Category Archives: Human Longevity

We all understand that gut health is extremely important. Whether youre trying to manage hair lossor live longer, the best thing you can do for your health is to keep your gut happy. Not doing so can introduce a host of problems that range from diabetes and allergies to autism and inflammatory conditions. Additionally, for those struggling to lose those stubborn pounds, your gut bacteria could also be responsible for roadblocks in your weight loss journey.

In short, yes.

As weve mentioned, your gut helps to maintain the health of your body, and your gut microbes are quite involved in the bodys many functions, and this includes the regulation of your metabolism, digestion, and hunger.

There are a few ways that gut bacteria can influence your weight;

According to an article published in Scientific American, the overuse of antibiotics in the past few decades can be credited for the obesity epidemic.

The researchers of the article came to this conclusion by feeding young mice a steady, low dose of antibiotics similar to what farmers do when looking to fatten up their livestock. The researchers noted how antibiotics altered the mices gut bacteria, and it wasnt long before antibiotic-fed mice put on weight.

A more recent study, published in the International Journal of Obesity, found that children who receive antibiotics throughout the course of their childhood gain weight significantly faster than those who do not.

Why exactly do antibiotics disrupt your gut bacteria so much? Well, antibiotics are intended to address bacterial infections and when they enter your body, they dont know which bacteria are making you sick and which is helping you, so they sometimes inadvertently remove the good with the bad.

A study published in Cell Host Microbe found that fiber can help gut bacteria thrive, and this of course can encourage better health and weight loss (1).

For fiber-rich foods, opt for leafy green vegetables like kale and Swiss chard, artichokes, carrots, apples, bananas as well as nuts and seeds.

Foods rich in sugar and fats can trigger inflammation and this can be detrimental to your gut health (2).

Staying away from such foods wont only help you manage your weight, but it can also protect the health of your gut microbe.

If theres one thing your gut needs, its definitely probiotics. These microorganisms help to take care of your gut by fighting off bad bacteria and keeping your gut microbiome happy.

In regards to weight loss, probiotics have been found to help trigger the release of appetite-regulating hormones, which in turn can help to encourage weight loss (3).

The best way to get probiotics into your body is by eating fermented foods such as yogurt, pickles, kombucha, kefir, sauerkraut, and miso.

Evidently leading an active lifestyle can help you keep the weight off, but did you know that exercising can also support your gut bacteria?

According to a 2019 review published in Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, increasing evidence suggests that regular aerobic exercise confers benefits to the gut microbiota, which may be partially responsible for the widespread benefits of regular physical activity on human health.

Poor sleep wont only increase your risk for weight gain by affecting your appetite, but it can also disrupt your gut microbiome. Thats at least according to one study that found that after two nights of partial sleep deprivation, participants experienced changes in their gut bacteria that were associated with different metabolic problems.

If youre struggling with getting proper sleep. heres our guide on how to sleep through a pandemic.

Yes, were living through a pandemic and things can get a little stressful. Thats understandable. However, its also important to note how stress can affect your health. From comfort eating to disrupting your digestive health, stress is not good for the body, and it needs to be managed.

This can be done with relaxing activities such as reading, meditation, and even gardening.

Your gut is important and each bacterium found in it is pretty special, so its important to take care of it. Even if weight loss isnt part of your 2021 journey, if you really want to stay on top of your health in the common months, then do everything you can to keep your gut happy.

See the rest here:
Here's How You Can Use Your Gut Bacteria To Lose Weight - Longevity LIVE - Longevity LIVE

This weekend, respected human rights lawyer Professor Christof Heyns passed away, aged 62.

Most recently, Professor Heyns was the was the Director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa at the University of Pretoria, and had also served as United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions from 2010 to 2016.

In his distinguished career, Professor Heyns worked closely with and inspired Amnesty International staff and volunteers around the world. Here, his friends and colleagues pay tribute to a giant of global human rights.

Dr. Agns Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, said: Christof Heyns was a brilliant human rights lawyer and thinker, gentle personHe leaves behind such an extraordinary legacy.

Shenilla Mohamed, Executive Director of Amnesty International South Africa, said: A mighty baobab has fallen! The untimely death of renowned human rights law expert, Professor Christof Heyns, is a devastating loss. In Africa the Baobab Tree is considered a symbol of power, longevity, presence, strength and grace. Professor Heyns was a baobab in the human rights world. A giant in his field, he fought hard for a just world. As Director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa, he was involved in a number of critical initiatives. His contributions included: Chair of the UN independent investigation on Burundi, leading on the drafting of UN human rights guidelines on peaceful assembly and the use of less lethal weapons. He also served as the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions. Hamba Kahle Professor Heyns, Ke a Leboga, Enkosi, Ngiyabonga, Thank you for your service to humanity. You have left indelible footprints and we salute you!

Sam Dubberley, Amnesty Internationals Head of Crisis Evidence Lab, said: Christof's support for establishing a hub of Amnesty's Digital Verification Corps at the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria was unequivocal. He gave time, advice and space for this project to emerge, and welcomed the Amnesty team on every visit to Pretoria despite his always frantic schedule. Christof made everyone feel valued, and was a source of energy and sage advice. How he will be missed.

Netsanet Belay, Research and Advocacy Director of Amnesty International, said: Words fail me to express the profound sense of loss with the sudden passing of Professor Heyns. Like many, I had the privilege of working with him and benefited much from his wisdom, mentorship and guidance. He was a rare breed, one of Africas great legal minds, a passionate human rights defender and a kind, passionate, humble person. He nurtured and cultivated a cadre of human rights experts and activists in Africa, including by transforming the human rights centre at the University of Pretoria into a world class institution that produced Africas leading human rights scholars and practitioners. His publications on various human rights issues in leading academic journals are testament to his brilliance, wisdom and dedication. He was a true pan-Africanist, as exemplified in his work to champion and strengthen the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights. His passing is also a great loss to Amnesty International. As [recently] as last week we were working with Professor Heyns on the draft report by the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights on the use of force by law enforcement officials in Africa. We shall strive to ensure his last vision [is seen] to fruition. Rest in peace dear brother!

Rasha Abdul-Rahim, Director of Amnesty Tech, said: It was devastating to hear of the passing of Professor Heyns. All my thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends. Not only was Christof a renowned human rights expert, he was fiercely justice-focused and an absolute joy and pleasure to work with.Christof wrote the seminal Human Rights Council report that put the human rights risks of autonomous weapons systems on the agenda. He was always extremely generous with his expertise and time. This is a huge loss for the human rights movement, and we will miss him deeply.

Avner Gidron, Senior Policy Adviser on Amnesty Internationals Law and Policy Programme, said: I worked most closely with Professor Heyns on The Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death in 2016. Its a practical tool for human rights defenders and advocates around the world seeking accountability for unlawful killings; and it is now a small, but important, part of Christofs vast legacy. As well as his importance as a brilliant legal mind, scholar and activist, I will remember Christof for actually embodying human rights values: being an incredibly warm, generous and considerate human being. His death is a tremendous loss for the human rights movement, and an unimaginable tragedy for his family and friends.

Simon Crowther, legal advisor at Amnesty International, said:Christof was a legal giant who approached his work with kindness, humility, humour and immense intelligence. He will be greatly missed.

Anja Bienert, Senior Programme Officer at Amnesty International Netherlands, said: I first met Christof in 2013 and immediately felt connected to him: his sharp mind, the careful and perfectly articulated thoughts on the many pressing human rights issues, but more importantly, his warm and welcoming personality, with whom it was a pleasure to discuss. Since then, he was an ongoing source of inspiration to me and a great ally in the fight for greater protection of human rights. He constantly strove not just to write excellent publications, but to have a real impact for the respect of human rights across the world. We will miss him incredibly. It will be our mission to uphold his great legacy in the field of human rights.

Jan Wetzel, senior legal advisor at Amnesty International, said: Christof Heyns was extremely open and welcoming in engaging with civil society in the improvement of human rights standards. At the same time, he rigorously challenged NGOs, including Amnesty, to ensure that our advocacy was firmly based on international law.

Hilary Power, Amnesty Internationals Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, said: It is hard to find words to express the profound sadness we all feel at the loss not only of a brilliant human rights scholar, lawyer and activist, but a kind and gentle soul with immense warmth, dedication and a great sense of humour. His ability to achieve human rights impact was a result not only of his academic excellence and strategic thinking, but his ability to connect and empathise with people. A teacher and mentor to so many of us, he touched so many lives and will be so incredibly missed. I send my deepest condolences to his family.

Solomon Sacco, Deputy Director of Amnesty Internationals Law and Policy Programme, said: Professor Christof was an stunningly warm, kind and generous man, whose conceptual and radical approach to human rights has stayed with me since I first heard him lecture at the University of Pretoria more than 15 years ago. In addition to being a passionate and strong defender of human rights, he was an engaging and generous man who remembered and listened to his students whenever he met them. The world has lost a great spirit.

Read more:
Christof Heyns: A tribute to a giant of human rights - Amnesty International

What does Ayurveda say?

Ayurveda states: Vayudosham, bhojnam iti pratipadye nirmalam ayuvrate (Pure air-Pollution is called Vayudosham in Sanskrit-and clean food help one live longer and in a healthy manner).

In Charak Samhita, there's an invaluable Sanskrit shloka: Anavil vaayu, pavitra khaadyam, titiksham vistar cha jeevansya sootram (Unadulterated air, clean food and salubrious surroundings are the keys to a healthy life).

It's not for nothing that the legendary Hakim Luqman (he wasn't fictional; but did exist) of ancient Arab peninsula would advise the men suffering from getting a hard-on to go to Nakhalistan (oasis) to sexually rejuvenate themselves in pure air and healthy environs: Shad matzat yaq'fahil yaa'n jism ul-anoz ( Clean air makes a man virile and sexually robust).

Arabic sexual manual Lazzatunnisa (called the Kamasutra of Arabs) states that fresh water, clean air and light food are enough for men to stay sexually fit like a horse! What a simple formula to everlasting male sexuality! Alas, we've been ignoring it, much to our peril.

Our wayward lifestyle coupled with declining environs can be adduced as reasons for a legion of ailments we're afflicted with. By the way, according to Dr Swan's research, this disruption is caused by phthalates, chemicals used in plastic manufacturing, which can impact how the functioning of the endocrine glands. This group of chemicals is used to help increase the flexibility of a substance. They can be found in toys, food packaging, detergents, cosmetics, and many more products. Dr Swan believes that these substances are radically harming human development.

It's time to wake up and smell the coffee and understand that if we don't take drastic steps to ameliorate our surroundings, tackle pollution and stop having junk food laced with chemicals, human race will be impotent erelong. On a lighter note, it can be said that since men are too focused on their 'manhood', its shrinkage may certainly egg them on to do something to stem (pun intended) the rot and flaccidity !

- SUMIT PAUL

The writer is an advanced research scholar of Semitic languages, civilizations and cultures.

Continue reading here:
How pollution and unhealthy lifestyle are causing havoc with human reproductive health - Free Press Journal

Before the Beirut Port blast last August that killed hundreds and destroyed entire neighborhoods, Lebanons economy was already under enormous pressure due to long-standing political challenges and the Covid pandemic. Amid all of this, Lebanons LGBTQ+ community has been particularly hard hit. Social entrepreneurs like Tarek Zeidan are building a better economic future for Lebanon that elevates queer voices.

We are publishing this story on March 31, in honor of the International Transgender Day of Visibility.

Tarek Zeidan, CEO of Helem, says "We have to convince people that changing their attitudes towards ... [+] LGBT people is not a betrayal of who they are, who their parents were, and what our culture represents."

Zeynep Meydanoglu: You head-up Helem, the first LGBTQ+ organization in the Arab World. Tell us about it.

Tarek Zeidan: We provide services and protection to the LGBT community in Lebanon and the region. Whether it means representing people in court, getting them out of jail, providing assistance around domestic abuse, suicide prevention. Whatever it is, you call our hotline, and we're there to help you.

The community center is where it gets more interesting. Anyone can join Helem, as long as they respect our rules, rights and responsibilities. In the center, people can start all sorts of projects for and with the LGBT community. As an organization we provide the space, the resources and the technical know-how. Some of our best ideas have come from these convenings of people that come together and debate solutions to our biggest challenges.

For example, we have a committee of trans* sex workers. They prioritize their work around the communitys needs. Many of them want to start small to mid-scale businesses that support trans* people. Some want to learn computer skills because working online feels safer and it would make them more competitive on the global job market. Our job is to listen to their dreams and help to make them happen.

Meydanoglu: How did 2020 impact your work?

Zeidan: 2020 has been a hard year for everybody, and particularly in Lebanon, because of the political and economic crisis, followed by the pandemic; and then, of course the Beirut Port blast. So many of the things that we knew for sure last year are not necessarily what we know for sure now. All of a sudden, we have 40 to 50 percent of the LGBT community that has been plunged into poverty, into homelessness. This isn't something that we had six months ago. Direct aid, economic empowerment, workplace equality, and labor law reform are our top concerns right now.

Meydanoglu: Can you give us an example of how you are responding?

Zeidan: Growing LGBT inclusive businesses can boost Lebanons tourism in staggering ways. Its a multi-billion dollar industry that the government is not letting into the country because of their archaic mindsets. This is the kind of information and action our movement needs to have in our arsenals, not just shaking our fists in the street. That's amazing to break the ice, but if we don't also have a long-term vision, it's a missed opportunity.

Meydanoglu: You mentioned labor law as well. When does that come into the picture?

Zeidan: Before being able to change labor law, we have to change the behavior. Many people in the global North generally believe that law reform comes first, but in places like Lebanon, where the rule of law is contested, thats not necessarily the best first step.

So, we are starting by creating a critical mass of young, entrepreneurial LGBT individuals that are trying to solve problems on the ground. For example, instead of handing out food boxes for people affected by the blast we created a community kitchen, which can become self-sustaining. It also creates an opportunity to get people together to learn and mobilize, rather than just receiving a food box.

But if we don't also work on the labor law, were actually just throwing people into the jaws of the wolves. Workplace equality and economic empowerment for queer people is the carrot, but it requires shifting values in the workplace and beyond. Thats something even a robust anti-sexual harassment and inclusion policy cant do. A reformed and inclusive labor law can be the stick that gives queer employees recourse to justice. The amounts of abuse and exploitation of LGBT people by the private sector is astonishing, so we need to approach it from both ends in order to ensure prosperity and protection simultaneously.

Meydanoglu: How do you bring people along?

Zeidan: We have to convince people that changing their attitudes towards LGBT people is not a betrayal of who they are, who their parents were, and what our culture represents. Were retaining what's important in our values system, and were choosing to let go of what no longer is relevant to the times.

That's easier said than done but, for example, when it comes to accepting trans* individuals working with you in your company. Weve found that it is not simply about countering all of the misconceptions and the phobias that people have. It's also about the fact that people have no idea how to communicate with people that seem so different from them. Theres a deep anxiety there. People tend to hire people that look like them, that are from the same religious or educational background. This is really detrimental to a place of business, because were not prioritizing the work itself, were prioritizing people that reinforce our world view and assuage our anxiety.

So we as queer and gender non-conforming people bring ourselves to the table and engage with employers directly. Everything changes once we are face to face in the same room, because so much of the phobia and the hate is based on mythologies that feed on estrangement. We use what we call compassionate and courageous confrontation.We never use guilt or shaming as a tool. We recognize that people dont resist change, they resist loss. Paradoxically, queer people represent a certain sense of loss to those who oppress them. We help them see that by releasing old habits or views (like homophobia) they are not losing who they are. They can thus see that our community is not responsible for their sense of loss.

Meydanoglu: Have you found some surprising allies along the way?

Zeidan: What has been surprising is the amount of people who agree with us but have not found the space to express that agreement and support. The parameters of what constitutes support have been incredibly narrow. If your only option to support LGBT rights is to become an activist, the vast majority of people who agree with you cannot express their support. The more we diversify how people can come and join in, the stronger we will be.

Meydanoglu: What are some of these new entry points?

Zeidan: We've been trying to work with youth for a very long time, but parents were simply not going to let us onto high school campuses. So, we werent able to deal with critical issues like bullying or sexual health. Some of the most elite schools in the country are still doing conversion therapy on LGBT youth, even though the Lebanese Psychological and Psychiatric Association has banned the practice. So, how on earth could we reach the kids? The scouts became one of our answers. We are now able to reach the same kids through a different venue! Interestingly, our meetings and events take place in the basement of a church, because the priest who runs it wants to support queer kids with his actions even if he cant do it with his sermons.

All we have to do is find these people that makes all of the difference! That's how we've been able to get legal and security information to youth, as well as workshops on how to counter bullying and hate speech. Were helping young queer people feel better about themselves and make things better for others who share their challenges.

Meydanoglu: You bring up the Church. How important has it been to bring these large institutions along?

Zeidan: Engagement with institutions, like the church or our government is nearly impossible to do here. People may be privately sympathetic, but publicly won't touch this issue. This is not just about LGBT people, but about any controversial topic. Where we've had a lot of success is precisely in ignoring the top hierarchies and identifying instead the layers of power within them that can shift. For example, we don't talk to Ministers, who are political appointees. We talk to the permanent staff of each ministry. Senior and junior staff across multiple key ministries have proven to be very LGBT inclusive, so we've been able to facilitate funds and access for HIV medication, aid for gender affirmation surgery, access to social security and more. We did not need to go through parliament to make the lives of LGBT people easier in the short and medium run.

Weve also worked this way with priests and sheikhs. We werent trying to find people who would publicly challenge the church on LGBT inclusion. We simply wanted individuals who believed faith and sexuality are reconciled to come and speak with LGBT people of faith, to help them reconcile their own internal struggles. We started by addressing the problem that the community was facing, as opposed to the problem that we as activists were facing.

That allows these clerics of both Christianity and Islam to gradually expand and evolve their role into something that's a lot more political, in terms of their actual support of the cause. And it also requires us as a secular organization to change our own inner culture to allow LGBT people of faith a safe space, to be heard and to be seen, to organize and be part of the solution.

Tarek Zeidan leads Helem, the first LGBT rights organization in the Arab World, founded in Beirut in 2004. He was an ELI fellow at the Harvard Center for Public Leadership and an emerging human rights fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard. Tarek joined Ashokas network in 2020.You can follow him on twitter @tarekzeidan @HelemLebanon

Zeynep Meydanogluis the Country Co-Director of Ashoka Turkey, and the field leader of Next Now/Gender. Prior to Ashoka, Zeynep led civil society strengthening initiatives and contributed to Turkey's womens movement in organizations like TUSEV, KAMER and Purple Roof Foundation.

Next Now:Ashokas Next Now highlights innovations in areas ripe for transformation, including Tech & Humanity, Aging and Longevity, Gender, and Planet & Climate.This series sheds light on the wisdom and ideas of leaders creating an equal world for people of all genders. ReadPart 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6 of the series.

Excerpt from:
From Rights To Jobs LBGTQ+ Liberation In The Arab World - Forbes

(Incorporated in the Cayman Islands with Limited Liability)

Stock Code: 0575

30 March 2021

ANNOUNCEMENT

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited and The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited take no responsibility for the contents of this announcement, make no representation as to its accuracy or completeness and expressly disclaim any liability whatsoever for any loss howsoever arising from or in reliance upon the whole or any part of the contents of this announcement.

AUDITED FINAL RESULTS

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2020

AND

PROPOSED CHANGE OF COMPANY NAME

PERFORMANCE OVERVIEW

A summary of the financial performance and other notable events for

2020 includes:

Page 2 of 46

Page 3 of 46

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had, and continues to have, a material impact on businesses around the world and the economic environments in which they operate. The outbreak has caused disruption across our business lines. A number of countries in which we operate have implemented severe restrictions on the movement of populations, with a resultant significant impact on economic activity. These restrictions are being determined by the governments of individual jurisdictions, including through the implementation of emergency powers. The impacts of these restrictions, including the subsequent lifting of restrictions, may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. However, during 2020 COVID-19 has negatively impacted the royalty income from Recordati, as the royalty income for the year ended 31 December 2020 dropped by approximately 32.27% as compared to the financial year ended 31 December 2019, which is due to the cessation of activities by Recordati's sales representatives during this time and the fact that patients stopped visiting their physicians while "lock down" was in place. Management is closely monitoring what impact, if any, COVID-19 has to its liquidity and capital sufficiency with reference to our operations and capital commitments. Given the complex and constantly evolving situation of COVID-19, it is not possible to predict or quantify the financial or operational impact of COVID-19 on the Group's operations (note 15).

We have invoked certain plans at our offices in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom (the "UK") to help ensure the safety and wellbeing of our staff, as well as our ability to support our customers and maintain our business operations. Many of our staff have continued to provide continuity of work while working remotely. It remains unclear how this will evolve into 2021 and we continue to monitor the situation closely while at all times following local government guidelines and policies.

Page 4 of 46

With a streamlined focus and sensible capital structure, the Company remains excited about the future prospects for the Group and its shareholders and will: (i) continue to pursue the successful commercialisation of Fortacin/SenstendTM as quickly as possible, with the OTC roll out just commencing, as well as in the remaining key markets of the US, China, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East; (ii) commercialise DLI's Young.AI mobile App and the Young.AI website, together with partnering with clinics, laboratories and insurance companies by offering its AgeMetricTM reports and access to its online platform; (iii) continue monitoring its investments in Venturex and West China; and (iv) continue with its existing strategy of pursuing strategic and value-led investments in the healthcare and life sciences sectors.

CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT

2020 was a challenging year for the Group, together with the global economy, being dominated by the devastating global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had, and continues to have, a material impact on businesses around the world and the economic environments in which they operate. The outbreak has caused disruption across our business lines. A number of countries in which we operate have implemented severe restrictions on the movement of populations, with a resultant significant impact on economic activity. The impacts of these restrictions may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. It remains unclear how this will evolve into 2021 and we continue to monitor the situation closely. But we are ever hopeful that with the roll-out of the vaccines that we are now seeing across many countries, it will lead to the lifting of the restrictions from as early as Q2 2021.

Unfortunately, these issues, among others, caused the Group to implement from April 2020 certain cost cutting measures, including an across-the-board 30% reduction in fees and salaries of its Directors, employees and consultants, which reductions are continuing, furloughing staff where appropriate and implementing general and administrative expenses and research and development expenses cost cuts, on an aggregated basis, of approximately US$2.13 million when comparing with the corresponding period in 2019.

Page 5 of 46

However, I am very proud to report that the Group was able to perform very strongly in the second half of 2020, achieving a number of significant milestones, including the acquisition of Deep Longevity, a new and complementary business line that I am particularly excited about given its cutting edge approach to longevity medicine, a US$4.20 trillion dollar (and growing) industry, in 2017. I will report further on these achievements below. It goes without saying that the Group will continue to pay close attention to the development and evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on the financial position and operating results of the Group, but, all things being equal, we remain very optimistic about the direction the business is taking and in our ability to generate value for shareholders going forward.

Healthcare and Life Sciences Focus

The Group's healthcare and life sciences investments remain our core focus, and the Group believes that investments in this sector will create substantial returns for our shareholders in the medium to longer term. As part of this focus, we have worked diligently to further strengthen our relationships with key commercial partners and stakeholders in this sector, and in the second half of 2020 I am pleased to report that our team, together with our commercial partners, made significant progress in this respect per the following achievements:

Page 6 of 46

Business Development

From a business development standpoint, during the 2020 financial year, the Group continued to look closely at a number of acquisition and investment opportunities in the healthcare, life sciences and wellness sectors, including opportunities to enter into the longevity sector, with a particular focus on patented technology to help identify individual biological aging markers. This culminated in the acquisition of DLI in December 2020, which will serve as a key platform for the Group's expansion into the health and wellness sector, namely the emerging field of longevity medicine.

Page 7 of 46

DLI is developing explainable and user-friendly AI systems to track the rate of aging at the molecular, cellular, tissue, organ, system, physiological and psychological levels. It is also developing systems for the emerging field of longevity medicine enabling physicians to make better decisions on the interventions that may slow down or reverse the aging processes. DLI has also developed Longevity as a Service (LaaS) solution to integrate multiple deep biomarkers of aging dubbed "deep aging clocks" to provide a universal multifactorial measure of human biological age.

Originally incubated by InSilico Medicine, DLI started its independent journey in 2020 after closing a Series A financing on 29 June 2020 that included some of the most credible venture capitalists specialising in biotechnology, longevity and AI. Among these strategic investors are such well-known funds as BOLD Capital Partners, ETP Ventures, Human Longevity and Performance Impact Venture Fund, Longevity Vision Fund, LongeVC, Michael Antonov (co- founder of Facebook-owned Oculus VR) and other expert AI and biotechnology investors. DLI has also established a key research partnership with one of the world's leading longevity organisations, HLI. Under this arrangement, HLI will provide DLI's developed haematological aging clocks to a global network of advanced physicians and longevity research specialists and HLI will share the revenue generated from the patients' test reports with DLI. DLI's products, including the aging clocks and AgeMetricTM reports, do not require any licensing or regulatory approvals. The Apple App Store approved the launch of the Young.AI mobile App on 29 September 2020, thereby validating its technology and affording DLI with a huge scaling-up market opportunity. Like any other application or website, this is DLI's first version of its App and website, and DLI, like other App providers, will provide further updated versions of its App and website by ironing out any bugs and improving and adding products over time. Future investment will mainly come in developing new product launches (more aging clocks), improving existing products, social media/marketing and adding personnel. Utilising advanced deep learning algorithms, DLI develops novel tools for aging research that can be applied in many industries to make people live better, longer and healthier lives.

DLI is operated by Alex Zhavoronkov, as Chief Longevity Officer position, and Polina Mamoshina, as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Scientific Officer. In addition, DLI has an experienced team of scientists, engineers, and designers involved in the development of the web application, new aging clocks and automation of AgeMetricTM reports. We welcome the DLI team into the Group and look forward to achieving milestones and enjoying commercial success in the near future.

Page 8 of 46

Other Existing Investments

Looking at the Group's existing and legacy investments in natural resources (which are non- core and are the focus of its existing divestment programme), precious and base metals investments have performed very strongly and the Group's not insignificant exposure to base metals (copper and zinc in particular) continues to enjoy a recovery of note. While commodity markets remain volatile, there has been a noticeable shift of investment activity towards exploration and not just producers. We remain confident that on a fundamental basis, demand will be underpinned by urbanisation of emerging and recovery of developed economies globally. Since year end, we are delighted to see the significant increase in our investment in Venturex, which has significantly improved in the last four weeks and, accordingly the Group as at 15 March 2021 had an unrealised gain of approximately US$7.04 million and a marked-to-market value of approximately US$9.43 million on this investment, representing a 295% increase from 31 December 2020.

Outlook

Rising COVID-19 case numbers in the US and Europe make it difficult right now to envision a return to normal. Yet, even as the pandemic drags on, the global economy has proven remarkably resilient. Following a steep decline in early 2020, the world economy rode a rebound that began in May and remains on track to surpass pre-pandemic GDP levels by the end of 2020, setting the stage for strong post-recovery growth in 2021. The V-shaped recovery that many forecast during 2020 is now seemingly entering a new self-sustaining phase and is on track to deliver 6.4% GDP growth in the coming year. This projection is in contrast to the predictions of others, who forecast 5.4% global growth on a consensus basis and who are concerned that the pandemic will have a bigger impact on private-sector risk appetite and, hence, global growth. I maintain a more positive view in that consumers have driven the recovery, and investment growth, which reflects a healthy tolerance for risk in the private corporate sector, which is a critical feature to any self-sustaining recovery.

Moreover, unlike the Group's legacy investments in natural resources, the Group's healthcare, wellness and life sciences investments are far less sensitive to macroeconomic fundamentals and fluctuations and remain its core focus.

Page 9 of 46

Our strategy remains the same and our balance sheet has us well positioned to deliver on this. The Company has every intention of continuing with its existing business of investing in companies engaged in the health care, wellness and life sciences sectors. With the commercialisation of DLI's Young.AI mobile App and the Young.AI website, together with partnering with clinics, laboratories and insurance companies by offering its AgeMetricTM reports and access to its online platform, as well as the ongoing commercialisation of Fortacin across targeted markets, our progress with the NMPA and the FDA and ongoing discussions with other possible commercial partners, we remain tremendously excited about the future prospects for the Group.

On behalf of the Board, I want to thank our shareholders for their continued support and our employees for their hard work in another challenging, but rewarding year.

Page 10 of 46

RESULTS

The directors (the "Directors" or the "Board") of Regent Pacific Group Limited (the "Company" and collectively with its subsidiaries, the "Group") announce the audited results of the Group for the year ended 31 December 2020, together with comparative figures for the year ended 31 December 2019, as follows:

Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income

For the year ended 31 December 2020

2020

2019

Notes

US$'000

US$'000

Revenue:

4

Milestone and royalty income

1,212

164

Corporate investment income

108

464

Other income

371

94

1,691

722

Fair value gain/(loss) on financial instruments

5(a)

458

(1,035)

Total income less fair value gain/(loss) on

financial instruments

2,149

(313)

Expenses:

Employee benefit expenses

6

(3,258)

(3,924)

Rental and office expenses

(663)

(718)

Information and technology expenses

(159)

(180)

Marketing costs and commissions

(61)

(111)

Professional and consulting fees

(674)

(1,161)

Research and development expenses

(2,458)

(3,306)

Amortisation of intangible assets

(19,407)

(28,047)

Other operating expenses

(349)

(354)

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Regent Pacific : Audited final results for the year ended 31 December 2020 and proposed change of company name | MarketScreener - Marketscreener.com

If you live in one of Australias 5.9 million pet households, youll already know how much affection, humour and joy animals can offer. What beats coming home to the slobbery welcome of a tail-wagging woofie or snuggling up with a softly purring puss after a stressful day?

The unconditional love pets provide their human companions not only makes us feel good, its also physically beneficial. Numerous studies have shown that keeping pets especially dogs and cats improves cardiovascular fitness, could help control cholesterol and blood pressure, and reduces stress, loneliness and depression.

Increasingly, medicine is recognising the bond between pets and people as a powerful weapon in fighting disease and treating chronic conditions.Credit:Stocksy

Even taking other peoples pets out can do you good. Dog walkers, for example, can improve their overall fitness and stamina due to regular exercise, and are perceived by others as friendly and approachable.

American veterinarian Marty Becker, author of The Healing Power of Pets, says animals play a very important role in the function of our immune systems. Pets spend much of their time outside and bring all sorts of germs into the home, which isnt necessarily a bad thing, he says. These germs help to boost our immunity, which will then help prevent colds and other mild illnesses.

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But theres more. Just petting your dog or cat reduces the physiological indicators of stress, including high blood pressure. When you stroke your pet, which is something that comes naturally when theyre sitting on your lap, within a few seconds you get a release of positive biochemicals like oxytocin, prolactin and serotonin, Becker says. We now know that pets help reduce cardiovascular incidents and strokes. Both physically and emotionally, they are live-in life-support systems cleverly disguised as animals.

Increasingly, medicine is recognising the bond between pets and people as a powerful weapon in fighting disease and treating chronic conditions. In fact, in one survey, almost three in four doctors said they would prescribe pets for their patients health.

Besotted cat people will quickly tell you that their pets purring helps calm them if theyre feeling stressed or in pain. While we still dont know much about why cats purr, the frequency at which they purr between 25 and 150 hertz can improve bone density and promote tissue regeneration.

Another study, from the State University of New York, found that people were less stressed when performing a task in the company of their pet than when a spouse, family member or friend was close by.

See the article here:
Fitter, calmer and healthier are pets the secret to longevity? - Sydney Morning Herald

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Everybody knows what WAR is at this point. The 2012 and 2013 AL MVP debate brought it tons of publicity, and that was almost 10 years ago. While few people are able to explain the intricacies of the construct, I imagine that most big baseball fans can explain the gist of it even if theyre not a fan. Despite its flaws and all models in all the sciences have flaws it can be quite useful. However, its much lesser known cousin Wins Above Average (WAA) has its uses, too.

Ive mentioned the stat in passing a few times at my former home at Beyond the Box Score, but Im hard pressed to think of ever seeing a writer mention it anywhere else. The one big exception is the Hall of Stats, a fun site that evaluates baseball players Hall of Fame worthiness based solely on their stats.

Of course, nobody is arguing that this is the way it should be done, but its a fun, useful exercise to see how a player stacks up to the Hall of Fame standard when stripped away of our flawed human biases and subjectivity. You can say the same thing about Jay Jaffes JAWS system to a certain extent, but the Hall of Stats uses a different methodology that I find interesting. You can read all about it here, but what I found most interesting is there use of WAA as a measure of peak.

The Hall of Stats was started by a fellow former writer at Beyond the Box Score, Adam Darowski, who not too long ago tweeted out this fascinating tidbit comparing Fernando Tats Jr. to Omar Vizquel, the subject of a previous OTBB statistical deep dive.

That shocked me. I had to double check, and sure enough, its true!

Tats career WAA: 4.9

Vizquel career WAA: 5.3

Ignoring the fact that a rounding error makes it a 0.4 difference, how does a player with 45.6 WAR and 2,968 games played have only a slightly higher WAA than one with 6.9 WAR and 143 games played? Because its a lot harder to accumulate WAA than WAR.

WAR measures how much better a players is than a theoretical end of the bench, Quad A type player. WAA measure how much better you are than an average player. A 0 WAR means you stink, but a 0 WAA means youre a solid player! The difference between the two is roughly two wins. Someone who is a subpar player year after year will accumulate some WAR but will constantly get negative WAA seasons.

This is part of what happened with Vizquel. When you take a career 83 wRC+, with only a few out of 24 seasons were you were an average hitter or better, and combine that with a good defensive shortstop, youre going to get a player that is good at accumulating WAR but bad at accumulating WAA.

This is what I like about WAA: it penalizes compilers and players who pad their career lengths with bad play. Ken Griffey Jr., Albert Pujols, Rabbit Maranville, and Jim Kaat are a few examples of players who fall into that category. Pete Rose might be the worst offender here. In his nine seasons after leaving the Reds, he accumulated only 1.9 WAR at the cost of -12.7 WAA! Of course, he wouldve finished with only 3,164 hits had he decided to retire at age 37.

Im firmly of the belief that we should evaluate players longevity not simply by how long they played, but for how long they were actually good. WAA provides a solid measure of this, as you can see how many seasons a player had a positive WAA value.

To be fair, the big discrepancy between Vizquels WAR and WAA has less to do with his longevity and more to do with another use of WAA: measuring a players peak. This is the bigger reason for Vizquels huge difference between his WAR and WAA. If a player has a long career where he is mostly good to very good, but not great, WAA is going to hold that against you. Tats has been outstanding over his 143 games played. Vizquel, on the other hand, had only one season in his 24-year career where he had a WAR above 4.0 and a WAA above 2.0.

Theres no good way to do a search for WAR-WAA, unfortunately. However, if you peruse the JAWS leaderboards for each position, youll find that large WAR-WAA values were from those who played a long time but were never truly great or could never sustain greatness, played longer than they should have, or some kind of mixture of the two.

The most well known measure of a players peak is WAR7, which adds up a players best seven seasons by WAR, and is part of the JAWS system. WAA might just be another way to do that, but its use in measuring longevity compared to WAR is intriguing. Ill leave you with a fun fact: Out side of his cup of coffee in 1993, Chipper Jones played 18 seasons and never had a WAA below 0.9. The Hall of Famer had a long career where he never had a bad season! Impressive!

Read more here:
Wins Above Average as a Measure of Peak and True Longevity - Off The Bench - Off The Bench Baseball

At almost 2 centimeters, the queen of the Texas leafcutter ant (Atta texana) is far bigger than her workers. She also has a longer life span.

By Yao-Hua LawMar. 25, 2021 , 2:00 PM

A small room in the University of Regensburg is home to more than 50 boxes of black, strikingly slender ants. Native to Central America, the clonal ant Platythyrea punctata has evolved a trait rare among ants: It can produce daughters from unfertilized eggs. A P. punctata colony can consist entirely of clones, produced by one or two dominant females. That uniformity underscores a mystery.

What is really fascinating is that they are the same genetically, says evolutionary biologist Abel Bernadou, pointing to the 30 or so ants in a box, but depending on their jobs, they will have totally different life spans. Members of the colonys working caste, which nurse the brood, hunt for food, and defend the nest, die within 7 months, even when well-fed and protected in the lab. But ants in the reproductive caste, whose sole job is to lay eggs, can live 10 to 16 months.

To Bernadou, the questions raised by those disparities are irresistible. What causes some ants to live twice as long as nest mates that have exactly the same genome? And how can reproduction, a taxing effort that speeds up aging in most animals, make these ants live longer instead?

Bernadou and his myrmecologist colleagues at Regensburg are part of a small cadre of researchers who have turned to social insectsants, bees, and termitesto help unravel the mysteries of aging. Its a developing field that rarely features in conferences on aging biology, where the spotlight is on mice, Drosophila fruit flies, and the minuscule nematode Caenorhabditis elegansthree species researchers have probed and tweaked for well over half a century to learn what controls their life spans.

Many who study those species have yet to be convinced that social insects have something important to contribute. They think its fun and worthwhile to know the diversity of aging, says biologist Gro Amdam, who studies aging in bees at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and Arizona State University, Tempe. But they dont think we will make major discoveries in social insects that are relevant to their work.

In the western honey bee (Apis mellifera), queens (middle) live longer than workers (top) and drones (bottom).

But Amdam and other social insect researcherswho this month published a big batch of findings ina thematic issue on aging and socialityin thePhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Bsay they promise new ways to understand aging. One reason is that many social insects live far longer than the more popular model organisms. Honey bee queens live up to 5 years, and termite and ant queens more than 20.Drosophila, by contrast, has a life span of 13 weeks at most, andC. elegansa mere 18 days. If you want to know how to die quickly, then work onDrosophila, quips evolutionary biologist Laurent Keller, who studies aging in ants at the University of Lausanne.

Even more intriguing is the fact that aging in social insects is plastic, changing with social context. Few social insects are as homogenous as clonal ants, but in most, queens and workers have very similar genomes, because all colony members are offspring of one or several queens. Yet whereas queens seem to stay youthful through their long lives, workers age quickly and die fast. And within a colony, a workers job determines its life span, even though by and large all workers are siblings. Scientists can rush, slow, or even reverse aging in ants and bees simply by having them mate or changing their tasks.

Revealing the molecular mechanisms behind these strange phenomena may ultimately shed more light on aging in general, including in humans, saysmolecular biologist Roberto Bonasioat the University of Pennsylvania, who studies epigenetics in mammals, flies, and ants: Thats the idea.

Aging, or senescence,is a progressive loss of function and performance with time. It saps the individuals capacity to withstand stress, fight diseases, heal wounds, or learn new skills. But must we age? Why did organisms not evolve to maintain their youthlike vigor until theyre about to die?

Rather counterintuitively, scientists argue aging is the outcome of natural selection, which favors genes that help an organism survive to reproductive age. Once the individual has produced offspring, selection for survival weakens, which opens the door for injurious genetic effects to accumulate. Aging sets in.

The strong selection to survive until reproduction may favor so-called pleiotropic genes, which are helpful in early life but harmful later on. An example is theclk1gene inC. elegans, which is known to boost the nematodes metabolism. The gene promotes early reproduction and gives individuals a fitness edge over competitors, but shortens their life span by 40%, in part because it speeds the buildup of harmful metabolic byproducts.

Scientists have suggested organisms living in more precarious environmentsfor instance ones thick with predators or competitorsexperience higher selection for survival and reproduction early in life, at the cost of faster aging later on. This so-called extrinsic mortality hypothesis is often used to explain why animals that fly, live underground, or are venomousand as a result face fewer threatsalso seem to live longer and presumably age less rapidly. Think of bats, which live far longer than other mammals of similar size.

The average maximum life span for solitary insects is much less than for reproductive individualsqueens, kings, and some workersamong social insects.

Within social insect species, the life span of reproductive individuals far exceeds that of those that do not produce offspring.

(Graphic) N. Desai/Science; (Data) L. Keller and M. Genoud, Nature, 389, 958 (1997); Korb et al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 376 (2021); Kramer et al., Experimental Gerontology, 85, 18, (2016); Oettler et al., Current Opinion in Insect Science, 16, 58, (2016); Thorne et al., Journal of Animal Ecology, 71, 1030, (2002); Peeters et al., Insectes Soc., 47, 325 (2000)

Back in the 1990s, Keller realized social insects offered an interesting way to test the extrinsic mortality hypothesis, he says. Safely ensconced in their nests and guarded by a legion of workers, ant queens are assumed to face a much lower risk of predation and disease, and thus of dying, than insects living a solitary life.

Keller and his Lausanne colleague Michel Genoud collected life span records of queens in 61 species of ants, termites, and the honey bee, and compared these with adults of 81 solitary insect species. On average,queens live 5 to 11 years, whereas solitary insects live only months, they reported in a 1997 paper. Everything was as the hypothesis predictedand the paper kick-started aging research in social insects.

The field facesplenty of challenges. Insect queens and kings are rare, which limits studies sample sizes. And keeping colonies of social insects alive can be laborious. At Regensburg, evolutionary biologist Jan Oettler and graduate student Luisa Jaimes maintain 200Cardiocondyla obscuriorant colonies that they need to feed and clean several times weekly over the 6 months or more that their queens live. By contrast, to grow hundreds ofDrosophilamaggots into adults, you only need a bottle, premade fly food, and 10 days. One nasty reviewer asked why, since we cant get the numbers, do we still useCardiocondylaa tiny tropical antinstead ofDrosophila, says myrmecologist Jrgen Heinze, who has been studying the ants for 30 years at Regensburg. They cant see the benefits.

Lagging experimental techniques are a problem as well. In mice, scientists can document physiological aging in urine and blood samples; inDrosophilaandC. elegans, they can insert molecular tags into cells that show gene expression in real time. Such molecular clocks dont exist yet for ants and termites. Thats a problem because aging isnt always a linear process: Queen ants often churn out eggs for months or years without visible aging, only to drop dead abruptly. Without reliable and nonlethal ways to trace aging or physiological changes at the molecular level, comparisons between old and young individuals are questionable. If you have a 10-day-old worker, to what do you compare it? A 10-day-old queen? Or a queen that has lived the same proportion of its average life span? Keller asks. This is difficult.

A worker of the Indian jumping ant (Harpegnathos saltator) tends the brood. When members of this species lay eggs, their brains develop40% more of a type of protective cell called ensheathing glia, researchers have found.

Gene editing would be a game changer for these studies, Oettler says, enabling scientists to disable specific genes and watch for effects on aging. But it has barely started to be used in social insects. Scientists only created thefirst genetically modified honey bees in 2014, andtwospeciesof genetically engineered antsin 2017. Amdam would love to see transgenic technology developed for free-flying honey bees, allowing real-world experiments on aging. But beekeepers staunchly oppose genetic modification, which they worry could affect their colonies, and regulators are wary. The moment you say free-flying transgenic bee, its no-no, Amdam says.

One way to speed progress, Bonasio says, is to consolidate our efforts on one or two species so that more [molecular] tools are available to everybody. But Heinze says researchers should embrace the bewildering variety of life histories and aging patterns seen in social insects. There is no standard ant, he says; for understanding the diverse causes and effects of aging, plurality is best.

Despite the challenges, scientists are starting to link aging patterns in social insects to the underlying molecules. One oddity theyre probing is the link between reproduction and longevity.

In most animals, high fecundity almost universally comes with a quick burnout; red deer, for example, age faster if they reproduce early. But social insect queens buck the trend: Reproduction stretches their life span rather than snipping it. For example, a 2005 study by Heinzes team found thatC. obscuriorqueens that mated had life spans 44% longer than virgin queens (26 weeks versus 18). And thats despite these mated queens hectic lifestyles: They laid up to five times more eggs, and at faster rates, than queens that did not mate or were mated with sterile males.

Other scientists have discovered that procreation also extends the life spans of queens of other ant species, honey bee queens, and termite queens and kings. In species where a limited number of workers in a colony can also reproduce, such as theP. punctataants that Bernadou studies, those that reproduce live longer, too.

In termites, reproduction may blunt the impact of transposons, bits of DNA that jump through the genome, disrupting genes and, at least in humans andC. elegans, promoting aging.Judith Korb, who studies aging in termites at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, compared transposon activity in two termite species. In the species with sterile workers, older workers have higher transposon activity; in the species where older workers can reproduce, they show better defense against damage from transposons.

Workers of the Japanese termite (Reticulitermes speratus) cant repair oxidative damage as well as queens (not shown) and live shorter lives.

Social insects brains appear to benefit from sex as well. WhenHarpegnathos saltatorants, also known as Indian jumping ants, lay eggs,their brain develops 40% more of a type of protective cellcalled ensheathing glia, Lihong Sheng, a postdoc in Bonasios lab, reported in August 2020. A decline of these cell types is associated with aging in flies and cognition loss in mice. If we know what the ants themselves use to control the number of [ensheathing glia] in the brains, Bonasio says, it could point to similar mechanisms in flies, mice, and maybe in humans. (Bonasio is now studying the phenomenon inDrosophilaflies; the ants showed us the way but once I know what the pathway is, I prefer to do the experiment inDrosophila because it is easier, he says.)

A workers job can also slow or speed up its aging. Honey bee workers, for instance, start out as nurse bees that stay in the hive and tend to the brood and the queen. About 3 weeks into their lives, they become foragers that fly out to collect food. Various studies show that nurse bees do not age, but foragers do so rapidly, declining in flight performance, immunity, and learning.

Amazingly, that process can be reversed. When a hive needs more nurse bees, foragers can switch back to their former roles. When Amdam removed nurse bees from hives, foragers were forced to revert to their former rolesand they also recovered their youthful traits. Such reverted nurse bees produce more cells that mop up pathogens, Amdam says. They also regain high levels of vitellogenin, a multipurpose, Swiss knife sort of protein that regulates a bees changing roles across its lifetime and declines as the insects age. She has found that reverted nurse bees learn faster than foragers of the same age and that their brains have more proteins associated with cellular stress resilience and repair.

These job switches in bees dont only mean a new line of work; they also bring a different set of interactions with other members of the colony. Amdam thinks a bees social life plays an important role in its longevity. Social contact is also known to affect human physiological and mental health, and loneliness has been identified as a risk factor for cognitive declinea provocative similarity. Although scientists have yet to determine how sociality can affect insects life span at the molecular level, it certainly has peoples attention, Amdam says.

Several papersin this months theme issue of thePhilosophical Transactionsdelve deeper into the molecular control of aging in social insects. Onecompared gene-expression patterns between young and old individualsof six species of ants, bees, and termites, for example. The study measured the activity of two biochemical pathways, both ubiquitous in animals, that detect nutrients and regulate cell development. Scientists had previously found strong links between these pathways and life spans in flies and other solitary insectsbut not in social insects.

In the new study, however, they scrutinized parts and products of the same pathways that had been largely neglected in aging research, and found genes and proteinsincluding vitellogeninthat strongly associate with aging in social insects. These results reinforce the need to cast a wide net and study aging in many species, says Korb, lead author of the new paper.

Thomas Flatt, who studies the genetics of aging inDrosophilaat the University of Fribourg, is one of the researchers who has been won over by the promise of social insects. Flatt has been working with Korb, Heinze, and other researchers in a6.2 million project funded by the German Research Foundationto study the unusual relationship between fecundity and aging in social insects. The genomic revolution will eventually help the field take flight, Flatt predicts, and give scientists a much better understanding of how aging works across the animal kingdom. My dream is that we will discover stuff in ants that is universally important, he saysthings we dont even know existed inDrosophila.

Correction, 26 March 2021, 1:35 p.m.: This story previously discussed the creation of transgenic ants in 2017.They were genetically engineered, but not transgenic.

Read the original post:
What can ants, bees, and other social insects teach us about aging? - Science Magazine

In March 2020, COVID-19s epicentre was moving west from China, heading towards Europe: already the Italian region of Lombardy was being locked down.

Tan Suee Chieh, now president of the UKs Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA), was blogging and tracking the pandemic, needing to verify projections he was making on the number of infections reaching one million by early April.

He contacted actuaries he knew in the UK through LinkedIn. These included Joseph Lu, director, longevity science at Legal & General, and Nicola Oliver, a former public health specialist and epidemiologist, now director of life and health with the research company she co-founded, Medical Intelligence.

Tan also contacted Chris Martin, director and head of modelling at Crystallise, a firm specialising in managing and modelling biomedical data.

Nick Spencer, chair of the IFoAs sustainability board, suggested that Tan contact Stuart McDonald, head of demographic assumptions and methodology at Lloyds Banking Group, who was saying the same thing on Twitter.

Over the weekend of 7 to 8 March, the idea of an informal group outside IFoA emerged from their discussions.

It was quickly agreed that a multi-disciplinary group needed to mobilise the professions response to the crisis. The initial members were Matthew Edwards, Nicola Oliver, Joseph Lu, and Chris Martin, Daniel Ryan and Craig Butler.

The COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group (ARG) was first convened on 10 March 2020. Instinctively, the group knew that humanity faced a global crisis of epic proportions, and had to do what it could quickly, meaningfully, and thoughtfully.

Now numbering 12 members with a range of specialities, from actuarial to medical, the groups aim is to help people understand and respond to the crisis, and establish itself as a reliable source of information.

The aims are to learn, share, educate and influence, says Tan.

That, he says, was the ARGs objective. But, that this could also lead to the IFoA confidently finding its voice in the public domain, was Tans thinking as he prepared for his presidential inauguration in June 2020.

He says: COVID-19 is a tragic event of epic proportions, but it gave us an opportunity to unlock our expertise and revive our public interest role to address not only longevity but other related areas as well. It is a way for the profession to make itself more relevant and more widely heard.

The concept of the ARG as a group of professionals dedicated to studying the wider scheme of things, beyond the immediate area of its own point of view, is shared by other group members.

KEY POINTS

The ARGs target audience was originally the actuarial profession, but its reach has grown beyond expectations, says Edwards, a Willis Towers Watson actuary and longevity specialist. Edwards is also ARG co-chair, along with McDonald and Oliver an arrangement reflecting the groups collaborative nature.

Getting to know Tan Suee Chieh

Born in Malaysia and based in Singapore, Tan Suee Chieh is a true citizen of the world, in a philosophical and geographical sense.

Tan holds degrees from the London School of Economics and Columbia University, alongside fellowships from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA), Society of Actuaries (in the US) and Singapore Actuarial Society, as well as being a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.

As the current IFoA president, and with a high-profile track record in the insurance industry, he sees himself as an enabler in broadening the relevance of the actuarial profession outside the narrow remit of longevity statistics.

COVID-19 is not a black swan, but a grey swan, Tan says. How could we have missed seeing it?

But global risks are not restricted to the virus, he says: We see many inter-locking systemic risks. We have had the global financial crisis, the loss of biodiversity, climate risk and other events besides the pandemic all of this has increased because of globalisation, networks and societal emphasis on growth.

This all has an impact on sustainability, he says. Asrisk professionals, we have a public duty to help ensure the systems we live in are more sustainable.

Tans passion for psychology led him to take a sabbatical in 2002 to complete his Masters in social and organisational psychology and this has informed his work with the ARG. He says the debate on COVID-19 has spread to other social issues.

The zeitgeist has changed, he says. There is a range of choices as to how active actuaries could be in terms of issues ranging from economic security equality to climate risk, and these include the use of social media such as LinkedIn and Twitter.

He adds: COVID-19, climate risk and inequalities highlighted by Black Lives Matter are all relevant as they impact sustainability. As actuaries we cannot take action on everything, but we can take a more active and positive role in the public debate. This speaks to the voice and thought leadership of the profession.

The ARG has published over a hundred bulletins, covering not only the mortality implications of COVID-19 but also vaccine efficacy and approval, hospital admissions and R estimates from sources around the world. Bulletins are published on its website at http://www.covid-arg.com and on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Several of these reports have considered the medium and long-term longevity impacts of COVID-19. For example, a bulletin on the longer-term mortality and morbidity impacts of the pandemic examined the consequences of COVID-19 relating to:

Economic shock heavy reductions in GDP for the large western economies predicted by the OECD are likely to mean reduced government funding for health.

The physiological impact on severe symptoms survivors. These include lung scarring and cardiac damage. Such problems are set to be significant, on the basis of fallout from the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) pandemic in 2003 their prediction has been borne out with the emergence of long Covid.

Behavioural changes, such as in alcohol usage, smoking, diet and exercise.

Mental health here, isolation and extreme uncertainty, plus the possibility of unemployment, are likely to provoke mental health problems, for example, affecting an estimated 500,000 people in the UK. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was a common condition among SARS survivors.

The conclusion was that the sum of all four factors and given the impact of behavioural changes will probably be short-term is likely to be material and negative.

The impact on survivor mortality of importance to pension funds and life insurers is examined in another bulletin.

This points out that COVID-19 mortality is associated with risk factors such as obesity and diabetes that also imply higher normal (all-cause) mortality. One effect could be that the overall mortality of the post-pandemic survivor pool turns out to be lighter than before.

The bulletin sets out how this impact might be estimated. The example it uses shows that the effect is likely to be low, other than in subgroups with a high proportion of COVID-19 deaths.

Another bulletin focused on social isolation.Social isolation is associated with higher mortality. Several research studies are cited to substantiate this. For example, a 2018 Danish study of about 21,600 people found social isolation was associated with 60-70% increases to all-cause mortality.

However, there is no good research on the effects of mass lockdowns, rather than the individual social isolation that is already known (which may partly be caused by, rather than causing, bad health), and the studies looked at are more suggestive guides to possible impacts.

With much of the next year, if not beyond, likely to involve continuing social distancing and isolation in various forms for many parts of society, we need to consider the possible mortality impacts of such isolation, says Edwards, writing in October 2020. The onus of enforced or heavily prescribed isolation is likely to fall on the oldest, and this may have a material impact on longevity.

At the time, Edwards suggested a plausible scenario to estimate the impact of this would be to assume that 50% of the over-75s endure a long period of either formal social isolation or heavily reduced social participation.

He says research implies that scenario could lead to a 25% to 50% increase in mortality for one to two years for those affected. This would be equivalent to anything from an increase of 12.5% to 50% in a typical years deaths for the over-75s, although perhaps spread over several years.

Considering the effects of COVID-19 as a whole, Edwards concludes: We think its longer-term impact on mortality will be negative. It probably wont be the case that life expectancy declines. But mortality improvements will be lower.

There is a great deal of flexibility involved in the group as a whole, particularly in trying to avoid the need for unanimous decisions, says Edwards.

Its less about rules and procedure, more about mutual trust and competence, he says. Having said that, when you have a common enemy like COVID-19, its easier to have unity.

The group meets for an hour over Zoom initially weekly and now fortnightly to discuss the strategic issues and ideas, with, of course, frequent WhatsApp and e-mail contact in between.

Most UK members of the group already knew each other, given their leading roles in the industry, but Tan and other non-UK members have met only virtually for instance, Tan has never met Edwards or McDonald.

COVID-19 is a human tragedy but it may have changed the way we work and create, Tan says.

But he says he has now met all IFoA council members: Thanks to Zoom, Im meeting more people than ever.

Looking to the future, Tan says that one of the few positive outcomes of COVID-19 is that the ARG could become a model for bringing other strategic and thought leadership issues under the IFoA umbrella for discussion.

It is a bottom-up creation which can shine a light on areas of focus, he says. Other subjects may not be as immediately compelling as COVID-19, but are no less important. The ARG has been and continues to be a forum for ongoing work. It can produce measured, erudite and long-term output to give actuaries guidance and help them to learn.

The ARG has pointed the way for the IFoA to be slightly bolder and more imaginative in our public engagement, but always in a manner which does credit to the profession, he says.

In the short term however, and with the hope that the world is close to the end of the second wave of the virus, there is a more immediate aspiration.

We hope that were gradually winding down and the vaccine will make us extinct, says Edwards. Wed like to not have a reason to exist.

Read the rest here:
Perspective: Exceeding expectations | Features | IPE - IPE.com - IPE.com

It is unclear how old Mr. Burns is. Based on Simpsons canon and various clues throughout the series run we can surmise that Charles Montgomery Burns has surpassed the boundaries of human longevity. His vehicle ownership also gives the shows audience a fair idea that he is from a bygone era:

You there, fill it up with petroleum distillate and re-vulcanize my tires, post haste. from r/TheSimpsons

The Ford Quadricycle was the first vehicle developed by Henry Ford and produced from 1896 to 1901. It is a true Horseless Carriage that could hit 20 mph under the power of its 59ci two-cylinder 4hp engine. A two-speed manual transmission without reverse was paired with the engine.

In the season seven episode Scenes From The Class Struggle In Springfield Mr. Burns drives a Quadracycle to a gas station and says, You there, fill it up with petroleum distillate and re-vulcanize my tires, post haste.

Charles Goodyear came up with the concept of vulcanizing tires and received the patent for it in 1844. A part of me thinks that Goodyear and Burns were peers based on using antiquated jargon for tires.

Charlie Merz of the United States with his riding mechanic Harry Martin aboard the #2 Stutz Motor Company Stutz Bearcat racer during the third running of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race on 30 May 1913 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Speedway, Indianapolis, United States. (Photo by Topical Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images).

In season nine, episode 20 The Trouble With Trillions, Mr. Burns absconds to the airport with Homer and Waylon Smithers. Mr. Burns loyal assistant is behind the wheel of his boss maroon 1936 Stutz Bearcat.

The Bearcat was introduced in 1912 and was produced until 1924. It was right-hand drive, featured external .gearshift and brake levers, and had a 360ci 16-valve four-cylinder engine.There was a revival of the model in 1931and its run ended in 1934

At a price of $2,000 in 1914, $52,602 today, it was a luxury vehicle and would suit Mr. Burns. There is the slight issue that there isnt a 1936 Stutz Bearcat for Mr. Burns to own, but we have suspended reality in regards to his age and we can do the same with the year of his car.

At one time Mr. Burns had a drivers license issued by the Springfield DMV but it expired in 1909. Even if it hadnt expired with would been revoked or suspended after he ran over Bart in the shows second season. The matter went to trial and despite Mr. Burns obvious guilt in the matter the civil suit aspect was doomed by the Simpsons lawyer Lionel Hutz. The case was settled for nothing and we dont see Mr. Burns drive again for four-seasons.

In episode 17 of season seven Mr. Burns operates his own car but it seems that years of being chauffeured about has led him to forget how to drive.

Im sure the manual will indicate which lever is the velocitator and which the deceleratrix. Mr. Burns in Homer the Smithers.

A cursory search on Merriam-Webster indicates that neither velocitator or deceleratrix are words. But he conveys his point that he is not clear how modern cars operate and his not obeying traffic laws or common sense create havoc in downtown Springfield.

For the greater good of the community maybe its better that Smithers drives Mr. Burns around Springfield.

More:
Mr. Burns: Expired License To Drive - Art of Gears