingness to go above and beyond to benefit the organization.

What weve learned about engagement since its inception has colored the approach HR professionals and leaders have taken. An increase in engagement marks a positive impact of the business and a decrease marks a negative impact.

To understand more about employee engagement, here are a few quotes from HR professionals on the topic and associated issues.

High engagement through amazing culture and opportunities for your teammates is one of, if not the main drivers, in increasing teammate retention. Atrium Healths SVP of Workforce Engagement Sebastien Girard said. High retention and high engagement results creates less pressure on the organization and HR. It also means higher expertise, higher tenure, accelerated growth, and stronger productivity.

There is a direct correlation between the level of engagement an employee demonstrates and the amount of discretionary effort they are offer, World Travel Holdings senior vice president of Human Resources Debbie Fiorino said. An engaged employee is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about their work, and thus will act in a way that furthers their organizations interests. This translates to a greater experience for our customers, which generates a loyal following. Loyal customers translate to revenue and profits.

I would say that engagement is harder to achieve today than it was 20 years ago, or in the past, because we are less engaging places to work. We used to have an ethos where employees would come to an organization; they would commit to an organization, build a career there and want to stay for life. The company would equally make a commitment that it would develop a career for life, ICON plc executive vice president of strategic initiates Don Kraft said. Companies would look out for people, protect them and invest in them. Over a period of time, we have invested less and signaled a reduced commitment to people. As a result there are many people, including a generation of young people, in their 30s and under, who have watched their parents, and perhaps themselves, impacted by these things. They are saying, "I cant, and therefore I wont, count on my employer."

HR practioners globally are looking for the right engagement recipe. As is often the case, the recipe is different for every company in every industry. As a result, it is often difficult for HR to know where to start. There is something to be said for looking at other companies, especially those that are similar, for inspiration, but the best place to start is internally. Here are five different strategies and theories as to how to increase employee engagement across the workforce.

1. Flexibility

Offering employees an opportunity to set and design their own schedule feels counterintuitive at first glance. Most HR leaders are conditioned to believe giving an employee the ability to set their own work hours will cause a decrease in productivity. A fair amount of research suggests the opposite is true. Employees given the freedom to set their own schedules are often more productive and happier employees. They are also more engaged in the workplace.

RELATED:12 Work-Life Balance Tips

2. Required Tools

When an employee starts working for a new company, he or she will expect to have the needed tools to complete their job responsibilities effectively. If the employee has access to those items and can work as expected, employee engagement will flourish. Deloitte calls this enabling infrastructure. Without the necessary tools, employees will disengage.

3. Employee Surveys

Employee feedback is important. Even more important is the need for leaders to listen to the feedback and act on that information. This isnt to say every leader has to do or put into practice every employee suggestion, but they do need to consider the feedback. Additionally, the leader must be transparent about the feedback and whether it will be put into action. According to an engagement report from Aon, this approach to feedback helps an organization quickly address problems, but more importantly it makes the employee feel valued. Thus, it increases engagement.

4. Manager selection

Its been said before: employees dont leave companies. They leave bad managers.Managers and leaders are critical to engagement success according to Gallup. The right leader knows their success and the organizations success is linked to the engagement of the employee. Hiring the right external candidate or internal candidate for a manager role; one whom possesses the ability to manage people effectively can have a positive impact on engagement rates.

5. Training and Development Opportunities

Investing in employees byoffering training and development opportunitiesprovides the atmosphere for workers to become more engaged. A lack of these opportunities typically translates to the employee not feeling valued by the company and will thus negatively impact the chance for engagement. Employees who are not invested will not support the company in any way other than making sure they can protect their job. At least until they can secure other employment.

When it comes to measuring engagement, there are several schools of thought on the issue. Some suggest an organic approach. Gathering data through conversations such as one-on-one meetings or team meetings. Others suggest a formal approach like engagement surveys that happen once or twice a year. These surveys can provide a wealth of data that helps indicate what engagement initiatives are working and how engaged employees actually are with the organization.

Engagement surveys differ from other types of surveys. According to SHRM, engagement surveys measure employees commitment, motivation, sense of purpose and passion for their work and the organization while other surveys, satisfaction surveys for instance, measure workers views, attitudes and perceptions of their organization.

The most important piece of measuring engagement isnt the measurement itself, however. Its all about how the results are shared and how the findings are put into action. If leaders have access to this information, share it and then dont capitalize on it, they can expect engagement scores to suffer in the future.

Engagement will continue to be a main focus moving forward. As eluded to earlier, this is directly related to the fact the workforce is transforming. Todays newest workers and their successors care more about personal growth and purpose than just getting a paycheck from employers. They want to make a difference while growing and building relationships with the organization and co-workers.

But changes in the workforce arent the only catalyst for the increased importance of engagement. It shares the spotlight with technology. Technology has revolutionized the way people work and engage with that work and one another. And technology, like engagement, is constantly in flux.

All of this points to the reality engagement continues to play, as it will in the future, a large role. Engaging these workers will be critical to future success, not only of the organization, but so too for the employee. Now more than ever before, the organizations and their futures hang on the success of their respective employees.

NEXT: Talent Acquisition: HRs Guide for Finding the Best Talent

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Employee Engagement: Everything You Need to Know - HR Exchange Network

Ayurveda is a traditional Indian system of medicine. It aims to preserve health and wellness by keeping the mind, body, and spirit in balance and preventing disease rather than treating it.

To do so, it employs a holistic approach that combines diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes (1).

Ayurvedic herbs and spices are also an important component of this approach. Theyre thought to protect your body from disease and offer a variety of health benefits, including improved digestion and mental health.

Here are 12 Ayurvedic herbs and spices with science-backed health benefits.

Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) is a small woody plant native to India and North Africa. Its root and berries are used to produce a very popular Ayurvedic remedy (2).

Its considered an adaptogen, which means that its believed to help your body manage stress more effectively. Research has shown that it reduces levels of cortisol, a hormone that your adrenal glands produce in response to stress (3, 4).

Theres also evidence linking ashwagandha to lower levels of anxiety and improved sleep in people with stress and anxiety disorders (3, 5, 6).

Moreover, research shows that ashwagandha may enhance muscle growth, memory, and male fertility, as well as lower blood sugar levels. However, larger studies are needed to confirm these benefits (4, 7, 8, 9, 10).

Finally, theres evidence that it may help reduce inflammation and boost your immune system, though more studies are needed (11, 12).

Ashwagandha is an Ayurvedic spice that may help your body manage stress more effectively. It may also lower your blood sugar levels and improve sleep, memory, muscle growth, and male fertility.

Boswellia, also known as Indian frankincense or olibanum, is made from the resin of the Boswellia serrata tree. Its known for its easily recognizable spicy, woody aroma.

Research suggests that it may be particularly effective at reducing inflammation by preventing the release of inflammation-causing compounds known as leukotrienes (13, 14).

In test-tube and animal studies, boswellia appears to be as effective as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), yet with fewer side effects (15).

Human studies link boswellia to reduced pain, improved mobility, and a greater range of movement in people with osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. It may also help prevent oral infections and fight gingivitis (16, 17, 18, 19, 20).

Moreover, it may improve digestion in people with ulcerative colitis and Crohns disease, as well as breathing in people with chronic asthma (21, 22, 23, 24, 25).

Boswellia is an Ayurvedic spice with anti-inflammatory properties. It may reduce joint pain, enhance oral health, and improve digestion, as well as increase breathing capacity in people with chronic asthma.

Triphala is an Ayurvedic remedy consisting of the following three small medicinal fruits (26):

Test-tube and animal studies show that triphala may reduce inflammation caused by arthritis, as well as prevent or limit the growth of certain types of cancer (27, 28, 29, 30, 31).

It may also function as a natural laxative, reducing constipation, abdominal pain, and flatulence while improving the frequency and consistency of bowel movements in people with gut disorders (32, 33).

In addition, a limited number of studies suggest that a mouthwash containing triphala may reduce plaque buildup, decrease gum inflammation, and prevent the growth of bacteria in the mouth (34, 35).

Triphala is an Ayurvedic remedy consisting of three Ayurvedic spices amla, bibhitaki, and haritaki. It may help reduce joint inflammation, improve digestion, and promote oral health.

Brahmi (Bacopa monieri) is a staple herb in Ayurvedic medicine.

According to test-tube and animal studies, brahmi appears to have strong anti-inflammatory properties that are as effective as common NSAIDs (36, 37, 38, 39).

Studies also link it to improvements in learning rates, attention, memory, and information processing, as well as reduced symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), such as inattention, impulsivity, poor self-control, and restlessness (40, 41, 42, 43).

Some studies further suggest that brahmi may have adaptogenic properties, which means that it may help improve your bodys ability to deal with stress and anxiety. However, more research is needed before strong conclusions can be made (44, 45, 46, 47, 48).

Brahmi is an Ayurvedic herb believed to lower inflammation, improve brain function, and reduce symptoms of ADHD. It may also increase your bodys ability to deal with stress, though more research is needed.

Cumin is a spice native to the Mediterranean and Southwest Asia. Its made from the seeds of the Cuminum cyminum plant, which are known for their distinctive earthy, nutty, and spicy flavor.

Research shows that cumin may boost the activity of digestive enzymes and facilitate the release of bile from the liver, speeding digestion and easing the digestion of fats (49, 50).

Studies have also linked this Ayurvedic spice to reduced symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), such as abdominal pain and bloating (51).

Plus, cumin may protect against type 2 diabetes by lowering blood sugar levels and improving insulin sensitivity. It may also protect against heart disease by increasing HDL (good) cholesterol while reducing triglycerides and LDL (bad) cholesterol (52, 53, 54, 55, 56).

Cumin likewise appears to possess antimicrobial properties that may reduce the risk of certain foodborne infections. Still, more studies are needed to confirm this (57).

Cumin is an Ayurvedic spice commonly used to add flavor to meals. It may decrease symptoms of IBS, improve risk factors for type 2 diabetes and heart disease, and perhaps even offer some protection against foodborne infection.

Turmeric, the spice that gives curry its characteristic yellow color, is another popular Ayurvedic remedy.

Curcumin, its main active compound, has powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Test-tube research shows that it may be equally or even more effective than some anti-inflammatory drugs without all of their side effects (58, 59, 60, 61).

Also, turmeric may help protect against heart disease, in part by improving blood flow as effectively as exercise or certain pharmaceutical drugs. One study further suggests that it may be as effective as Prozac, a drug commonly used to treat depression (62, 63, 64, 65).

Moreover, compounds in turmeric may help preserve brain function by increasing brain levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Low levels of BDNF have been linked to disorders like Alzheimers and depression (66, 67, 68, 69).

That said, most studies have used very large amounts of curcumin, whereas turmeric comprises only around 3% of this compound. Thus, amounts larger than those found in turmeric are likely needed to attain these health benefits, and such large doses may cause stomach upset (70).

Turmeric is the Ayurvedic spice that gives curry its yellow color. Curcumin, its main compound, may help reduce inflammation and improve heart and brain health. However, large amounts are likely needed to attain these benefits.

Licorice root, which is native to Europe and Asia, comes from the Glycyrrhiza glabra plant and holds a central place in Ayurvedic medicine.

Test-tube and human studies suggest that licorice root may help reduce inflammation and fight viruses and bacteria. It also appears to offer relief from a sore throat and promote oral health by protecting against dental cavities and Candida (71, 72, 73, 74, 75).

This Ayurvedic spice may likewise help prevent or manage heartburn, bloating, nausea, belching, and stomach ulcers. When applied to the skin, it may reduce symptoms of skin rash, including redness, itching, and swelling (76, 77, 78, 79).

However, the only studies on this root are generally small, and more research is needed to confirm these benefits.

Licorice root is an Ayurvedic spice that may help reduce inflammation and protect against various infections. It may also treat digestive problems and relieve skin irritations.

Gotu kola (Centella asiatica), or the herb of longevity, is another popular Ayurvedic remedy. Its made from a tasteless, odorless plant with fan-shaped green leaves that grows in and around water.

One small study suggests that gotu kola supplements may improve peoples memory after they have had a stroke (80).

Moreover, in one study, people with generalized anxiety disorder reported less stress, anxiety, and depression after replacing their antidepressants with gotu kola for 60 days (81).

There is also some evidence that the herb may help prevent stretch marks, reduce varicose veins, help wounds heal faster, and diminish symptoms of eczema and psoriasis. However, more research is needed (82, 83, 84).

Animal studies further suggest that this Ayurvedic herb may relieve joint pain, but more studies are needed to confirm this effect (85).

Gotu kola is an Ayurvedic herb that may help boost memory and reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as improve a variety of skin conditions.

Bitter melon (Momordica charantia) is a tropical vine closely related to zucchini, squash, cucumber, and pumpkin. Its considered a staple in Asian cuisine and packed with nutrients and powerful antioxidants.

Research suggests that bitter melon may help lower blood sugar levels and promote the secretion of insulin, the hormone responsible for keeping blood sugar levels stable (86, 87, 88, 89).

If you use insulin to manage your blood sugar levels, consult your healthcare before adding bitter melon to your daily routine to prevent your blood sugar levels from becoming dangerously low.

Animal studies further suggest that it may lower triglyceride and LDL (bad) cholesterol levels, though human studies are needed to confirm this (90, 91).

Bitter melon is an Ayurvedic spice that may help lower blood sugar levels and boost insulin secretion. It may also reduce LDL (bad) cholesterol levels, though more research is needed before strong conclusions can be made.

Cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum), which is sometimes referred to as the queen of spices, has been part of Ayurvedic medicine since ancient times.

Research suggests that cardamom powder may help reduce blood pressure in people with elevated levels. Theres also evidence that inhaling cardamom essential oil may increase the uptake of oxygen into the lungs during exercise (92, 93).

Moreover, test-tube and animal research suggests that cardamom may help protect against Helicobacter pylori bacteria, which is a common cause of stomach ulcers, and may reduce the size of gastric ulcers by at least 50% or even eradicate them (94, 95).

Still, research in humans is needed before strong conclusions can be made.

Cardamom is an Ayurvedic spice that may lower blood pressure, improve breathing, and potentially help stomach ulcers heal. However, more research is necessary.

Ayurvedic herbs and spices are generally considered safe when consumed in amounts typically used to prepare or flavor foods. Yet, most of the studies supporting their benefits typically used supplements offering doses far exceeding that.

Supplementing with such large doses may not be suitable for children, women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, people with known medical conditions, or those taking medication.

Therefore, its necessary to consult your healthcare provider before adding any Ayurvedic supplements to your regimen.

Its also worth noting that the content and quality of Ayurvedic products are not regulated. Some Ayurvedic preparations may mix Ayurvedic herbs and spices with minerals, metals, or gems, rendering them potentially harmful (96).

For instance, a recent study found that 65% of Ayurvedic products studied contained lead, while 3238% also included mercury and arsenic, some of which had concentrations that were up to several thousand times higher than the safe daily limit (97).

Another study reported that up to 40% of people who use Ayurvedic preparations had elevated levels of lead or mercury in their blood (98).

Therefore, those interested in Ayurvedic preparations should only purchase them from reputable companies that ideally have their products tested by a third party.

Ayurvedic herbs and spices are generally safe in small amounts. Supplements containing large doses of these herbs and spices, as well as Ayurvedic preparations that have mixed them with other minerals, metals, or gems may be harmful.

Ayurvedic herbs and spices have been an integral part of traditional Indian medicine for centuries

An increasing amount of scientific evidence supports their many proposed health benefits, including protection against type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Thus, adding small amounts of these herbs and spices may help both flavor your meals and boost your health.

That said, large doses may not be suitable for everyone, so make sure to seek advice from your healthcare provider before adding Ayurvedic supplements to your healthcare regimen.

And remember, Ayurveda employs a holistic approach to health that also includes physical activity, adequate sleep, stress management, and eating a variety of fruits and vegetables daily.

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12 Powerful Ayurvedic Herbs and Spices with Health Benefits - Healthline

During Ronald Reagans second U.S. presidential debate with Walter Mondale in October 1984, the former movie star was asked about his age he was 73 and whether he would be able to handle the rigours of the toughest job in the world.

The oldest president in U.S. history responded: I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponents youth and inexperience.

Brilliant. Even Mondale had to laugh.

Top tennis players typically reach their highest levels of performance at age 24, (although Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are making a strong argument that it can be past 30).

For baseball, the peak age is 28, the same for long distance runners. Its three years older for golf. For table tennis its 17 years. Its all downhill after that.

So, whats the peak performance age for investors? Well, there are a number of great investors who are still going strong in their golden years. Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and one of the richest men in the world, is 89. His right-hand man, Charlie Munger, is 95.

There are others who were even older. Phil Carret, one of Buffetts role models and the founder of one of the first mutual funds in the U.S., was still investing when he died at 101. Irving Kahn, an early disciple to Benjamin Graham, a.k.a. the father of value investing, was the worlds oldest active investor when he passed away in 2015 at the age of 109. Interestingly, all of the them are (or were) value investors.

There seems to be no age limit, barring cognitive impairment or other ailments, that hampers ones ability to be a great investor.

Great investing has nothing to do with getting older. In fact, its quite the opposite. I asked Carret at a Berkshire Hathaway meeting many years ago to what he owed his longevity. He thought for a moment and said, Well, I never smoked, I drink in moderation and I dont worry about anything.

I believe its the latter element that was the most important. All of these aforementioned investors had the ability to block out short-term market gyrations and not be upset by them. In fact, they saw big drops or even collapses in stock prices as something to celebrate and they saw them many times during their careers.

Age gives you something that the young simply cant have experience and mistakes. Consider the thoughts of Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb.

I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work, he said.

Those who have never experienced large market declines are at a distinct disadvantage to those who have. Many investors today dont even remember the near-collapse in 2008, the bear market of 2000 to 2002 or the white-knuckle abyss of 1987.

Investors who have been around a few years possess the huge advantage of having lived through both bull and bear markets. They have witnessed the wild elation of investors throwing rational thought to the wind and paying ridiculously high prices for businesses. They have also seen their despair at the opposite end of the investing spectrum when selling their holdings for rock-bottom values. Reading the history of such events is one thing. Living through the real-world behaviour of Mr. Market, the imaginary investor in Grahams 1949 book, The Intelligent Investor, is something else altogether.

Experience is invaluable in investing. Yes, having the right education is essential. Studying economics, accounting and mathematics helps to build an important foundation. But the classroom is light years away from the ultra-competitive and cut-throat real world of investing.

In that arena, my mistakes have taught me way more than my successes. The pains of losses are incredibly great teachers.

What do you learn from mistakes? Well, you do not want to do them ever again. For example, buying into a value trap or owning a company run by a bunch of crooks can feel like getting hit in the head by a brick. Paying far too much for a business, even a good one, can be another path to pain and learning the hard way.

So, what are the young investors who have never experienced these long-term events to do?

One suggestion: Read the history of markets. There are many great books that have been written about market manias, the subsequent panics and human behaviour.

This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff and A Short History of Financial Euphoria by John Kenneth Galbraith are two of the best. The latter is a delightfully, entertaining short history of market madness through the ages. For a deeper understanding of the 1920s, Galbraiths brilliant book, The Great Crash 1929, is also essential reading.

Otherwise, you will live the horror of what Galbraith reportedly said many years ago the old generation has to die off so a new set of idiots can make the same mistakes all over again.

Larry Sarbit is a Portfolio Manager at Value Partners Investments in Winnipeg.

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The pain of a failed investment can be the best teacher of all - Financial Post

We are all going to die. The raspy scream of headlines, op-eds, demonstrators, wonks, activists, dinner guests and friends. Or worse, our kids are all going to die (a dash of guilt to spice up the fear). The public sphere is so awash with alarms so loud that our ears ring.

Not so fast.

We read it every day. Climate, Trump, fundamentalists, Putin, antibiotic resistance, asteroids, AI weapons, Brexit. Misery is certain to come, thousands will die. No, wait, millions. Maybe billions.

Well, perhaps. But more likely perhaps not.

An interesting report came out recently from the Brookings Institution in the US. It presented findings from a Stanford academic, Michael Webb. Webb was apparently dissatisfied with the gloomy predictions of imminent mass global unemployment under the boot of artificial intelligence and robotics and other Fourth Industrial Revolution magic.

His very clever trick was to analyse applications lodged at the US patent office across many industries and professions to see who would lose jobs in the future, and by what means (he used AI to do the analysis, a lovely irony). It turns out that we are not all going to lose our jobs. Some will, and surprisingly, a goodly percentage of those will be university-degreed experts, where AI really earns its stripes doing the smart things that smart humans think are untouchable. The rest of the middle class need not worry too much, Truck drivers, of course. Repetitive labour, yes. But for the majority of jobholders dont worry too much.

And then there is the climate crisis. The science behind climate change is pretty robust, even largely settled at this point, with arguments and contestation mainly happening at the arcane edges of the science. But a careful look at the reports of the IPCC (where the science has been grinding away for a long time in one of the largest multi-country science investigations in history), you will find none of the horrors described by Greta Thunberg or Extinction Rebellion or many smart writers and journalists. To those horrors they may be out there, but you will find no scientific consensus, just opinion and less-than-disciplined extrapolation.

What you will find in the IPPC studies is a careful description of a clear problem. You will find little about specific extreme weather events (like the fires in Australia or California), or cities being swamped in the next 15 years, or mass eco-migrations, or the dessication of food supply or sixth extinctions and so on.

You will find inside and outside boundaries of temperature rises and ice studies and sea level rises and parts-per-million carbon graphs. No one is unconcerned and some are more concerned than others, but there are not many within the deep-number-wrangling labs who will extrapolate to the point of the human extinction or even mass immiseration.

The prediction-caution shown by scientists is at least partially a result of previous embarrassments. Like The Club of Rome in the early 1970s and its population projections (and how the world would certainly see mass starvation and social upheaval on a spectacular scale). What happened? It failed to foresee success in contraception and family planning and massive-scale increases in food production. The same happened with AIDS (whatever happened to the blaring headlines about the depopulation of Africa?). It was nonsense, imagined by well-intended people. Extrapolation of graphs into the future is a terrible idea in the face of human ingenuity and technological and societal change.

Of course, democracy is over with Trump. Or perhaps democracy has been forever debased by the Democrat-led impeachment hearings (as some otherwise very smart friends of mine proclaim). The US, of course, is on its way to becoming a has-been power, and soon we will all be under surveillance by the Chinese. Capitalism is not even worth a debate. Its over. Right? Right?

The intellectual polymath Stephen Pinker has written a book titled Enlightenment Now, in which he takes on the very foundations of these alarm bells, their psychological drivers, their underlying statistical laziness, even their willful deceit. He covers the history of (and evidence for) human violence, climate, health, democracy, longevity and more.

He presents the peer-reviewed data, the sources, the conclusions (and in most cases does not try to look into the future). He has angered just about every activist who has read the book, and more who havent. He has been accused of cherry-picking, of Pollyanna Syndrome, of right-wing bolsterism.

But a careful reading of this book (and some of his later online defences against the charges) show him to be on much more solid scientific ground than his detractors, sometimes embarrassingly so. (Quick how many people died in 2018 from natural disasters? 11,000. How many in the opening decades of the 20th century when the population was one quarter that of todays? An average of 400,000 a year. The difference? Technology, communications, medicine, governance and process. Who would have predicted that?)

So, back to climate. There are many paths humanity can take to mitigate and even arrest the slope that we are on. The most immediately scalable one is nuclear energy (with multiple new designs that mitigate most, if not all the historical objections and technology weaknesses). And by manipulating fundamental economic imperatives with a tightly controlled carbon tax, with UN oversight. And many other technologies, all bubbling with the fuel of urgency, such as renewables.

I must admit to having rung some alarms myself, and been exercised by others. But our planet and its inhabitants have improved over millennia, in almost every way we can measure thats what the data shows, pretty incontrovertibly.

Of course, the alarms will not quiet soon, because we seem to need them, even love them. But they do not solve the problems.

People do, often the quiet ones. DM

Award-winning and multi-shortlisted novelist Steven Boykey Sidley has meandered through careers as an animator, chief technology officer for a Fortune 500 company, jazz musician, software developer, video game designer, private equity investor and high technology entrepreneur. He currently lives in Johannesburg with his wife and two children. Free Association is his fourth and latest novel.

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Were all going to die: Alarmists in our midst - Daily Maverick

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 R[emailprotected]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.

Report [emailprotected]https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/analysis/BCC/global-longevity-and-anti-senescence-therapy-market

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Longevity And Anti-Senescence Therapy Market: Market Development, Overview and Forecast up to 2023 - Statsflash

A leading research firm, Zion Market Research added a latest industry report on "Global Stem Cells Market" consisting of 110+ pages during the forecast period and Stem Cells Market report offers a comprehensive research updates and information related to market growth, demand, opportunities in the global Stem Cells Market.

According to the report the Global Stem Cells Market Growth Driver 2016 2024: By Osiris Therapeutics Inc., STEMCELL Technologies Inc., BIOTIMEInc., Celgene Corporation, Human Longevity Inc., Cynata, Cytori Therapeutics, Promethera Biosciences, and Advanced Cell Technology Inc.,. Osiris Therapeutics Inc., STEMCELL Technologies Inc., BIOTIMEInc., Celgene Corporation

The Stem Cells Market report provides in-depth analysis and insights into developments impacting businesses and enterprises on global and regional level. The report covers the global Stem Cells Market performance in terms of revenue contribution from various segments and includes a detailed analysis of key trends, drivers, restraints, and opportunities influencing revenue growth of the global consumer electronics market.This report studies the global Stem Cells Market size, industry status and forecast, competition landscape and growth opportunity. This research report categorizes the global Stem Cells Market by companies, region, type and end-use industry.

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The Stem Cells Market report mainly includes the major company profiles with their annual sales & revenue, business strategies, company major products, profits, industry growth parameters, industry contribution on global and regional level.This report covers the global Stem Cells Market performance in terms of value and volume contribution. This section also includes major company analysis of key trends, drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities, which are influencing the global Stem Cells Market. Impact analysis of key growth drivers and restraints, based on the weighted average model, is included in this report to better equip clients with crystal clear decision-making insights.

The Stem Cells Market research report mainly segmented into types, applications and regions.The market overview section highlights the Stem Cells Market definition, taxonomy, and an overview of the parent market across the globe and region wise.To provide better understanding of the global Stem Cells Market, the report includes in-depth analysis of drivers, restraints, and trends in all major regions namely, Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East & Africa, which influence the current market scenario and future status of the global Stem Cells Market over the forecast period.

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The Stem Cells Market report provides company market size, share analysis in order to give a broader overview of the key players in the market. Additionally, the report also includes key strategic developments of the market including acquisitions & mergers, new product launch, agreements, partnerships, collaborations & joint ventures, research & development, product and regional expansion of major participants involved in the market on the global and regional basis.

Major Company Profiles Covered in This Report:

Osiris Therapeutics Inc., STEMCELL Technologies Inc., BIOTIMEInc., Celgene Corporation, Human Longevity Inc., Cynata, Cytori Therapeutics, Promethera Biosciences, and Advanced Cell Technology Inc.,.

Some of the major objectives of this report:

1) To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast of the various segments and sub-segments of the global Stem Cells Market.

2. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyze the Stem Cells Market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porter five force analysis etc.

3. To provide historical and forecast revenue of the Stem Cells Market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World.

4. Country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective.

5. To provide country level analysis of the market for segment by application, product type and sub-segments.

6. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market.

7. Track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the global Stem Cells Market.

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Zion Market Research is an obligated company. We create futuristic, cutting edge, informative reports ranging from industry reports, company reports to country reports. We provide our clients not only with market statistics unveiled by avowed private publishers and public organizations but also with vogue and newest industry reports along with pre-eminent and niche company profiles. Our database of market research reports comprises a wide variety of reports from cardinal industries. Our database is been updated constantly in order to fulfill our clients with prompt and direct online access to our database. Keeping in mind the clients needs, we have included expert insights on global industries, products, and market trends in this database. Last but not the least, we make it our duty to ensure the success of clients connected to usafter allif you do well, a little of the light shines on us.

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Global Stem Cells Market Growth Driver 2016 2024: By Companies Osiris Therapeutics Inc., STEMCELL Technologies Inc., BIOTIMEInc., Celgene Corporation...

Know a startup we should feature on Startup of the Week ? Email us at editors@motherboard.tv

The pitch

In 2154, the Earth is an uninhabitable shitworld, and ultra-rich people live on a utopian space colony. This is the movie Elysium.

In 2020, you can mail in a spit sample and in return see how fast your cells are aging, then get prompted to buy some pills in the hopes of slowing down the process. This is the pitch for the company Elysium Health, which offers its co-called Index test for $500.

The Index test purports to provide customers with a cumulative rate of aging and biological agethe age at which their body is expected to perform. The report also includes general recommendations for healthy living and lifestyle factors that have been shown in clinical research to impact the clock, although theres no guarantee that these changes will impact your biological age, a company spokesperson said to Motherboard.

If you do take the $500 test regularly, the spokesperson said, you can determine how your rate of aging changes over time and to see if lifestyle and other changes made can impact how you age in the future.

Terrific! And what do you do with that information? As the bottom of Elysium Healths website disclaims, Index should not be used to determine or alter any age-related health or medical treatments based on your chronological age, unless directed otherwise by a doctor.

Elysium Healths main business is selling Basis, a nicotinamide riboside (NR) supplement that increases nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), which is involved in many of the bodys day-to-day cellular processes. Basis costs $60 for a months supply, or $50 per month as a subscription.

What problem does it solve?

Elysium Health seeks to address the age-old problem of old age. Elysium Health claims that clinical trials in humans, including our own trial, demonstrate that supplementing NR can increase the body's supply of NAD+.

Whether this actually slows aging in humans is not yet proven. NAD+ has shown to be an effective anti-aging component in mice and yeast. But as New York comedian Sheng Wang noted, we don't really care about rat news. Especially if it's positive. We don't want to hear about how their population can thrive further. I'd rather read about rat plight." Elysium Healths short human trial shows the NAD+ increase, but not the metabolic or overall health improvements. Another human study from Elysium Healths main competitor, ChromaDex, indicated NRs ability to raise NAD+, but doesnt mention any anti-aging effects.

In short, though NAD+ has anti-aging effects for mice, mouse studies are often overhyped. Just because something works in a mouse does not mean itll work in humans. In fact, cancer researchers are interested in NAD+ as a possible suspect for fueling cancer growth in humans, as a May 2019 article from Scientific American notes.

Despite the lack of evidence or FDA approval, Elysium Health has millions in funding and genuinely impressive resumes in its orbit.

The leadership team at Elysium Health has five PhDs, and touts a Scientific Advisory Board with more than 25 world-renowned researchers and clinicians, including eight Nobel Prize-winning scientists, who are tasked with guiding the scientific direction of the company.

Are you confused, and thinking, these people clearly know more than I do, given their academic credentials, Nobel Prizes, and lab coats?

That might be part of the plan. They are part of a marketing scheme where their names and reputations are being used, former Harvard Medical School dean Jeffrey Flier told the MIT Technology Review in 2017.

Several of Elysiums scientific advisory board members said their involvement should not be seen as an endorsement of the company or its pills, the Review story goes on to say.

In the same way companies sometimes greenwash their image to appear more environmentally-friendly, perhaps a company attaching itself to as many PhDs and Nobel Laureates as possible could be trying to brainwash its image.

Who is giving them money?

Elysium Health has raised $31.2 million since its founding in 2015. Investors include Silicon Valley Bank, which led its last $5 million round of debt financing in 2017, and Cambridge, Mass-based VC fund General Catalyst, which led its $20 million Series B round in 2016. Robert Nelsen, who Forbes once described as Biotechs Top Venture Capitalist, has also personally invested in Elysium Health.

What are The Experts saying?

The companys first product is Basis, a supplement that combines compounds designed to increase NAD levels and activate sirtuins, boosting cellular health and longevity." -TechCrunch

Researchers are still working to prove that NR can actually improve human healtha sticking point for critics and an issue acknowledged by the companies themselves. -Scientific American

A Fountain Of Youth Pill? Sure, If Youre A Mouse. -Kaiser Health News

If I had paid $500, I would likely be disappointed -FastCompany

Theres no guarantee that Elysiums first product, a blue pill called Basis that is going on sale this week, will actually keep you young. -MIT Technology Review

I take that Elysium stuff...I take that stuff every day. I like it. Um, but-I guess. I dont really know. I take a lot of things. I dont really know. -Joe Rogan

Should you buy it?

If you have $500 laying around that you might end up spending on things that will hyper-age you, like tanning sessions or a cigarette and cocaine smoothie, this is a foolproof way of ridding yourself of that harmful money.

If regular $500 saliva tests and $50 per month pills for a chance at longevity seem appealing, then this is your chance to make it to 2154. If you join their affiliate program, you can also make 12 percent commission on sales.

Should we even want to live longer, if we dont address the biological age of our planet first? If you flush a bunch of these pills down the toilet, will they help heal the Earth? Like Basiss efficacy with humans, the results here are currently inconclusive.

If youre simply interested in your chronological age, there are some very exciting and affordable products on the market. Elysium Health links to one cloud-based chronological age calculator, no spit required.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

The rest is here:

Startup of the Week: A Subscription for Anti-Aging Pills... for Mice - VICE

Akamai just released the 2019 State of the Internet (SOTI) security report: Phishing Baiting the Hook featuring findings from the enterprise and carrier research teams. Theyve been collaborating for two years to develop better methods for evaluating massive volumes of anonymized, live-streamed DNS query data to uncover more phishing, bots and other threats.

This new SOTI report has great background on phishing, and the research focuses on phishing kits used to enable landing pages where usernames and passwords or other valuable information are gathered and subsequently monetized to fund phishers exploits. Akamais enterprise team developed a zero-day phishing detection engine to identify different phishing kits, and tracked their life cycles to understand how attacks change to avoid detection. They also analyzed brands being targeted and segmented them by industry. The top industries targeted were high tech (companies like Microsoft, Dropbox, and LinkedIn), followed by media and then financial companies.

These findings are supplemented with research from the carrier team which shows longevity statistics for domain names used for phishing (and other exploits) ranked by Top Level Domain. The work showed short life times for malicious domains 89% had a lifespan of less than 24 hours, and 94% had a lifespan of less than three days.

Since it relies on human factors instead of software flaws, the basic approach for phishing has endured for decades. But that doesnt mean phishers havent innovated. A section covering phishing in the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) Threat Landscape Report 2018 states: From the available evidence, it is clear that the scale and sophistication of attacks are increasing, with evermore avenues being exploited to reach users (including email, instant messaging, and social networking sites). This suggests organizations can not necessarily depend on phishing protections built into email to cover all of their exposure since phishing urls are being presented in other places.

A paper presented at Usenix Security 2019 adds another dimension. In addition to copying logos and web pages and mimicking legitimate email addresses, sophisticated phishers have become masters of persuasion. The authors of the paper presented examples of phishing messages segmented based on the different ways human emotions can be manipulated to obtain a desired result. Its a little unnerving reading these messages because it becomes clear even trained or experienced viewers could be susceptible if they dont pause for a moment.

Attackers are innovating in other ways. Some attackers cleverly substitute lookalike characters in domain names so a destination appears to users to be familiar but is actually completely different than what is perceived. Its a big enough problem that most of the major browservendors have taken steps to make the substitutions more obvious to (attentive) users by displaying the actual domain names, which appear as somewhat cryptic character strings (called punycode) in the address bar. The carrier research team has also started seeing domain names that render as emojis imagine the ambiguities that introduces for hackers to take advantage of! The team has added protections for them and well offer more details about these tactics in upcoming blog posts.

Phishing impacts everyone who uses the internet, although some are more targeted than others. Findings presented at BlackHat 2019 from researchers at the University of Florida and Google showed that business users are 4.8 times more likely to receive phishing emails than consumers. Nonprofits are 3.8 times more likely to be targeted than consumers, followed by government (2.8X) and education (2.1X). Todays hackers want to maximize their return on investment and, accordingly, bias their efforts toward organizations with more monetizable assets.

In the same BlackHat presentation, the researchers presented survey results that showed 45% of users dont understand what phishing is. This is in contrast to generally high awareness about internet security exposure and may indicate many people simply dont have the time or desire to educate themselves about the details of internet exploits.

Phishing isnt going away anytime soon because the barriers to entry are low. Technical skills arent necessarily required anymore since phishing kits are readily available from many sources on the dark web and there are services available to distribute malicious links. Even amateur phishers can refine their messaging based on observing what works and the professionals can invest in more advanced forms of social engineering. As revealed in the paragraph above gaps in awareness suggest internet users could use help.

ISPs are well-positioned to protect their consumer and small/midsize business subscribers. They already have a trusted contractual relationship, scale and reach, and security and operational expertise. Theres an opportunity to move beyond speed and reliability and differentiate internet access services based on security. Akamai Security and Personalization Services play to provider strengths, while meeting subscriber requirements for ease of use, broad coverage of devices, and price points compatible with modest budgets.

Bruce Van Nice is a Senior Product Marketing Manager at Akamai.

___________________________

1.https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/enisa-threat-landscape-report-2018

2.https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity19/presentation/van-der-heijden

3.http://www.daniela.ece.ufl.edu/blackhat19/BlackHat_2019_Slides_and_Coverage/Black_Hat_2019.html

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from The Akamai Blog authored by Bruce Van Nice. Read the original post at: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheAkamaiBlog/~3/YiDUIxKlOIU/phishing-trends-position-isps-to-protect-subscribers.html

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Phishing Trends Position ISPs to Protect Subscribers - Security Boulevard

I mightve died fearing the ageing process about as much as everyone else. Unfortunately, about two drags into my fourth cigarette a friend of mine relayed an anecdote about his dying grandfatherunprompted.

So its his ninety-eighth birthday and were watching him try to blow out candles on a cake he probably cant eat anywayfor like an hour.Eventually, I get bored and blow it out for him before asking what he wished for. To which he says: I accidentally peeped the expiration date on the carton of milk in the fridge and it dawned on me that I didnt know which one of us had more time left.

In an instant, I quit smoking and took up gerascophobia. In defense of the soon-to-be-dead-party-pooper, the older we get the louder minute hands become. We try to dull the racket by route of cosmetics, pop culture, copulation and fairy-tales; all to distract ourselves from the inevitable frog march into nothingness. If were honest, every year after 50 extends a catalog of things we cant do anymore. The list begins innocuously enough with things like fit into my favorite pair of whatevers or comprehend the cultural significance of this or that, but then the whole thing ends tragically nuanced.

Were all familiar with the odd way time seems to speed up every year after 21? It makes sense that time adopts the illusion of expedience as we run out of milestones but the reasoning behind this phenomenon is actually even less abstract than that. According to a new paper published in the scientific journalEuropean Review, as wrinkles begin to appear, and our postures sag, our neurons grow larger, increasing the amount of time it takes us to process an image.

People are often amazed at how much they remember from days that seemed to last forever in their youth, explained the new studys author Adrian Bejan, the J.A. Jones Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Duke University in a pressrelease.Its not that their experiences were much deeper or more meaningful, its just that they were being processed in rapid-fire.

Interestingly enough, almost all of the psychological conditions that narrate our morph into maggot food are effected by well-documented physiological precursors.

Little mutations join forces to pen an aggressive eviction notice apostrophized by medical abnormalities that condemn life on planet earth to be less and less pleasant.This is especially relevant right now because Americas global age is increasing at an exponential rate.

When a society attains economic and agricultural excellence the death rate decreases alongside birthrate, which leads to a larger and older population.James Fries, professor of medicine at Stanford University, indexed the sociological fine-print that punctures this developmental achievement back in 1998. What Fries calls the compression of morbidity dictates that denizens of a thriving nation enjoy healthy lives for most of it until a series of health setbacks plague them all at once toward the final stretch. This is often in the form of chronic illness that appears in tandem with natural biological regressions. As far as the perversion of our mind clocks are concerned, organic changes in saccades frequency, body size, and pathway degradation have been studied to be the primary culprits. This is what physics more discreetly refers to asthe constructional law of low architecture. Elderly people simply receive fewer images in the same amount of time as younger people, drastically decelerating their integration of information. The mechanisms that animate this process are fairly identical to a cameras shutter speed.

The human mind senses time changing when the perceived images change, Bejan adds. The present is different from the past because the mental viewing has changed, not because somebodys clock rings. Daysseemed to last longerin your youth because the young mind receives more images during one day than the same mind in old age.

Overall somatic decline is ensured by similar physiological defects. New data published by researchers at Yale University revealed that our ability to obtain energy by burning belly fat also reduces as we grow older. This impairment is a direct cost of medical and agricultural preferments that have allowed us to defy our intended life expectancy.

Several mechanisms in the body are not selected for longevity,explained the papers lead researcher, Vishwa Deep Dixit. Normally the B cells produce antibodies and defend against infection. But with aging, the increased adipose B cells become dysfunctional, contributing to metabolic disease. This predisposes an animal to diabetes and metabolic dysfunction like inability toburn fat.

Thankfully, successful aging is no longer a consideration beholden to science fiction. Genetics may draft the treatment, but our lifestyle choices govern how gracefully we interpret the consequential beats. Presbycusis for instance (gradual degeneration of the cochlea consequenced by bilateral symmetrical aging) is by all accounts unavoidable. It is the leading cause of hearing loss and affects just about one and two individuals over the age of 75. However, there are cumulative environmental predictors that can worsen the condition and even accelerate its development. Prolonged exposure to headphone frequencies causes the hair cells in the cochlea to bend beyond the point of repair. Uniformly, we all have a reserve capacity of cells, each of which dies without fanfare throughout a given day.

Of course, as we age, this process, which is calledapoptosis, picks up momentum. What you might not know though is our state of mind mandates how quickly and violently this program transpires.

Having a good attitude is very important. We know that stress plays a key role in how we will age. We have these hormones, these stress hormones, that actually play a role in how our cells will die. When we become under stress we have an accelerated loss of cells. So this over a lifetime plays a major role in how functional we will be, explainedSteven Gambert, MD.

Even more consistently than this is the role our diet plays at the pace of our weathering. Diets like the Mediterranean, a regimen rich in vegetables and olive oil, low in meat ingestion, and moderate in alcohol consumption, slackens the agents of aging by checking their pawns, namely chronic maladies associated with old age. A recent study conducted on 23,349 men and women confirmed what previous literature had intimated in the years prior. Medical journalist, Caroline Wilbert reports:

During the study period, there were 652 deaths among 12,694 participants who had lower Mediterranean diet scores of 0-4 and 423 deaths among the 10,655 participants who had higher scores of at least 5. In general, those with higher scores were more likely to still be alive at the end of the study.

Similarly, earlier this year a team of European researchers disclosed that routine coffee consumption contributes to DNA integrity and overall longevity. This is earned by the antioxidants residing in dark roasted beans, a compound that helps cells repair themselves more effectively in the wake of the damage done by free radicals. Free radicals, birthed by sunlight, oxygen, and pollution, deteriorate the collagen fibers in the skin. The microbial properties in coffee help staff off these very same germs. Its caffeine acid boosts collagen levels which in turn brakes the aging process.

When it comes to confronting the aspects of aging that we cannot outwit, its important to distinguish a superficial fear of growing old, alternatively phrased as literal molecule deterioration, from a philosophical fear of death; the metaphysical cessation of being. Though Im not deaf to the terror of either, the attenuating of the former cant really refute the latter in and of itself. In other words, extending life for its own sake wont do you any good without some kind of moral equipment to boot. However you go about securing this is valid enough so long as it doesnt infringe on the fundamental rights of others. Rabelais lived for ambiguity, Plath was vitalized by the unreal and dangerous, Van Gogh was energized by lifes series of small things, Hitchens lived for irony (and died for it too), and Camus made a point not to think about any of it too intensely.

Chronological age is the most literal translation of our time here, our biological age is the most honest projection of how much of it weve got left, and our reservoir of purpose judges how successfully we spent it. Ultimately, appealing to your temple and the candles that emblazon it, is a good way to neuter the urge to cry over expired milk, whether the curtain falls when youre 25 or 98.

Go here to read the rest:

The biological defects that come with age and how to prevent them - Ladders

Flying cars. Peopleliving forever. The cost of education, energy, and food brought close to zero.

It would soundlike crazy talk if it were coming from anyone other than Peter Diamandis, creatorof the XPRIZE, founder of the Abundance 360 conference, and author of the mostinfluential books ever written about what the future holds.

In Abundance, published in 2012 and co-authored with Steven Kotler, Diamandis described how technology is bringing the bottom billion out of poverty and into a healthier, happier, opportunity-filled world. They then carried the theme forward in their second book, Bold, and returns to the ideas in their latest effort, The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives, again with co-author Steven Kotler.

The opportunities that are coming our way in the next five to ten years are astonishing, Diamandis says. Entrepreneurs need to realize that we will make more wealth in the next decade than in the entire previous century. The worlds biggest problems are also the worlds biggest business opportunities. Technology is going to transform absolutely everything, and much faster than people realize.

Diamandis says thathis purpose in writing The Future IsFaster Than You Think is to remove fear.

The mission of the book, he says, is to give people a hopeful but also opportunistic view of the future. Im trying to show where the technologies are and how things will change in every area of life.

Diamandis ticks offtransportation, healthcare, energy, food, insurance, finance, entertainment, andretail as among the areas that will be radically different before we know it.He speaks of the convergence of multiple forms of technology coming together tocreate new business models.

Very few people, he says, when they were children, dreamt of working a cash register, being a parking attendant, or being a housekeeper. They probably had more aspirational objectives for their lives.

The three Ds that will dominate the next decade are dematerializing, democratizing, and demonetizing. In other words, so many functions are moving to the digital world, where they become open to everyone, and not just a select few. At the same time, the cost of living is going to drop so radically that people wont have to work for the sake of paying for their lives. More and more people will be able to do whatever they really want to do.

The book explains wheretechnology is headed, and then demonstrates how the convergence of these newtechnologies will enable opportunities for people that sound like something outa science-fiction movie. It concludeswith a section on the risks and migrations attendant to those changes.

Take longevity, Diamandis says, warming to one of his favorite topics. We are approaching whats called longevity escape velocity. This means that for every year you grow older, science finds a way to extend your life by one year. Age becomes a treatable disease instead of a death sentence.

Diamandis takespains to explain that the societal shifts, due to the obviation of jobs likelong haul trucker, will not be as abrupt or disastrous as people think. In thebook, he notes that it will take half a century before all of todays jobs vanish,only to be replaced by even better opportunities for people at every level ofthe socioeconomic spectrum.

Is he worriedabout a caste system evolving, creating a world of a few technological havesand countless technological have-nots?

Not at all, Diamandis replies. If you look back anywhere from a few centuries to a few millennia, kings, queens, and pharaohs were the haves and everyone else lived in absolute squalor. For millennia, 99.9999% of human beings have lived in survival mode.

Going forward, there will certainly be a small number of super-haves, as there have always been, but everyone else will have unlimited access to healthy food, water, energy, and healthcare, at low or no cost. Thats something unprecedented in human history.

In tomorrows world, every child will be born to extraordinary opportunity. Thats a lot better than the world we know today.

Diamandis pointsout that the technology tends to get radically cheaper as more people adopt it,which means that new opportunities become available to the masses at much lowerprice points than those paid by early adopters.

The only people who had the first cellphones were Wall Street investment bankers, he says. Those phones were the size of briefcases, they cost a million dollars, and they dropped calls every two blocks. But as time went on, the cost of a phone dropped to the point where practically everyone on the planet can have a smartphone. Thats why I say, democratized equals demonetized. The future is coming faster, and better, and cheaper than anyone can imagine.

And these thingsarent 25 to 50 years from now. Theyre literally around the corner. The bookexplains how and why.

For furtherinformation, and special pre-publication bonuses, including copies of Abundance and Bold for people who buy the book in advance, visit http://www.futurefasterbook.com.

Read more:

Making The Jetsons Jealous: Peter Diamandis Says The Future Is Better, And Coming Faster Than You Ever Dreamt - Thrive Global

In the world of modern Hebrew letters, some names have achieved international recognition: from S.Y. Agnon and ayyim Naman Bialik to, more recently, Amos Oz and Yehuda Amichai. The names of others, whose contributions to Hebrew literature may be no less significant, tend to resonate in smaller, more localized circles.

Among the latter figures is the poet Zelda Shneerson Mishkovsky (1914-1984)known simply as Zelda to her many devoted readers in Israel. Indeed, her place in the world of Hebrew letters is secure, having been recognized through the award of both the Bialik and the Brenner prizes,two ofIsraels highest literary honors. That place is also unique: more than three decades after her death, Zelda remains one of the greatest modern writers of religious experiencein Hebrew or in any other language.

Who was she?

Zeldas rendering of religious experience was undoubtedly informed by her early life. Born in Russia in the waning days of the tsarist empire, she spent her first decade under the new dispensation of the Bolsheviks. Her formative childhood environment, however, was the world not of Communist atheism but of Chabad asidism. Zeldas first cousin, older than she by a dozen years, was Menachem MendelSchneerson, who in 1950 would become the seventh leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch dynasty: the Lubavitcher rebbe.

At twelve, Zelda emigrated to mandatory Palestine with her family. The Schneersons settled in Jerusalem (bejeweled in the sun,/ smiling like a bride), where she would spend most of her adult life. Nor did the spiritual world of her early years ever leave her. She remained devoutly religious her whole life and would often allude to asidic themes and symbols in her poetry. That poetry depicts a world of divine sparks and miracles, a world in which God is at times a living entity, as solid as a human lover or friend. But hers is also a world of profound loneliness and isolation, a world in which death maintains an unshakable presence and God is often hidden.

Zeldas father died about a year after the familys move to Jerusalem, and her grandfather soon after. In Jerusalem, she attended a religious girls school and then the Mizrai Teachers Seminary. It was while a student at the latter that she first began writing and publishing poetry in newspapers and magazines.

Over the next two decades, Zelda lived in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa, teaching Hebrew to new immigrants, caring for her ailing mother, and working as a teacher in an elementary school. Even as a teacher, she brought her radiant vision to her work, calling small kindnesseslike lending an eraser, or handing out drawing papermaking sparks. Among her second-grade pupils was Amos Oz, who many years later, in his 2002 memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness, would write:

[Zelda] revealed a Hebrew language to me that I had never encountered before. . . . A strange anarchic Hebrew, a Hebrew belonging to stories of the pious and to asidic tales and folk parables, a Hebrew overflowing with Yiddish, violating every rule, mixing feminine with masculine, present with past, noun with adjectivea sloppy, even muddled Hebrew.

But what vitality there was in these stories! When a story was about snow, it seemed written in words of snow. And when it was about fires, the words themselves burned.

Despite her pedagogical gifts, Zelda felt teaching stifled her poetry. When she married ayim Aryeh Mishkovsky in 1950, she gave up teaching and began writing more intensely. Still, it wasnt until 1967after much urging from her husband and friendsthat Leisure, her first book of poems, was released. She was fifty-three years old.

Leisurelaunched Zelda from near-anonymity into the heart of the Israeli literary world. Some of the excitement was undoubtedly due to the novelty of her biography, buther work also gained attention for breaking poetic ground. Ignoring the genre boundaries and rhythmic patterns that then still largely governed the writing of Hebrew verse, her work, as the singerChavaAlbersteinwould observe, sounded a new melody on the Hebrew poetry scene.

From 1967 onward Zelda published prolifically, releasing a book of poetry every three to four years. Her second book, The Invisible Carmel (1971), was dedicated to the memory of ayim, who passed away shortly before its publication. In the following years, deathalways a major themebecame even more prominent. Her preoccupation with mortality led to one of her most brilliant poems, Heavy Silence, a meditation on language, meaning, and grief.

Here and throughout, the translations are by Marcia Falk in The Spectacular Difference: Selected Poems of Zelda (2004):

Death will take the spectacular differencebetween fire and waterand cast it to the abyss.

Heavy silencewill crouch like a bullon the names we have giventhe birds of the skyand the beasts of the field,the evening skies,the vast distances in space,and things hidden from the eye.

Heavy silence will crouch like a bullon all the words.And it will be as hard for me to partfrom the names of thingsas from the things themselves.

O Knower of Mysteries,help me understandwhat to ask foron the final day.

Few would have expected Zeldas poems, which, like this one, brim with allusions to biblical and mystical texts, to resonate with readers across all segments of Israeli society. Yet she was never exclusively either a poets poet or a aredipoet. Indeed, each of her sixbooks was a national bestseller, and the ranks of her admirers included kibbutzniks, soldiers, yeshiva students, and academics.Her verses have been put to music in popular Hebrew songs, most notably byAlberstein, and one poem in particular, Each of Us Has a Name, is a frequent feature of Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies in Israel.

It is true, however, that today, despite her popularity, she is more likely to be mentioned by the keepers of advanced Israeli culture as a token curiosity (Israels first religious female poet) than as a serious literary artist. Nor was she ever recognized with the Israel Prize, the nations highest cultural honor. In 2004, the literary critic Alit Karper wrote in Haaretz that Twenty years after her death from cancer, Zelda is mainly a very forgotten poet. And outside of Israel, as I noted at the outset, her work is virtually unknown.

Countless forces contribute to the making of a writers reputation and cultural longevity, some of which have little to do with the actual work. (The Canadian scholar H.J. Jackson once listed such fame-enhancing factors as dying young, having a politically contentious youth, and living in a pretty, pilgrimage-friendly place.) As for Zelda, one might speculate that her work has been overlooked in part because her poems seem so simple.

In contrast to poets whose work cries Decipher me!, Zeldas poemsparticularly those rooted in concrete imagesexhibit a straightforwardness that makes them approachable despite their often antiquated language, minimal punctuation, and erratic line breaks. Thus, a poem titled The Crippled Beggar 1 is about a crippled beggar; another, called Strange Plant, is about a strange plant. Nor is this an artifice: according to her translator Marcia Falk, Zeldas poems are never put-ons, never show-offs, and above all, never artificial. . . . They seem, rather, to have been born whole and delivered to us in a single breath.

This accessibility is one of Zeldas greatest strengths, for her poems can be read and appreciated by readers of various skills and levels of Jewish literacy. But the fact that her poems do not declare themselves as difficult has undoubtedly led some who should know better to dismiss her work after skimming only the surface. Take, for example, the following untitled poem:

In the morning, I thoughtLifes magic will never return,it wont return.Suddenly in my house, the sunis a living thing,and the table with its breadgold.And the flower and the cupsgold.And the sadness?Even thereradiance.

Simple enough. The poem contains no obvious allusions or impressive formal displays, and its main technical achievement seems to lie in its use of abrupt line breaks that, in emphasizing the moments transience, curtail any hint of sentimentality.

But, as always with Zelda, there is more here than meets the eye. In her system of personal symbols (other instances include The Sun Lit a Wet Branch, The Old House, Strange Plant, and many more), gold is associated with light and divine presence: a connection most likely adapted from the kabbalistic idea of the infinite light of God overflowing through metaphysical emanations to the lower human world. In this poem, the idea of an impassable gulf between the earthly realm and the realm of the divine is openly challenged. God, Zelda suggests, can be found not only in the synagogue but in the small nouns that make up our world: the table with its bread, a bunch of flowers, cups.

But there is more. The quiet lines and the table with its bread/ gold./ And the flower . . . / gold are borrowed, nearly word for word, from Kings 1 7:48-49, a passage describing the golden table and vessels in the Great Hall of Solomons Temple. The terms, almost seamlessly incorporated into the body of her text, carry theological weight, implying not only that God is present in the mundane but that discerning the divine in the mundane is in itself an act of worship.

Embedded within this unassuming poem is thus a distinctively asidic theology, an alternative to the desacralized cosmos in which most of us live. That theology is communicated through reference to Judaisms sacred texts, deployed so deftly as to be nearly invisible. Zeldas work can be read and enjoyed without knowledge of her specifically asidic background, but it cannot be fully appreciated without a sense of her religious world.

In this same connection, its important to stress that some of the best notes struck by this poet of religious experience reflect the moments when that experience fails to line up precisely with theology. Take, for example, Who Can Resist the Beauty of the Light:

I bore my anger to show to the light,seeking comfort in its beauty,

but I was not worthy in its eyes,I was not worthy in its eyes.

Why is your life dark? it said.You are not in the depths of the pit.This must be a lack of love.

And I wept.I wept deeply.

Like many of Zeldas poems, this one has a patina of childishness. The poem is filled with simple contrasts: light/dark, comfort/disquiet, life/(intimated) death. As in a childrens story, the light speaks. As in a nursery rhyme, the poem doubles and repeats. But the simplistic structure and fable-like images belie the complexity of the literary and emotional framework.

Most obvious in this respect is the reference to Psalms 88:7: Thou hast laid me in the nethermost pit, in dark places, in the deeps. This psalm is itself one of the darkest in that biblical book, its mood described by the religious historian Martin Marty as a wintry landscape of unrelieved bleakness. Unlike other psalms dealing with themes of death and abandonment, Psalm 88 is essentially nineteen verses of unmediated gloomwhich makes it a fitting background to the emotional state of Zeldas speaker.

Other allusions in the poem are similarly apparent only in the original Hebrew, and then mostly to readers deeply familiar with Judaisms foundational texts. Since this presents a common problem in reading Zeldas work in translation, we may pause here for a word about Marcia Falks efforts to overcome it. Although her renderings excel at conveying the intimacy and simplicity of Zeldas work, more subtle references are sometimes elided. Here, for instance, the word translated by Falk as my anger () might better be rendered as my disquiet. The phrase appears in Exodus, Proverbs, and Job, among other places, but its root form appears most notably in Samuel 2 19:1together, significantly, with a form of Zeldas archaic (and I wept), another highly inflected word in the poem.

This is the only verse in the Bible in which both words appear in conjunction, and at a moment of extreme intensity: And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept. The verse marks the start of Davids lament for Absalom, perhaps the most famous of all biblical expressions of grief: O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!

Yet the context of the kings outcryin particular, the fact that Absalom was killed as he attempted a coupis sometimes overlooked. In fact, the lament is itself followed by a considerably less famous passage in which David is reminded by his nephew Joab, who is also the commander of the royal army, that had Absalom lived and the coup succeeded, the kings wives, sons, daughters, and servants would all have been slaughtered.

In other words, Absalom, O Absalom! is an expression of inappropriate grief. And it is precisely in that sense that Zeldas references to Samuel align her I with David. Like David, Zeldas speaker senses that her griefor at least the depth of itis misplaced, uncalled-for. She mourns, like David, but believes she ought not to. Her life is dark, but she, like him, is not truly in the nethermost pit.

Also critical to understanding Who Can Resist the Beauty of the Light is some knowledge of the Chabad approach to grief and joy, and in particular Chabads emphasis on divine providence: the belief that, for the faithful, all that occurs is ultimately the result of Gods benevolent care for us. Complete trust in that benevolence allows an individual to welcome suffering with joy and love, for everything has its origin and its end in God, the Infinite Light invoked in the poems title.

For Zelda, these ideas were not abstract theological concerns. The death of her husband ayim left her bereft. Even years later, many of her poems describe the pain of widowhood. As letters exchanged between her and her cousin Menachem Mendel Schneerson reveal, the opposing spiritual valences of suffering and grateful happiness were at the forefront of her mind. At one point, Schneerson writes, From the spirit of your letters, I get the impression that though I keep writing you to take a more joyful perspective, . . . my words have made no mark. . . . But I will persist, and repeat myself even 100 times, and you will forgive me.

Despite these urgings, Zelda was unable to subsume her pain in faith. Her poems suggest that she saw this lack of love as a spiritual failing. And that brings us to the core of Who Can Resist the Beauty of the Light, which lies precisely in the speakers sense that she has failed to live up to ideals she feels are impossible but cannot relinquish. Caught between what she believes (all that occurs is the result of Gods will) and what she experiences (darkness and pain), the speakers only recourse is tears: And I wept./ I wept deeply.

In less skilled hands, that thought, along with the poem that expresses it, would have tipped into sentimentality, or blasphemy. But Zelda navigates the tension with grace. By suffusing her lines with words from sacred Jewish texts and Hebrew liturgy, she creates a work that, even in its angst, reads also as an expression of stubborn, stiff-necked love. If Who Can Resist the Beauty of the Light does not end with a reevaluation of the speakers disquiet, neither does it conclude with a rejection of the light. Instead, pain stands alongside belief, neither one dislodging the other, neither one offering resolution.

Religious experience is notoriously difficult to express in words. The reason may owe in part, as Wittgenstein suggested, to the difference between how we use and relate to religious language and how we use and relate to everyday speech. In part it may also owe to the fact that the most meaningful religious experiences are often characterized by paradox: think of the medieval Christian mystic Julian of Norwichs vision of a small hazelnut that somehow also contains everything that is made.

Of all the possible modes of linguistic transmission, perhaps the one uniquely suited to the expression of religious experience is poetryprecisely because of poetrys capacity to convey paradox, holding multiple contradictory ideas open at the same time. Its therefore unsurprising that almost all of the Hebrew Bibles most moving expressions of religious experience derive from the poetic books: Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Job, Song of Songs, Proverbs, Lamentations. These are not the texts that give us answers, but the ones that best present our questions while assuring us that we are not alone in asking them.

Like those biblical books, Zeldas poetry speaks to the tension of a lived religious life, the places where theology and experience refuse to meld. In her work, the divine is at once radically immanent and hopelessly distant. Death negates human instrumentality, but also allows for the discernment of wonder. A righteous God permits the faithful to suffer.

Theodicy, suffering, redemptionits all there. And that is what entitles Zeldas work to a place at the center of the modern Hebrew canon and to be recognized for what it is: a masterful expression of religious experience that, refusing both blasphemy and sentimentality, offers instead a form of prayer.

Read more from the original source:

Zelda Was One of the Greatest Modern Writers of Religious Experience in Any Language - Mosaic

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