Category Archives: Life Extension

Ive been proud to call Hays home for more than five years now. My husband and I moved to Hays in early 2012 for my job as the Extension family and consumer sciences agent at the Ellis County Extension Office.

"Wait what? Where? Whats Extension?"

If youre not as familiar with K-State Research and Extension (as I think you ought to be), youre not alone. Many people ask who we are and what we do. Weve even received mistaken phone calls from folks trying to get an extension on their court date or taxes.

So, let me try to answer the question Whats Extension? and tell you why your local Extension agents are neighbors you should get to know.

K-State Research and Extension is devoted to helping people live healthy and successful lives; it's part of Kansas State University's three-fold mission and traces back to why and how K-State was created as the states land grant university.

Federal legislation in 1862 granted land to states for the creation of institutions that could give working-class citizens in rural areas equal access to higher education, something formerly only available to wealthy families in eastern cities. Kansas State University was founded in 1863 as the nations first land grant university to provide on-campus teaching, research and outreach to Kansas citizens. In 1914, another law created the Cooperative Extension Service which placed educators in the 3,000-plus counties of America to extend practical, research-based information from the land grant university right to the people. It is this outreach mission which makes land grant universities such as K-State unique.

In Kansas, we are fortunate to have a great alliance with county government to support K-State Research and Extension. Federal and state funds come into Kansas State University to support the framework, administration and specialists of K-State Research and Extension. Mostly county funds, with shared state input, support the local Extension offices.

Extension in each county works to meet local needs. Extension agents live in local communities, share concerns about local issues and have a stake in local success. Locally elected citizens serve on boards and committees to guide and oversee our efforts. While Extension programs might vary from county to county, all are designed to provide reliable, research-based education to help individuals, families, farms, businesses and communities solve problems, develop skills and build a better future.

On July 1, following a trend of 45 counties before us, Ellis County and Barton County joined their Extension programs together to form the Cottonwood Extension District, the 17th Extension district in Kansas. The district allows for operational efficiencies as well as agent specialization, which will reduce duplication and give more in-depth focus and expertise for local programming. Agents will continue to office in their local counties and will provide educational programming in both counties. You now will have access to the seven agents of the Cottonwood Extension District for more specialized service.

The wide selection of Exension education and services is easy for Kansans to obtain; after all, we're located nearby. K-State Research and Extension is the front door to information from Kansas State University. Agents have access to the knowledge, experience and expertise of a statewide network of Extension specialists and researchers on the cutting edge of scientific knowledge all of whom share the goal of improving the quality of life of all Kansans, including you.

So I encourage you to get to know the personnel, programs and resources of K-State Research and the Cottonwood Extension District. Our local office is located at 601 Main, Suite A, in downtown Hays. We currently have three Extension agents on staff in the Hays office (and an opening in the Horticulture position while we recruit a new agent) with three agents in the Great Bend office and we are all considered K-State faculty.

We provide low- or no-cost educational programs that are open to the public, serve as speakers at clubs, organizations and schools, do one-on-one consultation on individual issues and share information through print, broadcast and social media. You can connect with the services and resources we offer by calling our Hays office at (785) 628-9430, receiving our quarterly email newsletter, visiting our website at http://www.cottonwood.ksu.edu, liking our Facebook page, currently at K-State Research and Extension Ellis County or following us in the media.

Were here to extend information from our state and partner experts to the people of Ellis and Barton counties to help you have a better life.

Linda K. Beech is a Cottonwood District Extension agent for family and consumer sciences.

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Extension agents are neighbors you should get to know - The Ottawa Herald

This spring and summer, the Purdue Extension Montgomery County office offered the first Garden to Grill SPARK club for youth in grades 3-12. The goal of this program was to teach youth about the daily care and maintenance that a garden requires to be productive and healthy. Furthermore, youth learned how to cook many of the vegetables grown on the grill as a healthy dinner or snack option. So what is a SPARK club? A SPARK club is a 4-H club that is subject-specific and is designed to SPARK interest in various fields. Youth do not have to be 4-H members to register to participate in a SPARK Club, but will become 4-H members with their payment of the $15.00 State program fee

This six-week program introduced youth to a variety of topics such as plant biology, human nutrition, pest management, food safety, culinary skills, and STEM! Each week youth were responsible for pulling weeds, watering if needed, harvesting ripe vegetables, and preparing their own snack for the day.

After being actively involved in Garden to Grill, 100% of youth reported that they would consume more healthy foods such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products, seafood, lean meats and poultry, eggs, beans and peas, and nuts and seeds. Furthermore, 87.5% of youth reported that they will follow healthy eating patterns such as: eating breakfast, eating as a family, making healthy snack choices, etc. 100% of the youth also reported that they will consume less unhealthy foods such as: sodium, solid fats, added sugars, and refined grains.

Not only were youth engaged in a hands-on, exciting, and educational program; but they also gained life skills that will help them make healthier choices in the future. The Garden to Grill program also helps youth discover their passion for gardening and/or cooking. This could potentially lead to future careers in these areas or develop a new hobby.

The Purdue Extension Montgomery County office looks forward to holding this program again in the future. If you would like to read more about Garden to Grill and to see pictures from our last session, please visit https://purdueag.exposure.co/from-the-garden-to-the-grill-in-montgomery-county. If you have any questions please contact the Montgomery County Extension office at (765)364-6363.

Abby Sweet is the Montgomery County Extension Education, 4-H Youth Development Educator. The office is at 400 Parke Ave., Crawfordsville. She may be reached by email at asweet@purdue.edu or call 765-364-6363.

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Garden to Grill program teaches youth skills to last a lifetime - Journal Review

The Commonwealth has granted First Pass approval to extend the service life for Navys Huon Class Minehunter Coastal vessels, and Thales Australia is to deliver and support new deployable mine countermeasures (MCM) over the next 15 years.

The Head of Navy Capability, Rear Admiral Jonathan Mead, said the project forecast in the Defence White Paper 2016 will ensure Defence is able to provide an effective maritime mine countermeasure capability out to the 2030s.

Minehunters play a vital role in protecting Australias ships, harbours and infrastructure from the threat of sea mines, RADM Mead said.

First Pass approval is a major milestone for this project that will see the life of the Minehunters extended to ensure there is no gap in mine warfare capability as we determine the replacement vessels.

The Huon Class have proven highly capable, supporting Defences international engagement strategy through participation in exercises and operations to secure our sea lanes and disposing of WWII explosive remnants, and they will continue to serve Australia for years to come.

In addition to its mine warfare role, the Huon Class vessels play a unique role in Defence assistance to the civil community and in 2011 provided support in response to severe flooding in Queensland, including the disposal of debris that posed a navigational hazard, RADM Mead said.

The Australian Defence industry will be heavily involved in the future of the platforms. Negotiations are underway with Thales Australia to engage them as the Prime Systems Integrator to deliver the project. Under Thales lead there will be opportunities for other Australian companies to support the Minehunters through their service life.

The Huon class were built by Thales Australia, formerly ADI, and were introduced into service in the early 2000s.

With regard to deployable MCM, RADM Mead said the prevalence and increasing sophistication of sea mines means the RAN must continue to improve the way it finds and disposes of these mines.

New autonomous and remote-controlled technologies deployed from within the maritime task force provides the opportunity to find and dispose of sea mines more safely and efficiently, RADM Mead said.

In the 2030s, Defence will seek to replace its specialised mine hunting and environmental survey vessels with a single fleet of multi-role vessels embarking advanced autonomous and uninhabited systems.

RADM Mead said these newly introduced systems are the first step in realising a future capability which would allow the Royal Australian Navy to clear sea mines with minimal risk to its people and assets.

Thales Australia Ltd will deliver and support the new equipment over the next 15 years, RADM Mead said.

The new capability will primarily be based and sustained at HMASWaterhenin Sydney, NSW.

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First pass for Minehunter Service Life Extension - Australian Defence - Australian Defence Magazine

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Doxycycline time release capsules - Shelf life extension program doxycycline - Filipino Express

The Government of Australia has granted first pass approval for the service life extension of the Royal Australian Navy's (RAN) Huon-class minehunter coastal vessels.

Navy Capability head rear admiral Jonathan Mead said that the project will ensure that the RAN is capable of providing an effective maritime mine countermeasure capability by 2030.

Mead said: Minehunters play a vital role in protecting Australias ships, harbours and infrastructure from the threat of sea mines.

First Pass approval is a major milestone for this projectthat will see the life of the minehunters extended to ensure there is no gap in mine warfare capability as we determine the replacement vessels.

"First Pass approval is a major milestone for this project that will see the life of the minehunters extended to ensure there is no gap in mine warfare capability."

The Huon-class have proven highly capable, supporting defences international engagement strategy through participation in exercises and operations to secure our sea lanes and disposing of Second World War explosive remnants, and they will continue to serve Australia for years to come.

The Australian Navys Huon-class ships also provide defence assistance to the civil community.

Thales Australia originally constructed the vessels, which came into service with the RAN in the early 2000s.

Negotiations are currently underway with Thalesto contract the company as theprime systems integrator forthe project.

The Huon-class minehunter coastal ships previously provided support during severe flooding in Queensland in 2011, including disposal of debris.

Original post:

Australian Navy receives first pass approval for Huon-class minehunters - Naval Technology

The aging process can be slowed -- or even reversed. But you must develop a concern for strength and muscle. If health, vitality and a long life free from serious disability are what you want you must consider what I'm about to say.

The most common disease of aging

The most prevalent condition to occur with age is sarcopenia, or what is better known as frailty. Sarcopenia is the medical term for "muscle weakening" or "body thinning." It is basically the muscle equivalent of osteopenia (bone thinning), or osteoporosis. Unfortunately, this condition has received little attention, even though its prevention is at the very heart of living a functional, independent life into older age.

The danger of neglect and inactivity

Even a young person, if you confine him to bed or a chair, will biologically age in fitness by almost two decades in just 21 days. This was actually demonstrated in the 1960s by Swedish physiologist Bengt Saltin. Since older people's bodies are already predisposed to losing muscle tissue and strength ("Use it or lose it," remember?), if we put them in a bed or easy chair for 21 days we can cripple them for the rest of their lives.

The real fountain of youth

Life extension and anti-aging have been pursued with increasing interest during the last three decades, so you can imagine my surprise when one of the only documented research studies showing reversal of aging at the cellular, genetic level in humans went largely ignored. In 2007, researchers published work revealing that a very basic weight training program practiced just twice a week improved strength, and actually reversed aging in 179 genetic markers at the cellular level.

These people's bodies were beginning to operate on a level that was many years their junior. A person who is 70 years old can weight train and more than double their strength over time -- easily outdoing a sedentary person two or more decades their junior. Or they can be sedentary and lose muscle and strength to the level of a 90-year-old. Your chronological age has little to do actually with how old you feel, or how old you are biologically. It is much more important to think in terms of healthy function and strength, and that is subject to 50-100 percent improvement or more with training.

The power of strength training

The good news is we have not found an age where the ravages of sarcopenia can't be reversed in a willing participant who can move themselves and maybe need only moderate assistance. In 1990, a study was done with nursing home residents in their 90s (each possessing at least two chronic diseases apiece). The researchers wanted to know if the residents' frailty and low muscle strength could be aided even at their advanced age. Working with the leg extension machine three times a week, these residents showed over a 150 percent increase in strength in just eight weeks. For a few this meant being able to stand unassisted, or walk without a cane. The potential was there all along but had been allowed to wane by neglect.

Don't allow your potential to wane with age.

Thomas Morrison is a fitness coordinator at Bradley Wellness Center.

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Keeping fit: Overcome aging with strength training - The Daily Citizen

North Branch Trail Extension Joins A Growing NW Side Bike Network View Full Caption

LABAGH WOODS It's official: the North Branch Trail now reaches three miles deeper into the city's Northwest Side than it did last year. The 22-mile asphalt path now leads cyclists and hikers directly from the Chicago Botanic Gardens in suburban Glencoe to the doorstep of the North Mayfair neighborhood.

City and county officials mounted up and broke in the new path themselves at its official ribbon-cutting Saturday at the Irene C. Hernandez Picnic Grove, 4498 W. Foster Ave., the trail's new southern end.

Nearly a decade in the making, the new stretch of trail makes good on its promise to "extend access to tens of thousands of people in the city of Chicago," according to Cook County Forest Preserves Supt. Arnold Randall.

"Within 30 seconds on this trail you will be immersed in nature, and that's really an unusual circumstance in an urban environment," Randall said. "There's an opportunity to ride for miles and miles, and get free from some of the urban stresses that we all have here in the city."

The $7.7 million project was funded mostly through federal grants, Randall added.

It was completed in two phases.

The Forest Preserves last year opened a 1.8-mile addition extending the path from Devon and Caldwell avenues in downtown Edgebrook to the southern tip of the Forest Glen Woods, 5420 N. Forest Glen Ave. The newest piece ducks under Cicero Ave. and the Edens Expy., snaking through the Labagh Woods and emptying onto Foster Avenue.

Together, the forest preserves and the city's transportation department are knitting together an intricate network of bike and pedestrian paths "just like the interstate," one piece at a time, Ald. Margaret Laurino (39th) told a crowd of cyclists at Saturday's ribbon-cutting.

"This is what people in our community want to see, a more walkable neighborhood," Laurino said after the ceremony. "They want to be able to utilize the Forest Preserves in a way that isn't just coming to the edges for a picnic."

For cyclists, it's just a skip from Forest Glen Avenue to a buffered bike lane on Elston Avenue. They can take it southeast to Lawrence Avenue and pedal all the way east to the Lakefront Trail.

Cyclists taking the reverse route from the lakefront can traverse the entire North Branch Trail and either turn for home at the Botanic Garden orcontinue on from the gardento theGreen Bay Trailandconnect with morepathsnorthto Wisconsin.

With the second phase of the extension complete, cyclistscan head from Gompers Park to the North Shore Channel Trail in River Park, where that trail leads all the way north to Evanston. Eventually, southern additions to the North Shore Channel Trail will extend to Belmont Avenue, including asoaring section over the Chicago River.

The next planned addition to the bike network, the Weber Spur trail, would run about 1.3 miles from Elston Avenue in Mayfair to Devon Avenue at the border of suburban Lincolnwood, crisscrossing the North Branch Trail along the way.

Gravel still covers much of the Weber Spur trail, runs from Devon Avenue to Elston Avenue in Sauganash to Elston Avenue in Mayfair. City transportation officials hope to pave and open the trail, but first they must acquire the land from Union Pacific. [DNAinfo/Alex Nitkin]

But that project is held up until the city inks a deal with the Union Pacific railroad company, which still owns the long-defunct train line.

Last week, city and county officials unveiled a plan to paint bike paths along Devon Avenue in downtown Edgebrook, leading off from the North Branch Trail.

As a hook to get more people using the extended trail, the Forest Preserves launched a social media campaign called Postcards from the North Branch Trail, offering up prizes to those who document their trips.

The campaign encourages trail-goers to pose inside any of six life-sized postcards planted all along the trail, then post the photo to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #NBTpostcard. They'll be entered into a drawing for a raft of prizes, including zipline course tickets and vouchers for bike or kayak rentals.

Six life-sized postcards are scattered along the North Branch Trail, including one at Irene C. Hernandez Woods. Trail-goers can post photos with the props to social media with the hashtag #NBTpostcards for a chance to win prizes. [DNAinfo/Alex Nitkin]

Users can navigate the more than 300 miles of Forest Preserves trails on an interactive online map.

Laurino and Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st) will co-host a public meeting to discuss Edgebrook traffic safety at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Matthew Bieszczat Volunteer Resource Center, 6100 N. Central Ave.

The North Branch Trail Alliance of Greater Chicago will take advantage of the new pathway with its August Brew Ride on Aug. 26., starting at the Alarmist Brewing taproom, 4055 W. Peterson Ave.

Originally posted here:

North Branch Trail Extension Joins A Growing Northwest Side Bike Network - DNAinfo

Motherboard

SoundCloud Gets New Investment Round, Lives to Stream Another Day Motherboard There are comics making fun of Yippies*, talk of early nootropic brain enhancement and life-extension, and the assertion that 'science without feminism is apocalypse.' In one tiny panel placed in the corner of one page, a company showcases mail-order ... and more »

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SoundCloud Gets New Investment Round, Lives to Stream Another Day - Motherboard

Motherboard

Mutant Yippies, LSD, and Cyberpunks: The Story of the Space Age Newspaper 'High Frontiers' Motherboard There are ads for nonsensical inventions straight out of an episode of Rick and Morty. There are comics making fun of Yippies*, talk of early nootropic brain enhancement and life-extension, and the assertion that 'science without feminism is apocalypse.'.

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Mutant Yippies, LSD, and Cyberpunks: The Story of the Space Age Newspaper 'High Frontiers' - Motherboard

SAN DIEGO (NEWS 8) - A conference underway this weekend in San Diego is changing the way we think about getting older.

The Revolution Against Aging and Death conference, or RAAD Fest, is bringing scientists and doctors from all over the world to discuss their progress on creating a world without aging and death.

James Strole, Director of Coalition for Radical Life Extension, and Dr. Ben Goertzel, Chief Scientific Officer at Hanson Robotics, joined News 8s Heather Myers on News 8 Morning Extra Friday to talk about what exactly the industry is trying to achieve.

Strole said that there are several scientifically proven modalities out there to help reverse aging, and possibly bring you back to your biological age of 25. Extending or lengthening telomeres, gene editing and genetherapy are just a few.

Dr. Goertzel works with artificial intelligence applied to humanoid robotics to better understand the human biology and what goes on when we age.

It gets a lot more complex than that, and thats why theyre the doctors and scientists and were not. You can find more information about RAAD Fest and its panels at RAADFest.com.

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Global scientists working to stop aging gather at San Diego conference - CBS 8 San Diego