Kinburn peninsula and islands,
Wild life of the Kinburn peninsula and islands.
By: Stanislav Tibatin
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Claremont vs Dover Bay – Jr Boys Basketball Islands – Brentwood College School – Video
Claremont vs Dover Bay - Jr Boys Basketball Islands - Brentwood College School
By: Brentwood College School
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Claremont vs Dover Bay - Jr Boys Basketball Islands - Brentwood College School - Video
AMP Delivers Oral Comments at FDA Workshop on Optimizing Regulatory Oversight of Next Generation Sequencing Diagnostic …
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Newswise Bethesda, MD, February 20, 2015:
The Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP), the premier global, non-profit organization serving molecular laboratory professionals today presented at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration public workshop, Optimizing FDAs Regulatory Oversight of Next Generation Sequencing Diagnostic Tests, outlining specific ways that FDA could best facilitate innovation of precision medicine. The purpose of the workshop is to discuss and receive feedback from the community on FDAs regulatory approach to diagnostic tests for human genetics or genomics using NGS technology.
A number of AMP members participated in the workshop today, including Roger D. Klein, MD, JD, Chair, AMP Professional Relations Committee who presented recommendations for FDAs role in assuring safe and effective NGS diagnostic tests. Our members are among the early adopters and users of next-generation sequencing (NGS) in a clinical setting, and have accumulated substantial knowledge and expertise as it relates to this novel and powerful technology, said Dr. Klein. On behalf of the many medical professionals who design, develop, perform, interpret, and communicate the results of clinical implications of these valuable diagnostic processes, we urge the FDA to consult with NGS experts and professional organizations in constructions of standards for NGS products.
AMPs oral comments emphasized four key points:
1. FDA can best contribute to patient care and public health by helping to ensure the performance characteristics of NGS products sold to customer laboratories. 2. FDA should partner with outside organizations and experts to set standards for FDA-cleared or approved products and to assist in development of recommendations and practice guidelines for clinical laboratories engaging in NGS testing. 3. The College of American Pathology (CAP), The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG), the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI), and other organizations have already produced laboratory accreditation requirements and practice guidelines that are used to ensure high-quality performance of NGS tests. 4. Although NGS represents a fairly new technology, the operational, validation and quality control procedures of the majority of medical NGS assays are extensions of those generally accepted for older technologies.
Furthermore, AMP points out that while they recommend FDA develop guidelines to safeguard proper performance of NGS products, they do not believe FDA has either the authority or the justification to regulate NGS beyond the instruments, software, test kits and reagents sold to customer laboratories. The interpretation and use of the genetic information derived from NGS diagnostic tests is at the heart of what we and ordering providers do, said Andrea Ferreira-Gonzalez, PhD, Chair of AMPs NGS Working Group. As these activities are central to the practice of medicine, they must remain outside the purview of FDA.
AMPs oral comments are available here: http://www.amp.org/advocacy/documents/AMPNGSMeetingcommentsFinalDraft.pdf
AMP plans to submit detailed written recommendations and comments to FDA on March 20, 2015.
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Debra Silver comments: Scientists pinpoint a gene regulator that makes human brains bigger
By inserting bits ofhuman DNAinto mice, scientists were able to make their brains develop more rapidly -- and ultimately grow bigger -- in the womb. The study, published Thursday in Current Biology, suggests that the evolution of thisgene may be one of the things that sets us apart from our close relatives in the primate world.
Human brains are unique, even when compared with our close genetic relatives, such as chimpanzees. Our brains are about three times heavier than those of our cousins, and are more complex and interconnected as well. It's generally accepted that these neurological differences are what allowed us to evolve the higher brain function that other primates lack. But just what genetic changes allowed humans to surpass chimps in the brain arena is one that's still being answered.
There are a lot of physical differences to examine more closely, but size is such a dramatic one that the authors of the new study chose to start there.
Using databases created by other labs, the Duke University scientists cross-checked areas of human DNA that had developed differences from chimp DNA with areas of DNA they expected to be important for gene regulation. Regulator genes help determine how other genes will express themselves, and the researchers suspected that some of these regulators might be making brain development more active in human embryos than in chimps.
They ended up focusing on a region called HARE5 (short for human-accelerated regulatory enhancer), which testing indicated had something to do with brain development. They suspected that the enhancer, which is found close to a molecular pathway important in brain development, might have changed in a way that influenced brain size in humans.
"We discovered that the human DNA sequence, which only had 16 changes in it compared to the chimp sequence, was being expressed differently in mice," said study authorDebra Silver, an assistant professor of molecular genetics and microbiology in the Duke University Medical School.
In fact, HARE5 was regulating how many neural stem cells -- the precursors of brain cells -- a mouse embryo could produce.
"The human DNA was really able to accelerate the way the stem cells divide," Silver said. "And as a result, the mice were able to produce more neurons."
The brains of these genetically modified mice grew 12 percent bigger than ones given the chimpanzee version of HARE5.
For humans, Silver said, this difference could be crucial. Humans and chimps have similar gestation periods, which are fairly long when compared with other species.
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Debra Silver comments: Scientists pinpoint a gene regulator that makes human brains bigger
How Health Partnerships Benefit Housing – Video
How Health Partnerships Benefit Housing
To learn on how Housing and Health Care can work together to help older adults remain health and independent for as long as possible, visit http://www.LeadingAge.org/HousingHealth. Providers...
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Create Life Changing Experiences with Charitable Surgical Missions – Video
Create Life Changing Experiences with Charitable Surgical Missions
The charitable arm of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the Thoracic Surgery Foundation for Research and Education (TSFRE), is helping to fund a series of charitable surgical missions in developing...
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Create Life Changing Experiences with Charitable Surgical Missions - Video
From Tom’s Desk, Health Care in America – Video
From Tom #39;s Desk, Health Care in America
From Tom #39;s Desk, Health Care in America http://isaan-live.com/ -uploaded in HD at http://www.TunesToTube.com.
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VA's 'Choice' Program for Health Care off to Slow Start
Far fewer veterans than expected are taking advantage of a new law aimed at making it easier for them to get private health care and avoid the long waits that have plagued Department of Veterans Affairs facilities nationwide.
Only 27,000 veterans have made appointments for private medical care since the VA started mailing out "Choice Cards" in November, the VA said in a report to Congress this month. The number is so small, compared to the 8.6 million cards that have been mailed out, that VA Secretary Robert McDonald wants authority to redirect some of the $10 billion Congress allocated for the program to boost care for veterans at the VA's 970 hospitals and clinics.
Republicans and Democrats insist the problem is the department and that it needs to do a better job promoting the choice program. They also want to change a quirk in the law that makes it hard for some veterans in rural areas to prove they live at least 40 miles from a VA health site.
The government measures the distance as the crow flies, rather than by driving miles, leaving thousands of veterans ineligible.
"Veterans put their lives on the line to defend this country. The very least we can do is ensure they don't have to jump through hoops to receive the care they need and have earned," said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., whose vast state has just one VA hospital.
The choice program was a key component of last year's sweeping law approved in response to reports that dozens of veterans died while waiting for appointments at a VA hospital in Phoenix, and that appointment records were manipulated to hide the delays. A series of government reports said workers throughout the country falsified wait lists while supervisors looked the other way, resulting in chronic delays for veterans seeking care and bonuses for managers who falsely appeared to meet on-time goals.
The law, signed by President Barack Obama in August, allows veterans who have waited more than 30 days for an appointment to get VA-paid care from a local doctor. It also allows veterans who live at least 40 miles from a VA hospital or clinic to get private care and makes it easier to fire VA employees accused of wrongdoing.
The choice program expands an existing program that allows veterans to get outside care for emergencies or procedures not available at the VA. Veterans have long complained about waiting months or even years to be reimbursed for private care, and many are skeptical the choice card will alleviate those problems, despite promises by the VA.
"I don't believe any of us thought that there would be a wholesale rush to leave the VA system at all, but we are still early in the program," Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, told reporters during a recent tour of the VA.
McDonald's bid to shift the money has met a bipartisan wall of opposition in Congress, where leaders said the landmark law they adopted last summer to overhaul VA has not been fully implemented. Taking money away from the choice program just three months after it was launched is premature, even irresponsible, lawmakers and veterans advocates said.
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Health Care REIT reports record
Published: Saturday, 2/21/2015 - Updated: 4 seconds ago
BY JON CHAVEZ BLADE STAFF WRITER
Toledos Health Care REIT Inc. said Friday its funds from operations in 2014 were a record $1.3 billion, or $4.13 a share, up 20 percent from a year earlier when FFO was $1.1 billion, or $3.81 a share.
The real estate investment trust, which owns and manages a real estate portfolio of senior housing and health-care properties, had annual revenues of $3.34 billion, compared to $2.88 billion in 2013.
Funds from operations is a better metric than net income for real estate investment trusts because, unlike a manufacturing plant or other fixed asset, the assets of a REIT real estate properties are expected to appreciate in value rather than depreciate. Funds from operations excludes depreciation.
Calendar 2014 was a resounding success for our organization, shareholders, and portfolio performance, said Tom DeRosa, the companys chief executive officer. We were among the best performing REITs in the S&P 500, generating a 48.5 percent total return. Our existing portfolio delivered the consistent, resilient growth that has become our hallmark, with same-store cash [net operating income] growth of 4.2 percent including phenomenal 7.3 percent growth in our seniors housing operating portfolio.
Mr. DeRosa said the company completed $3.7 billion of new investments and disposed of more than $900 million of nonstrategic assets during 2014. It also successfully raised more than $3 billion in capital.
For 2014, its net income was $446.7 million, or $1.45 a share, up from $78 million, or 28 cents a share a year earlier.
In the fourth quarter, Health Care REIT had funds from operations of $337.6 million, or $1.03 a share, up from $286.2 million, or 99 cents a share for the same quarter a year earlier.
The companys shares closed at $78.05 Friday, up $1.83 on the New York Stock Exchange.
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Health care enrollment deadline is extended again
Published: Friday, February 20, 2015 at 2:18 p.m. Last Modified: Friday, February 20, 2015 at 2:18 p.m.
Floridians facing a tax penalty for going without health insurance in 2015 got a reprieve on Friday, when federal officials announced an enrollment extension through the end of April.
The extension, for those who missed a Feb. 15 deadline for 2015 coverage, is intended to help consumers who were either unaware or did not understand the implications of the fee for not enrolling. Consumers who remain uninsured in 2015 will have to pay at least $325 per adult, or 2 percent of their 2015 income.
Florida is one of the 37 states that uses a federal exchange, so residents will be able to take advantage of the extension, which begins March 15 and runs until 11:59 p.m. on April 30.
Fees will be assessed for 2015 on federal tax returns next year.
We recognize that this is the first tax filing season where consumers may have to pay a fee or claim an exemption for not having health insurance coverage, said Marilyn Tavenner, the administer of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in a statement.
Our priority is to make sure consumers understand the new requirement to enroll in health coverage and to provide those who were not aware or did not understand the requirement with an opportunity to enroll in affordable coverage this year.
To date this year, 44,072 people in the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton area have signed up for insurance coverage on the federal health exchange, according to federal data.
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Precision Medicine: How our Genes Can Help Determine Our Risk and Treatment for Disease – Video
Precision Medicine: How our Genes Can Help Determine Our Risk and Treatment for Disease
Esteban Burchard, Director, Center for Genes, Environments Health Professor of Bioengineering Therapeutic Sciences Medicine University of California Sa...
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Precision Medicine: How our Genes Can Help Determine Our Risk and Treatment for Disease - Video
New target for prostate cancer treatment discovered
Keck Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) scientists have found a promising new therapeutic target for prostate cancer. The findings offer evidence that a newly discovered member of a family of cell surface proteins called G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) promotes prostate cancer cell growth. The protein, GPR158, was found while the researchers were looking for new drug targets for glaucoma.
Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in American men, after skin cancer, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). The ACS projects more than 27,000 deaths from prostate cancer in 2015 and is the second leading cause of cancer death in American men, behind lung cancer. One man in seven will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime.
"When a prostate cancer tumor is in its early stages, it depends on hormones called androgens to grow," said Nitin Patel, Ph.D., research scientist at the Institute for Genetic Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and corresponding author on the research. "Eventually it progresses to a more lethal form, called castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), and is resistant to drugs that block androgen receptors. We found that GPR158, unlike other members of the GPCR family, is stimulated by androgens, which in turn stimulates androgen receptor expression, leading to tumor growth."
The team also discovered that GPR158 is associated with neuroendocrine transdifferentiation (NED) of epithelial prostate tumor cells, which plays a critical role in development of resistance to contemporary androgen receptor-target therapies. The scientists found that prostate cancer patients with elevated GPR158 expression experienced recurrence of prostate cancer. The GPR158 protein is a likely target for new prostate cancer drugs.
The researchers used a conditional Pten knockout mouse model of prostate cancer in collaboration with Keck School of Medicine of USC researchers Mitchell Gross, Chun-Peng Liao and Pradip Roy-Burman.
The team is now exploring the molecular pathways involved in the functional role of GPR158 in NED in the development of CRPC and exploring GPR158-targeted antibody therapeutics.
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The above story is based on materials provided by University of Southern California - Health Sciences. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
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The Genetics of Being Injury-Prone
Researchers are beginning to understand how DNA makes some athletes more likely to get hurt.
Injury is a fact of life for most athletes, but some professionalsand some weekend warriors, for that matterjust seem more injury-prone than others. But what is it about their bodies that makes the bones, tendons, and ligaments so much more likely to tear or strainbad luck, or just poor preparation?
A growing body of research suggests another answer: that genetic makeup may play an important role in injury risk.
A review article recently published in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine emphasizes that research on the genetics of sports injuries holds great potential for injury prevention for athletes at every level. The authors, from Stanford Universitys department of developmental biology and genetics, believe that genetic testing also gives athletes valuable information that might increase their competitive edge.
Stuart Kim, one of the studys authors and a professor of genetics at Stanford, says his interest in sports injuries began almost by accident. I initially intended to study the genes associated with the large size of NFL lineman, but the athletes werent really interested in finding out the genetic reasons why they were so big, Kim says. But they were extremely interested in figuring out what injuries they were more likely to sustain.
Genetic information can be valuable for amateur athletes, tooregardless of skill level, someone about to join a recreational basketball league or a tennis club would be well-served to know if theyre at risk of blowing out an ACL or tearing an Achilles. Each year, around 2 million adults go to the emergency room for sports-related injuries, many of them acquired during pickup games or matches in recreational leagues.
Within the field of sports-injury genetics, some studies have focused on variations in the genes that control the production of collagen, the main component of tendons and ligaments. Collagen proteins also form the backbone of tissues and bones, but in some people, structural differences in these proteins may leave the bodys structures weaker or unable to repair themselves properly after injury. In a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2009, South African researchers found that specific variations of a collagen gene named COL1A1 were under-represented in a group of recreational athletes who had suffered traumatic ACL injuries. Those who had torn their ACL were four times as likely as the uninjured study subjects to have a blood relative who had suffered the same injury, suggesting that genetics are at least partially responsible for the strength of the ligament.
The same COL1A1 gene has also been linked to other soft-tissue injuries, like Achilles-tendon ruptures and shoulder dislocations. In a review article that combined the results of multiple studies on the COL1A1 gene, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2010, researchers concluded that those with the TT genotypeone of three potential variants of the gene, found only in 5 percent of the populationare extremely unlikely to suffer a traumatic ligament or tendon injury.
However, because of the vast complexity of the human genome, its highly improbable that a single variant within a gene can determine a persons genetic risk for a given soft-tissue injury. Researchers agree its much more likely that these injuries, like complex conditions such as obesity or type 2 diabetes, are influenced by multiple genes.
The COL5A1 gene, another one associated with collagen production, has been linked to a higher risk of injury of the ACL and Achilles tendon, as well as greater susceptibility to exercise-induced muscle cramping. A 2013 study in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine found that specific variants of COL5A1 were strongly correlated with muscle cramping among runners in the Two Oceans Marathon in South Africa.
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Virus-cutting enzyme helps bacteria remember a threat
15 hours ago CRISPR systems allow bacteria to adapt to new viral threats. Above, Staphylococcus aureus microbes lacking a CRISPR system are killed off by the bacteria-attacking virus NM4. This plate approximates the concentration of virus particles used in the recent experiments. Credit: Zach Veilleux / The Rockefeller University
Bacteria may not have brains, but they do have memories, at least when it comes to viruses that attack them. Many bacteria have a molecular immune system which allows these microbes to capture and retain pieces of viral DNA that they have encountered in the past, in order to recognize and destroy it when it shows up again.
Research at Rockefeller University described Wednesday (February 18) in Nature offers new insight into the mysterious process by which this system works to encode viral DNA in a microbe's genome for later use as guides for virus-cutting enzymes.
"Microbes, like vertebrates, have immune systems capable of adapting to new threats. Cas9, one enzyme employed by these systems, uses immunological memories to guide cuts to viral genetic code. However, very little is known about how these memories are acquired in the first place," says Assistant Professor Luciano Marraffini, head of the Laboratory of Bacteriology. "Our work shows that Cas9 also directs the formation of these memories among certain bacteria."
These memories are embedded in the bacterial equivalent of an adaptive immune system capable of discerning helpful from harmful viruses called a CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) system. It works by altering the bacterium's genome, adding short viral sequences called spacers in between the repeating DNA sequences. These spacers form the memories of past invaders. They serve as guides for enzymes encoded by CRISPR-associated genes (Cas), which seek out and destroy those same viruses should they attempt to infect the bacterium again.
Cas9's ability to make precision cuts within a genome - viral or otherwise - has caught the attention of researchers who now use it to alter cells' genetics for experimental or therapeutic purposes. But it is still not well understood just how this CRISPR system works in its native bacteria.
Some evidence suggested that other Cas enzymes managed the memory-making process on their own, without Cas9. But because of the way Cas9 goes about identifying the site at which to make a cut, the researchers, including co-first authors Robert Heler, a graduate student, and Poulami Samai, a postdoc in the lab, suspected a role for Cas9 in memory making.
In addition to matching its CRISPR guide sequence up with the DNA of the virus, Cas9 needs to find a second cue nearby: a PAM (protospacer adjacent motif) sequence in the viral DNA. This is a crucial step, since it is the absence of a PAM sequence that prevents Cas9 from attacking the bacterium's own memory-containing DNA.
"Because Cas9 must recognize a PAM sequence before cutting the viral DNA, it made sense to us that Cas9 would also recognize the PAM sequence when the system is forming a memory of its first encounter with a virus," Heler says. "This is a new and unexpected role for Cas9."
To test their hypothesis, Heler swapped the Cas9 enzymes between the immune systems of Streptococcus pyogenes and Streptococcus thermophilus, each of which recognizes a different PAM sequence. As a result, the PAM sequences followed, swapping between the two bugs - evidence that Cas9 is responsible for identifying the PAM during memory formation. In another experiment, he altered the part of Cas9 that binds to the PAM sequence, and found the microbes then began acquiring the target viral sequences randomly, making them unusable.
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Gene therapy leads to promising avenue for HIV vaccine – Video
Gene therapy leads to promising avenue for HIV vaccine
Gene therapy leads to promising avenue for HIV vaccine.
By: 7BILLIONHUMANBEING
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Gene therapy leads to promising avenue for HIV vaccine - Video
Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy (ACGT) Thanks Dr. Savio L.C. Woo For His Service; Names Dr. Joseph Glorioso …
Stamford, CT (PRWEB) February 20, 2015
World-renowned scientist and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine genetics and biochemistry professor Joseph Glorioso III, PhD has been named Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council at Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy.
Glorioso, known for his work on the molecular and genetic aspects of the herpes simplex virus and how to better engineer this organism as a vector for transporting therapeutic genes, will take the helm from Dr. Savio L.C. Woo, the founding Chairman of ACGTs Scientific Advisory Council; Dr. Woo has also been named Chairman Emeritus of the Council.
Savio has been a remarkable and dynamic leader who has steered the Council from the beginning to focus on young investigators and groundbreaking clinical translation, Glorioso said. This work has resulted in ACGT pioneering breakthroughs in gene and cell therapy treatments for cancer. We now look forward, to expanding our vision to include later-stage research, which will be very exciting.
Glorioso received his bachelors degree and doctorate from Louisiana State University before joining the University of Michigan Medical School in the late 1970s. He attained the rank of professor and assistant dean for research and graduate studies there, and then joined the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1989. At Pittsburgh, Glorioso served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, as well as the McEllroy Professorship in Biochemistry until 2009. He continues his groundbreaking work in the development of herpes viral vectors for the treatment of cancer, chronic pain and diseases of the central nervous system. Glorioso has served on ACGTs Scientific Advisory Council since 2005.
Joe has been a valuable member of our Scientific Advisory Council and has made tremendous strides in his own work to improve the quality of life for patients fighting cancer and other diseases; that same vision will advance ACGTs own pursuit of effective cell and gene therapy treatments, said Barbara Netter, President and Co-founder of ACGT.
ACGTs Scientific Advisory Council, composed of preeminent physicians and researchers in cell and gene therapy, serves without remuneration and establishes the scientific criteria for the review of all grants. Council members are also tasked with developing strict accountability guidelines requiring periodic progress reports. At present, the Council is composed of 15 members, including Glorioso.
Based in Stamford, Connecticut, ACGT funds top physicians and researchers at medical institutions in the U.S. and Canada. The Foundation supports a number of gene and cell therapy treatments, including immunotherapy, which activates patients own immune systems to battle cancerous cells. In 2014, the FDA granted fast-track status to 2 immunotherapy treatments for leukemia, for which ACGT provided critical early funding.
About Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy (ACGT): Established in 2001, ACGT (http://www.acgtfoundation.org) is the nations only not-for-profit dedicated exclusively to cell and gene therapy treatments for all types of cancer. One-hundred percent of contributions go directly to research. ACGT has funded 46 grants in the U.S. and Canada since its founding in 2001 by Barbara Netter, President, and her late husband, Edward, to conduct and accelerate critically needed innovative research. Since its inception, ACGT has awarded 31 grants to Young Investigators and 15 grants to Clinical Investigators, totaling more than $25 million in funding. ACGT is located at 96 Cummings Point Road, Stamford, CT 06902.
ACGT on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ACGTfoundation ACGT on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ACGTfoundation ACGT on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/ACGTfoundation
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Futurist Speaker Gerd Leonhard on digital ethics and values: technology does not have ethics! – Video
Futurist Speaker Gerd Leonhard on digital ethics and values: technology does not have ethics!
A short excerpt from my speech at TedX Brussels, see http://www.futuristgerd.com/2014/12/01/digital-ethics-here-are-the-slides-used-in-my-presentation-at-ted...
By: Gerd Leonhard
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Jupiter Ascending review: Dramatic narrative lost in space
By Jane FreeburyFeb. 20, 2015, 9 p.m.
The Wachowskis' latest sci-fi adventure is a CGI feast, but it lacks compelling ideas.
JUPTER ASCENDING (M) General release
Half an hour in, after several close shaves with evil alien forces, Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) arrives at a farmhouse set in peaceful cornfields. The extraterrestrials in hot pursuit arrive soon after, but not before she hears that she is royalty, a challenge to the authority of those who want her dead, and destined for great things. Only the day before she was a cleaner, scrubbing toilets, so it seems there was something in the alignment of planets when she was born after all.
Jupiter Ascending is the latest from the Wachowskis, writer-director-producers Andy and Lana, whose Matrix trilogy was a landmark in its time. The Matrix concept was bold and the look original in a postmodern kind of way. The Wachowskis have the same sort of thing going on visually here, a collision of a high-tech futurism with aspects of our historical and mythological past - but not so much in the way of ideas to pin it all down.
Jupiter learns that the people of Earth are being systematically harvested and liquidated to create a serum in which alien overlords bathe regularly to maintain their smooth and toned youth. Keeping the ravages of age at bay is possible at 14,000 years of age, it seems. The exploitation of the masses, a familiar theme in sci-fi, has a nasty twist here.
That said, there is a wealth of detail in the Wachowskis' backstory, but it adds little persuasive drama to this narrative. A compilation of details that adds little to the eye-candy visuals, however, there are good actors at work here, wrestling with a woeful script.
Eddie Redmayne, so credible in The Theory of Everything and vying for an Oscar next week, may be hoping the judges won't have seen him here before they cast their vote. He has done the only thing he could with his part as Balem, rival to his siblings in the Abrasax royal family, and camped it up.
Terry Gilliam is clearly enjoying himself in his cameo. As Minister of Seals and Signets he is suitably Pythonesque and his scene in Jupiter's journey through bureaucratic absurdity tailor-made for the director of Brazil.
And Channing Tatum, of course. It has to be said that Jupiter is no superwoman. She is important to the future of the human race, but it's ex-military hunter Caine Wise (Tatum), her self-appointed guardian who keeps arriving in the nick of time in his flying boots to save her. His persistence can only be the work of a man in love, and so it is.
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Young people are still frustrated but the genre's revival shows a universal urban discontent.
In the words of Paul Mason, its (still) kicking off everywhere. This frank diagnosis is applicable at every level of British societys layer cake. At the top, in the rarefied atmosphere of pre-election Westminster, the incumbent 2.5 party system has been pulled apart. Electorate faith wanes. And after scandals such as the HSBC tax avoidance debacle, in which a government trade minister appointed in 2010 once headed the bank, it's hardly surprising. The message is clear: politicians play by a different set of rules to everyone else.
From the tabloid press to Russell Brand to Thomas Piketty to everyone on Twitter, people are trying to make sense of our times. But beneath these manifestations of discontent, does the melancholy trickle down into Britains young cultural subterranea?
The reawakened popularity of grime a musical genre born out of the deprived boroughs of east London in the early noughties can offer insight into the mindset of urban young people and their place in the landscape of 21st-century disillusionment.
Grime was conceived shortly after the millennium. The New Labour government had introduced ASBOs and increased CCTV surveillance in its bid to be tough on the causes of crime, while elsewhere embracing big business, preaching a third-way, trickle-down economics. This pairing of policy seen by some as a mix ofharsh panopticism with neoliberal overconfidence resulted in an inequality best symbolised, as Dan Hancox has pointed out, by the juxtaposed architecture of east London: Canary Wharf versus the high-rise council estates of Bow E3.
This claustrophobia incubated the birth of a raw sound. Grime is the reaction of neglected youths peering up at the exclusive, unobtainable futurism of the city from positions of poverty. Doused in anti-establishment slang, typical lyrics relay the gritty aspects of an underclass preoccupied with park bench apathy, gang warfare and drug dealing. It is a middle finger up at disingenuous "hug-a-hoodie"conservatism a patronising philosophy that in essence still plagues politicians in their failed attempts to connect with the sceptical young voter.
Where in 2002/3 it started as an organic social reaction, grimes role as a unified voice of the oppressed became gradually less coherent. Despite a slowly accumulating nucleus of underground loyalists, the commercial success of a few artists brought a softened sound to the mainstream. In this respect, some aspects of the genres evolution are comparable to post-Olympics east London: gentrified and unrecognisable.
And yet last year there were claims of grimes return. It isnt that it went away, but an unprecedented chord of wider media appreciation has now been struck. The sound has spread to Bristol and Birmingham, while a moody instrumental style develops alongside the new generation of angry, punchy MCs. This versatility means music fans at large the technologically empowered Spotify generation are listening,not just the teenagers at the back of the nightbus. Unlike ever before, a Shoreditch art gallery is a reasonable venue for a grime show. The squeezed middle, seeking cultural expression, is starting to understand grimes raw charm.
After all, the coalition governments policy of austerity has affected multiple levels of the electorate. As the 2011 riots hinted, urban young people in particular are still frustrated. Not interested in voting and thus ignored by election manifesto policy; facing housing crises and zero-hour contracts; locked out of the top city jobs and positions of influence in pop culture unless born into the privately schooled 7 per cent: a voice of expression has to come from somewhere. And this time around, with post-financial crisis awareness, more people not solely the black working class of east London share grimes persistent despair about the unjust trappings of British society.
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Young people are still frustrated but the genre's revival shows a universal urban discontent.
Intro Freedom Network , Irei usar :) – Video
Intro Freedom Network , Irei usar 🙂
Please watch: "Servidor KitPvP| Pirata/Original |1.7.2 |Sem Lag" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n-r7wrnsTM -~-~~-~~~-~~-~-
By: LuisPvP
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