Young blood can reverse some effects of ageing, study finds

Alok Jha, New Orleans

It is rumoured that the late Kim Jong-il would inject himself with blood from healthy young virgins in a bid to slow the ageing process. Remarkably, the North Korean dictator might have been onto something. Experiments on mice have shown that it is possible to rejuvenate the brains of old animals by injecting them with blood from the young.

Saul Villeda of Stanford University, who led the work, found that blood from young mice reversed some of the effects of ageing in the older mice, improving learning and memory to a level comparable with much younger animals. He said that the technique could one day help people stave off the worst effects of ageing, including conditions such as Alzheimer's.

"Do I think that giving young blood could have an effect on a human? I'm thinking more and more that it might," said Villeda. "I did not, for sure, three years ago."

He presented his results at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans on Wednesday.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/oct/17/young-blood-reverse-effects-ageing

Just a Reminder, Ladies

Toon: The Schoolyard Rmoney

Toon: "Could you say that a little Louder, Candy?"

Krugman: Small-Time Mitt

From his blog:
So, I was amazed to hear Mitt Romney describing himself as having “come through small business”, as if his private equity firm were just like a mom-and-pop store or something. But Digby informs us that he made similar claims in his convention speech, making Bain sound like a scrappy little start-up. And it’s true it had only 10 people at first — that, and $37 million, yes, $37 million, in seed money.

Where did that $37 million come from? A large part from foreigners, in many cases investing via Panama-based shell companies. Also, funds from families of Central American oligarchs, who were sitting things out in Miami while death squads sponsored by their class, and in some cases by their relatives, were roaming their home countries.

Hey, doesn’t this sound like just your usual small-business success story?

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/small-time-mitt/

Toles Strikes Again!

Toon: Difference in Debate Reactions

Mike Luckovich cartoon: I have Binders Full of Women

Governing in the dark: Ottawa’s dangerous unscientific revolution

C. Scott Findlay

Most Canadians understand that our well-being depends on science. But Canadian science is under assault. And scientists, like Peter Finch in the film Network, are mad as hell. In July, more than 2,000 of them staged a mock funeral for scientific evidence on Parliament Hill to protest the Harper government’s dismantling of Canadian institutions that collect scientific evidence, the muzzling of government scientists, and the erosion of the role of scientific evidence in public debate and regulatory decisions.

The rally was covered by news media across Canada and around the world. Nature, perhaps the world’s premier science journal, ran a lead editorial on the event, concluding: “If the Harper government has valid strategic reasons to undermine vital sectors of Canadian science, then it should say so . . .”

Predictably, the next day Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear issued a hasty press release pointing out that the last budget included a $1.1 billion investment in science. Even the lay public saw through this embarrassingly transparent attempt to dodge the issue, which was about the gathering, unfiltered dissemination and use of scientific evidence, not about the funding of science writ large.

Even so, close examination of the $1.1 billion investment shows that much has been allocated to industry and commercial science partnerships. Meanwhile, the proportion of funding allocated to basic research, such as the budget of the Discovery Grants program of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, has been dropping steadily since 2006.


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http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/1269189--governing-in-the-dark-ottawa-s-dangerous-unscientific-revolution

Game, Set, Obama

ROBERT KUTTNER
OCTOBER 17, 2012


President Obama did what he needed to do tonight. He took the debate to Mitt Romney. He was relaxed, even jaunty, as he scored one point after another. He seemed to be enjoying himself at Romney’s expense. He looked more comfortable and commanding as the debate wore on, while Romney looked more stiff, edgy, and salesman-like.


Obama needed to remind voters that Romney is a very rich man out of touch with regular people, and he did that well. He got in Romney’s face and he got under his skin, but stopped just short of being overly aggressive.

You could tell right from the beginning that this was a very different Obama. When Romney touted his five-point plan to fix the economy, Obama responded scornfully, “Governor Romney doesn’t have a five-point plan, he has a one-point plan” and that plan is more tax breaks for the very rich who are allowed to play by different rules.

Obama was particularly effective at using Romney against Romney. He demolished the former Massachusetts governor's bogus arithmetic on the tax cuts, as Obama failed to do in the first debate and even a more aggressive Joe Biden did not quite do. And he used Romney’s support for more tax cuts for the very rich to remind the audience that with $20 million dollars of annual income, Romney pays a lower rate of taxes than they do.

more

http://prospect.org/article/game-set-obama