Category Archives: Life Extension

Andrew Weil is Americas best-known revolutionary. You know him as a doctor a pioneer in what he calls Integrative Medicine who gets around in the very best media circles. Like the cover of Time Magazine, where he looks like a jolly Santa, with his bald head, big grin and a white beard just long enough to make you think he may someday play in ZZ Top. Hes a very reassuring guest on talk shows, where he speaks in praise of common sense and treatments that work, whatever their source. But dont be fooled Andrew Weil is a bomb-thrower.

Check out the book on Amazon here.

Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being is a bomb that may come as a shock to Boomers who tend to believe that life started with them and cannot go on without them and a total surprise for Millennials. Its newsflash: We all will die. There is no fountain of youth, no magic elixir that extends life. In 2002, when Weil turned sixty, he noted what that means: Sixty is about the time that organs of the body begin to fail, when the first signs of age-related disease begin to appear.

Can aging be reversed? No. But here comes the second bomb Dr.Weil throws in these pages and from his point-of-view, its pure good news: You can age gracefully. And if you are smart and careful and active and lucky, you will live as long and as well as possible, then have a rapid decline at the end of life. That is, youre healthy and vital right into your 80s and 90s, and then you get sick and die quickly, with your dignity and your wits intact. The goal, he reminds us, is compression of morbidity, not life extension.

How does he know? Well, hes studied widely. And hes seen his own mother who went toAntarctica at89 die at the end of a happy day when she was 93. [To buy the paperback from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]

That personal story is welcome because its a stark contrast to the rest of the book, which is unusually technical for Dr. Weil. But youll want to slog through it. First, because it is your life a subject of plausible interest to you hes talking about.Second, because the science is in support of some very blunt statements about how to live and eat and medicate.

Among the new ideas I encountered in these pages:

Vitamins C and E and green tea extract block and perhaps undo some of the skin damage caused by the suns ultraviolet rays.

Those who are somewhat overweight in middle age may enjoy a healthier and longer old age than those who are not it is better to be fit and fat than lean and not fit.

Buy oils in small quantities.

Avoid all products containing high-fructose corn syrup.

The least processed tea is white tea from China. To remove most caffeine from tea, steep the tea in hot water for 30 seconds, then use the tea leaves (or bag) in your cup or pot. [To buy white tea leaves from Amazon, click here. For white tea bags, click here.]

Take Vitamin E daily it offers the best antioxidant protection against common age-related diseases. [To buy Vitamin E from Amazon, click here.]

Take 200 milligrams of Vitamin C a day your body cant easily absorb more. [To buy Vitamin C from Amazon, click here]

If you are taking a statin, you should also take 60 milligrams a day of CoQ10. [To buy COQ10 from Amazon, click here.]

Turmeric may help prevent Alzheimers disease. [To read about Turmeric on Head Butler and buy it from Amazon, click here.]

DHEA decreases abdominal fat in elderly men and women. [To buy DHEA from Amazon, click here.]

Theres much more. And then theres this: The magnificence of autumn foliage is the ripe period of the year, before the sleep of winter.

____

This article originally appeared on The Head Butler

Photo credit: Getty Images

Jesse Kornbluth is is a New York-based writer and editor of HeadButler.com, a cultural concierge site he launched in 2004. As a magazine journalist, he has been a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, New York and Architectural Digest. As an author, his books include Airborne: The Triumph and Struggle of Michael Jordan; Highly Confident: The Crime and Punishment of Michael Milken and Pre-Pop Warhol. As a screenwriter, he has written for Robert De Niro, Paul Newman and PBS. On the Web, he co-founded Bookreporter.com. From 1997 to 2002, he was Editorial Director of America Online.

Original post:

My Mother is 100. She Does't Need Andrew Weil's 'Healthy Aging' You do - The Good Men Project

Aging Hand.Max Pixel/Max Pixel

Right now, the best that humans could hope for in terms of their lifespan is to reach the age of 100 or perhaps even a few years beyond that. According to the Gompertz mortality law, which is basically a model to calculate the mortality of humans, this only makes sense because death depends on certain factors that cant be changed. A team of researchers at the Gero biotech firm recently published their study, which essentially challenged this misconception.

Putting it simply, Gompertz law uses whats called the Strehler-Mildvan (SM) correlation in order to explain mortality, which is basically the sum of two factors that will inevitably increase on an exponential level as people age, Futurism reports. The team at Gero looked into this correlation and found that it had no factual basis despite the fact that it has practically been accepted for over five decades.

This concept was popularized back in the 60s when it was published in the journal Science. It really put scientists who wanted to extend human life in a bind as well because the SM correlation suggests that trying to prolong life while young will have the effect of actually shortening lifespan. According to the study that the Gero team published, this is simply not the case.

Titled Strehler-Mildvan correlation is a degenerate manifold of Gompertz fit, the study basically argues that the conclusion derived from the SM correlation has no actual basis in biology. In a press release, the teams public face Peter Fedichev noted how this study will impact research into extending human life.

Elimination of SM correlation from theories of aging is good news, because if it was not just negative correlation between Gompertz parameters, but the real dependence, it would have banned optimal anti-aging interventions and limited human possibilities to life extension, Fedichev said.

Basically, scientists are now free to research the ways to increase human lifespan. In fact, they could potentially extend it as much as they want.

Human Life Could Be Extended Indefinitely, Study Suggests

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Layer 8 is written by Michael Cooney, an online news editor with Network World.

DARPA is going to have to contend with an Earth-bound problem if it is to get its plan to service satellites in geosynchronous orbit into space.

The agency this week said it had picked Space Systems Loral (SSL) as its commercial partner to develop technologies under its Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program that would enable cooperative inspection and servicing of satellites in geosynchronous orbit (GEO), more than 20,000 miles above the Earth, and demonstrate those technologies on orbit.

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But SSL competitor Orbital ATF promptly filed a lawsuit looking to stop the award.

Inside Defense.com reported that according to the complaintfiled in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Orbital ATK is seeking a permanent injunction that would prohibit further action on DARPA's Robotic Servicing of Geospatial Satellites program as well as a judgment that the project violates the National Space Policy and the Administrative Procedure Act. Orbital ATK says in its lawsuit that it has long worked on in-space satellite servicing. It is developing the Mission Extension Vehicle, which it describes as a "satellite life extension service for GEO satellites.

According to the Orbital website the MEV docks with customers existing satellites providing the propulsion and attitude control needed to extend their lives. The MEV is capable of docking with virtually all-geosynchronous satellites with minimal interruption to operations. It will let satellite operators significantly extend satellite mission life, activate new markets, drive asset value and protect their franchises. Orbital subsidiary Space Logistics LLC delivers life extension services that are flexible, scalable, capital-efficient and low-risk.

In a release, today (Feb. 9) DARPA said RSGS will demonstrate a suite of capabilities critical to national security and not currently available or anticipated to be offered commercially in the near term, including ultra-close inspection, repair of mechanical anomalies, and installation of technical packages on the exterior of US satellites, all of which require highly dexterous robotic arms. DARPA has already designed and created the required robotic arms.

Under the RSGS program, a DARPA-developed modular toolkit (the robotic payload), including hardware and software, would be joined to a privately developed spacecraft to create a commercially operated robotic servicing vehicle that could make house calls in space, DARPA stated.

DARPA said its role will be to contribute the robotics technology, expertise, and a government-provided launch while SSL would contribute the satellite to carry the robotic payload, integration of the payload onto it and the RSV to the launch vehicle, and the mission operations center and staff.

Since there are roughly four times as many commercial satellites in GEO as Government satellites, DARPA elected to find a commercial partner capable of servicing both in order to lower the cost of servicing to the Government and commercial entities and collect a broader range of research data. This partnership approach will enable the fastest deployment of RSGS capability, DARPA wrote.

DARPA continued: After a successful on-orbit demonstration of the robotic servicing vehicle, SSL would own and operate the vehicle and make cooperative servicing available to both military and commercial GEO satellite owners on a fee-for-service basis. In exchange for providing government property to SSL, the government will obtain reduced priced servicing of its satellites and access to commercial satellite servicing data throughout the operational life of the RSV.

Government-developed RSGS technologies would not become the exclusive property of DARPAs commercial partner but would be shared with other qualified and interested U.S. space companies. Qualified companies would be able to obtain and license the technology through cooperative research and development agreements.

+More on Network World: DARPA wants to give dead, in-orbit satellites new life+

In December, DARPA proposed consortium of industry players that will research, develop, and publish standards for safe commercial robotic servicing operations in Earths orbit. Specifically, DARPA said it wants to create the Consortium for Execution of Rendezvous and Servicing Operations or CONFERS that looks to establish a forum that would use best practices from government and industry to research, develop and publish non-binding, consensus-derived technical and safety standards for on-orbit servicing operations. In doing so, the program would provide a clear technical basis for definitions and expectations of responsible behavior in outer space. In the end the ultimate goal is to provide the technical foundation to shape safe and responsible commercial space operations to preserve the safety of the global commons of space, DARPA stated.

Recent technological advances have made the longstanding dream of on-orbit robotic servicing of satellites a near-term possibility. The potential advantages of that unprecedented capability are enormous. Instead of designing their satellites to accommodate the harsh reality that, once launched, their investments could never be repaired or upgraded, satellite owners could use robotic vehicles to physically inspect, assist, and modify their on-orbit assets. That could significantly lower construction and deployment costs while dramatically extending satellite utility, resilience, and reliability, DARPA stated. But these efforts all face a major roadblock: the lack of clear, widely accepted technical and safety standards for responsible performance of on-orbit activities involving commercial satellites, including rendezvous and proximity operations that dont involve physical contact with satellites and robotic servicing operations that would. Without these standards, the long-term sustainability of outer space operations is potentially at risk.

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Excerpt from:

DARPA hits snag in GEO satellite service plan - Network World

The Strehler-Mildvan Correlation

The scientific team of biotech company Gero recently published a study in the Journal of Theoretical Biology that debunks a long-held misconception regarding two parameters of the Gompertz mortality law a mortality modelthat represents human death as the sumof two components that exponentially increases with age. The Gero team studied whats called the Strehler-Mildvan (SM) correlation and found no real biological reasoning behind it, despite having been held true for more than a half a century now.

The SM correlation, derived from the Strehler-Mildvan general theory of aging and mortality, is a mechanism-based explanation of Gompertz law. Specifically, the SM correlation uses two Gompertz coefficients called the Mortality Rate Doubling Time (MRDT) and Initial Mortality Rate (IMR). Popularized in the 1960s in a paper published in Science, the SM correlation suggests that reducing mortality rate through any intervention at a young age could lower the MRDT, thus accelerating aging. As such, the hypothesis disrupts the development of any anti-aging therapy, effectively making optimal aging treatments impossible.

The Gero team, however, realized that the SM correlation is a flawed assumption. Instead of using machine learning techniques for anti-aging therapy design, the researchers relied on an evidence-based science approach. Peter Fedichev and his team tried to determine the physical processes behind the SM correlation. In doing so, they realized the fundamental discrepancy between analytical considerations and the possibility of SM correlation. We worked through the entire life histories of thousands of C. elegans that were genetically identical, and the results showed that this correlation was indeed a pure fitting artifact, Fedichev saidin a press release.

Other studieshave questioned the validity of the SM correlation, but in their published study, Fedichev and his team were able to show how the SM correlation arises naturally as a degenerate manifold of Gompertz fit. This suggests that, instead of understanding SM correlation as a biological fact, it is really an artifactual property of the fit.

This discovery is particularly relevant now as more and more scientists are coming to the conclusion that aging is a disease and, as such, could be treated. They are working hard to find ways to extend human life, and many of theseanti-aging studies are yielding curious developments.

Elimination of SM correlation from theories of aging is good news, because if it was not just negative correlation between Gompertz parameters, but the real dependence, it would have banned optimal anti-aging interventions and limited human possibilities to life extension, Fedichev explained. In order words,human life extension has no definitive limit.

Read the original:

There is No Limit to Human Life Extension - Futurism

WESLACO, Texas - Students at Weslaco High School are working to make sure their school zone is safe.

Art students re-striped the crosswalk on Border Avenue near Panther Drive.

It's part of the Texas A&M Agri-Life Extension's Working on Wellness Project in Hidalgo County.

The city of Weslaco is working to make its streets more walkable. But with the help of students, they've added a little twist.

Andrea Valdez - Texas A&M Agri-Life Extension, "Our students at Weslaco High School designed this crosswalk with the Panther, or if you want to call them Wildcat also, paw prints down the side. So they had designed it and now they're painting it so they can take ownership. It's really theirs. They can promote it to their friends and say hey walk on the crosswalk. I designed it and I helped paint it."

Texas A&M Agri-Life Extension says residents can be on the lookout for more new crosswalks and bike lanes throughout the city to promote health and fitness.

Excerpt from:

Weslaco ISD Students Re-Stripe Crosswalk to Promote School Zone Safety - RGVProud

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The Royal Navy warship HMS Argyll has set sail again following a 20-month refit at its Devonport dockyard base.

The Type 23 frigate sailed with the very latest Royal Navy sensors and equipment newly fitted, in particular the new Sea Ceptor air-defence missile system, for which she will lead the first acceptance trials for the class of warship in the Navy later in the year.

Her crew, led by the captain Commander Toby Shaughnessy, has been working hard with the MOD's industrial partner Babcock, who delivered the refit to get her ready for sea.

Recently completing the last of her pre-sailing machinery trials and a busy period of safety drills, the 171-man crew is delighted to be back at sea.

Commander Shaughnessy said: "It is always extremely challenging to re-generate our ships following their routine periodical refits.

"They are complicated machines and the vast array of equipment needs close attention when we turn them on again after such a long period in dry dock.

"I am very proud of the determination and professionalism of my crew throughout this busy period in getting the ship ready to return to sea.

"We look forward to rejoining the fleet and contributing to its global operations once again."

HMS Argyll will consolidate her safety drills at sea before a short period of post-refit trials.

She will return to full operations with her sister Devonport ships thereafter.

Babcock warship director, Mike Whalley, said: "We are delighted to play our part in returning HMS Argyll to sea in a significantly improved material state and with enhanced capability.

"This has been the most complex Type 23 upkeep ever undertaken in Devonport and the first UK warship class to have its missile system changed mid -life since the 1970s.

"Key learning gained throughout the project will enhance our ability as class lead to life extend the rest of the class.''

A Royal Navy spokesman said the latest launch of HMS Argyll represents the culmination of more than 600,000 man hours of work at the Babcock Frigate Support Centre in Devonport Royal Dockyard.

They noted that this is Babcock's completion of the first Type 23 'life-extension' upkeep, designed to extend the ship's operational life from 18 to 35 years: maintaining, updating and upgrading capability for the 21st century.

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Plymouth warship HMS Argyll sets sail again after 20-month refit - Plymouth Herald

The next meeting of Clone Club is scheduled for Saturday, June 10 at 10/9c.

Thats whenOrphan Black will return for its fifth and final season, BBC America announced Tuesday.

VIDEOSTatiana Maslany Talks Emmy Prep and (Maybe) New Orphan Black Clones

Upcoming episodes of the Tatiana Maslany-led sci-fi series will explore prolongevity and life extension, which is a very interesting and topical science right now, co-showrunner Graeme Manson told TVLine at last years Emmys. (At that same event, Maslany took home her first Emmy for Lead Actress in a Drama Series.)

Also, as Manson previewed at San Diego Comic-Con, the fifth seasons revelation is that the founder of Neolution [P.T. Westmoreland] is somehow still alive That is part of the big mystery for next year.

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'Orphan Black' Final Season Premiere Date Set at BBC America - Yahoo TV (blog)

Although many people are aware of the damaging effects to the eyes caused by the sun's ultraviolet rays, not everyone realizes the danger of chronic exposure to blue light emitted by electronic devices. While sunlight consists of approximately 25-30 percent blue light, computer monitors and other electronic device screens (particularly light-emitting diodes, or LEDS) emit about 35 percentblue light. Additionally, modern lighting involves ever-greater use of LEDs as well as compact fluorescent lamps that emit about 25 percent blue light. According to an article appearing in theReview of Optometry, ". . . our exposure to blue light is everywhere and only increasing."

As reported in Life Extension Magazine, blue light induces photochemical stress that damages cells in the eyes' retina which can lead to their destruction. The retina is a nerve cell layer in the back of the eye that contains neurons known as photoreceptors (rods and cones) that sense light, resulting in impulses that are transmitted via the optic nerve to the brain.

The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a layer of pigmented cells next to and outside of the retina that nourishes retinal nerve tissue and transports molecules into the retina and out of it. The RPE contains a high amount of the carotenoids lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin. These pigments have been characterized as forming "a kind of biological sunglasses that absorb blue light."

According to Michael A. Smith, M.D., senior health scientist with Life Extension, of all the carotenoids that are absorbed by the human body, only lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin accumulate in the macula, an area at the center of the retina responsible for central vision.

"In addition to their blue-light filtering property, these pigments have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities, all of which help protect againstage-related macular degeneration(AMD), a leading cause of vision loss in older men and women," says Dr. Smith. "Macular pigment density is considered to be a significant indicator of retinal health."

A randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial reported inBioMed Research Internationalfound an increase in macular pigment optical density and contrast sensitivity among those who received lutein and zeaxanthin for two years.Another study of early AMD patients found increases in macular pigment after three years of supplementation with lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin.These and other trials have demonstrated that supplementation with the three carotenoids can improve macular pigment optimal density, thereby helping to protect the retina. In fact, a meta-analysis of 20 randomized trials including a total of 938 AMD patients and 826 subjects without the disease concluded that supplementation with lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin improved macular pigment optical density in both AMD patients and healthy subjects.

Findings from the original Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) resulted in the widespread recommendation of vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc with copper, and beta carotene supplementation to reduce the development of advanced age-related macular degeneration. However, in AREDS-2, the replacement of beta carotene with lutein and zeaxanthin was associated with greater protection against the progression to late AMD than that conferred by the original AREDS formula.

While one can't avoid exposure to blue light these days, protecting oneself may be as simple as adding lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin to one's supplemental regimen. Although these nutrients occur in foods like spinach, kale and, in the case of meso-zeaxanthin, certain fish, nutritional supplements are now available that make it easy to obtain optimal amounts of these importantcarotenoidson a daily basis.

"The naturally occurring retinal antioxidants, such as lutein and zeaxanthin, can't be regenerated fast enough to keep pace with the amount of damaging blue-light saturating the immediate environment," commented Dr. Smith. "We are all quickly becoming lutein deficient. And since the blue light-emitting devices aren't going anywhere, the risk of macular degeneration is rising. Macular pigment density must be preserved with daily lutein and zeaxanthin supplementation."

For more information about the dangers of blue light and daily lutein and zeaxanthin supplementation visit http://www.lifeextension.com.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/if-you-use-a-computer-or-smartphone-read-this-300403256.html

SOURCE Life Extension

http://www.lifeextension.com

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If you use a computer or smartphone, read this - PR Newswire (press release)

In late 2010, during a fireside chat at the tech-industry conference TechCrunch Disrupt, the venture capitalist and entrepreneur Peter Thiel disclosed that he would award 20 enterprising teenagers $100,000 apiece over two years to bypass college in favor of entrepreneurship. Stopping out, Thiel called it. Having decried student debt (not to mention universities inculcation of political correctness), he endeavored to make the case that college was a limiting and outdated model. The Thiel Fellowship, as it came to be known, was representative of a particular strain of anti-establishmentarianism in tech-industry culture. Who needs higher education?

In Valley of the Gods: A Silicon Valley Story, Alexandra Wolfe, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, zooms in on a handful of Thiel fellows from the 2011 inaugural class. Among them are John Burnham, an antsy teen who has his sights set on asteroid-mining robots; Laura Deming, a prodigy working on life extension; and James Proud, who founded GigLocator, an app for locating tickets to live concerts, and sold the company in 2012. As the fellows adjust to their new environs in the Bay Area, Wolfe follows them into a constellation of mentors and affiliates, subcultures and institutionsSilicon Valleys elite and underbelly. Her goal is a portrait of the tech industry as a new social order, one with an anti-society aesthetic that has taken on a singular style.

Wolfe is an entertaining writer, if not an outstanding prose stylist, and she largely lets her subjects speak for themselves, skimping on broader context. Her subjects, mostly entrepreneurs, founders, and figureheads, are indisputably more elite than underbelly, but no matter. From the futurist and author Ray Kurzweil to Todd Huffmana biologist, an early participant in the now-defunct San Francisco intentional community Langton Labs, and an aspiring cryogenically preserved corpseWolfe lands on characters who are vibrant and open-minded, each deserving of more inquiry than a 250-page book allows.

Through visits to start-up incubators, communal-living groups in mansions, and polyamorous households on Paleo diets, Wolfe constructs an argument that in Silicon Valley, institutions and routines such as raises, rents, mortgagesmarriagewere as inconsequential, breakable, and flexible as the industries technology disrupted. She deploys her anecdotes to serve her vision of the culture as a reaction to the East Coasts hierarchy, as well as its foil. She pokes fun at the tech industrys own self-aggrandizing fetishes while also affirming them. Incubators are a sort of West Coast Ivy League, a fast track to access and social capital. Millennials prefer the freedom of Silicon Valley to the old world of the East Coast. Gone is Wall Streets uniform of Thomas Pink and Tiffany; in its stead, the only outward signs of tech success are laptops and ideas. Pitting East against West even gets ontological. Using New York City hedge-fund managers as an example, Wolfe writes that the retrowealth of the East Coast is a harkening back to what it was to be human last century. Silicon Valley, by contrast, has trained its sights on how to disrupt, transgress, and reengineer humanity as a whole.

Wolfes book spans five years, but the bulk of her reporting appears to be from 2011 and 2012. And a lot happened in the years between the cocky-nerd drama of 2010s The Social Network and the first quarter of 2016, which brought zero initial public offerings from tech companies. In 2012, new start-ups were flush with money and the tech sphere was overwhelmed by ardent media coverage; the verb disrupt was elbowing its way into vernacular prominence and had not yet become a clich. Facebooks IPO was not only record-setting but a flag in the ground, and the West Coast seemed a hopeful counternarrative in an otherwise flailing economy. Stories about Silicon Valley were imbued with a certain awe that, today, is starting to fade.

Since the genres takeoff in the late 1990s, during the first dot-com boom, writing about the tech industry has traditionally fallen into a few limited camps: buzzy and breathless blog posts pegged to product announcements, suspiciously redolent of press releases; technophobic and scolding accounts heralding the downfall of society via smartphone; dry business reporting; and lifestyle coverage zeroing in on the trappings, trends, and celebrities of the tech scene. In different ways, each neglects to examine the industrys cultural clout and political economy. This tendency is shifting, as the line between tech company and regular company continues to blur (even Walmart has an innovation lab in the Bay Area). Founders and their publicists would have you believe that this is a world of pioneers and utopians, cowboy coders and hero programmers. But as tech becomes more pervasive, coverage that unquestioningly echoes the mythologizing impulse is falling out of fashion.

The backlash is unsurprising. Accelerated, venture-capital-fueled success is bound to inspire more than just wonder. In the past year alone, three Silicon Valley darlingsHampton Creek, Theranos, and Zenefitshave been subject to painful debunking by the media. Thiels own reputation, always controversial, has come into question since his financing of a lawsuit that shuttered Gawker and his emergence as an avid Donald Trump supporter. Valley of the Gods, which opens with a tribute to Thiel and the counterintuitive idealism he aimed to encourage, feels like a time capsule from a previous iteration of tech media, a reminder of the sort of narratives that have contributed to growing impatience with the mythos.

Valley of the Gods is fine as an artifact hurtled from a more innocent time, as far as scene-driven reportage is concerned. But what feels like a throwback perspective takes a toll on the larger argument of Wolfes book. She relies at every turn on stereotypes such as Aspergers Chic and engineering geeks [who]barely knew how to make friends or navigate a cocktail party, let alone be politically manipulative. Statements like Only the young and ambitious who grew up with the computer saw it for what it might become arent just vaguely ageist, but also ahistorical. (What the computer has thus far become is only one version of many potential outcomes and visions.) Peter Thiels friends, in her summation, are part of a whole new world of often-wacky people and ideas that didnt seem to subscribe to any set principles or social awareness. Leaning on Silicon Valley tropes, Wolfe fails to take her subjectsand their economic and political influence, which has only increased over the past five yearsseriously.

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She also undercuts her own point about the disruptive ethos of the place. Todays uber-nerds are like the robber barons of the industrial revolution whose steel and automobile manufacturing capabilities changed entire industries, she writes. But instead of massive factories and mills, theyre doing it with little buttons. Portraying Silicon Valleys powerful as uber-nerds who struck it rich is as reductive and unhelpful as referring to technology that integrates personal payment information and location tracking as little buttons. The effect is not only to protect them behind the shield of presumed harmlessness, but also to exempt them from the scrutiny that their economic and political power should invite.

The sort of mythology that celebrates a small handful of visionaries and co-founders blurs important social realities. Technology has always been a collective project. The industry is also cyclical. Many failed ideas have been resuscitated and rebranded as successful products and services, owned and managed by people other than their originators. Behind almost every popular app or website today lie numerous shadow versions that have been sloughed away by time. Yet recognition of the group nature of the enterprise would undermine a myth that legitimizes the consolidation of profit, for the most part, among a small group of people.

If technology belongs to the people only insofar as the people are consumers, we beneficiaries had better believe that luminaries and pioneers did something so outrageously, so individually innovative that the concentration of capital at the top is deserved. When founders pitch their companies, or inscribe their origin stories into the annals of TechCrunch, they neglect to mention some of the most important variables of success: luck, timing, connections, and those who set the foundation for them. The industry isnt terribly in touch with its own history. It clings tight to a faith in meritocracy: This is a spaceship, and we built it by ourselves.

After four years of working in tech, almost all of which were spent at start-ups in San Francisco, Ill happily acknowledge that the industry contains multitudes: biohackers and anti-aging advocates, high-flying techno-utopians and high-strung co-founders, polyamorous couples and M.B.A.s. But theyre just people, and their lifestyle choices are usually in the minority. Theyre not a new social order. Even if they were, plenty of people just like them live in New York City, too.

Valley of the Gods is journalism, not ethnography. As with any caricature, the world depicted in its pages is largely an exaggerationeven, in some cases, a fantasybut certain dimensions ring true, and loudly. Its important to note what Wolfe gets right. This is a culture that champions acceleration, optimization, and efficiency. From communication to attire, some things are more casual than they are on the East Coast, and people seem to be happier for it. Irreverence is often rewarded. This is far from punk rock (the irreverence is often in the name of building financially successful corporations), but experimentation is encouraged. Silicon Valley is hardly a meritocracydiversity metrics make that clear, and old-school credentials and pedigree still have clout out westbut its more meritocratic than other, older industries like consulting or finance. Few women figure in Wolfes book, which also feels accurate, especially at the higher levels.

The trouble with telling a Silicon Valley story is that the real stories are not just more nuanced and moderate but also relatively boring. Many people working in technology are legitimately inspiring, but they dont necessarily gravitate toward flashy projects, and wont be found strolling across a ted stage. If they fail, they may not fail up, and they certainly wont write a Medium post afterward in an attempt to micromanage their personal brand or reconfigure the narrative.

The other, less flattering truth is that the difference between the East and West Coasts is not fundamentally all that great. The tech industry owes a huge debt to the financial sector. Wolfe is eager to depict Silicon Valley as the new New York, but much of the money that funds venture-capital firms comes from investors who made their fortunes on Wall Street. (The tech industry also owes a great debt to Main Street: Private-equity funds regularly include allocations from public pension plans and universities.) Cultural differences abound, but theyre not a function of the tech industry. Theyre a function of history, of the deeply entrenched cultural and social circumstances that slowly come to define a place. As the mythology gets worn away, the contours of the Valley become easier to see. The view, though less glamorous, still offers plenty to behold.

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It's Getting Harder to Believe in Silicon Valley - The Atlantic

The past few years seem to be setting a challenging trend for gardeners in our region and across the country. Each year from 2013 to the present seems to be getting warmer and drier, and our state has been the unfortunate recipient of a few new invasive insects that challenge gardeners.

To understand how to successfully garden in a hotter climate with longer dry spells, often less snow pack melt recharging our rivers during summer, and troublesome pests, it is important to find educational classes from a trusted source like Oregon State University Extension. Our Extension agents and Master Gardeners are trained to keep you ahead of serious new challenges.

If you dont have time to take our in-depth 11-week Master Gardener program, it would be helpful for you to attend our Spring Into Gardening Seminar held at Umpqua Community College, Wayne Crooch Hall, Saturday, Feb. 25.

The seminar is a series of gardening classes for a total fee of $30. This seminar is broken into four sections: 8:30 to 10:30 a.m., 10:30 to noon, 1 to 2:30 p.m. and 2:30 to 4 p.m. During each section, you can select one of three classes offered.

Our classes will help you understand how to modify your landscape to adapt to longer, drier summers. I have helped people go from landscapes requiring a $400 two-month water bill to a more sustainable $100 two-month bill.

Xeric landscaping will teach you what plants can tolerate a minimum of water for 4 to 5 months. The traditional lawn can be modified to an attractive landscape that includes a great variety of plants that provide color and food sources for native beneficial insects and birds.

If you are set on producing more of your own fruits and vegetables and want to do it in a low input sustainable way, we have the classes to coach you. Producing healthy food starts with great soil. Creating great garden soil is something anyone can do with the right information.

Our classes will talk about the steps needed to produce and maintain productive soil. You will hear about cover crops, biochar, soil tests, nutrient management, soil additives and if or when you should till your soil. Worm and regular composting will also be discussed as part of great soil fertility program.

If you struggle to control insect pests in your vegetable or fruit crops, we will help you understand what low-input programs work for controlling the new invasive pests, and what doesnt. You may be thinking that you dont have a large yard and really dont need to understand these issues of high water use, building great soil and invasive insect pests. We want to help educate container gardeners, too.

We will have a class that will teach you how to make hypertufa troughs (lightweight cement). These containers hold up for years, look great and are light and easy to move around your deck or porch. Well also talk about small space gardening in all kinds of containers. How to create beautiful flower containers or fresh food in a limited space.

This is our second year for including a series of classes on food preservation brought to you by the OSU Master Food Preservers. They will be teaching introduction to canning, dehydrating, fermenting foods and food storage for emergencies.

There will be one food preservation class in each of the four class sections. Bring your food preservation questions to understand the safest way to preserve your fresh produce and learn the best way to preserve food quality, flavor and nutrition.

For complete details, check the web page at http://extension.oregonstate.edu/douglas/. (Scroll down page to Upcoming Events and find the date.) Or, visit the OSU Extension office to register for this program and make your class selections. Registrations are due by Feb. 23.

Steve Renquist is the Horticulture Extension Agent for OSU Extension Service of Douglas County. Steve can be reached by e-mail at

steve.renquist@oregonstate.edu

or phone at 541-672-4461.

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Extension Spotlight: The importance of a good education | Life ... - NRToday.com