Could We Soon Find Out Exactly How Long We’ll Live? Scientists Accurately Work Out Lifespan of Worms by Analysing Their Cells

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Photo Credit: Science Picture Co./CorbisFortune tellers may soon be out of the job.

Scientists have found a way to accurately predict lifespan in worms – a breakthrough that could one day be used to predict how long a human would live.

The secret, they claim, is in looking at the bursts of activity in mitochondria, a part of the cell which generates its energy.

The findings, reported by in Nature, suggest that an organism’s lifespan is largely predictable in early adulthood.

Meng-Qiu Dong at the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing, China, added proteins to nematode worms that light up when they detect damaging in their mitochondria.

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Judge Reduces Unsafe Illinois Abortion Clinic’s $36,000 Fine to $77

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Photo Credit: APA Chicago judge has issued a controversial decision to reduce a fine handed down by state health department officials to an Illinois abortion clinic for violations of cleanliness and health codes. The judge reduced the massive $36,000 fine to a mere $77.

Cook County Circuit Judge Alexander White arbitrarily reduced the fine after the Illinois Department of Health (IDPH) conducted a health inspection of the state’s abortion providers in 2011. The issuance of the fine was immediately disputed and has been coursing through the courts ever since.

The IDPH cited the clinic for such violations as storing food items in the same freezer that contained containers of fetal tissue, filthy floors, medication dispensing cups filled with crumbs of medication, recovery rooms with rusted walls, and other filthy conditions. The IDPH report also noted that one employee was re-using discarded paper towels on patients.

Worse, the IDPH charged the clinic for failing to perform CPR on a patient who soon died in its care.

Judge White based his reduction of the fine on the claim that the owner of the clinic closed the facilities down and had only $77 left in the company bank account.

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Texas Teen Who Survived Skydive Fall Speaks Out For The First Time (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsMany thought Mackenzie Wethington would never walk again after her parachute failed to open, sending her spiraling 3,500 feet before hitting the ground. Nearly a month after the accident, she’s made major strides in her recovery and spoke to the public for the first time.

“I remember jumping out of the plane and looking up and seeing there was a complication with the parachute,” said Wethington. “I started kicking my feet like I was taught in the class and I looked up and it still wasn’t fixing, so I tried to pull the toggles apart and I just was not strong enough to fight off the wind. I just remember screaming and I blacked out.”

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Roker’s Forecast For NYC Mayor de Blasio: ‘1 Term’

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NBC Today Show Weatherman Al Roker went on a Twitter tirade Thursday against New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio over his handling of the snowstorm and school closures in the city.

Photo Credit: Al Roker Twitter Page

Late Thursday morning Roker made his own Twitter forecast especially for de Blasio, “Talk about a bad prediction. Long range DiBlasio (sic) forecast: 1 term.”

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Karzai: Afghan Release of Dangerous Militants ‘of No Concern to U.S.’ (+video)

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Photo Credit; APLess than a year after Secretary of State John Kerry expressed “great confidence” that U.S. interests would be protected regarding Afghan prisoners, President Hamid Karzai said Thursday that his government’s decisions on prisoner releases are “of no concern to the U.S., and should be of no concern to the U.S.”

The U.S. military regards some of the dozens of prisoners released by Afghan authorities on Thursday as dangerous militants and killers and warns they will return to the battlefield.

“Afghanistan is a sovereign country,” Karzai told reporters in a joint press appearance in Ankara with Turkish and Pakistani leaders. “If the Afghan judicial authorities decide to release a prisoner, it is of no concern to the U.S., and should be of no concern to the U.S.”

Karzai said he hoped the U.S. would “stop harassing” Afghanistan’s judicial authorities. “I hope the United States will now begin to respect Afghan sovereignty.”

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‘Waltons’ Patriarch Ralph Waite Dies at 85

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Photo Credit: AP/CBSRalph Waite, who played the kind patriarch of a tight-knit rural Southern family on the TV series “The Waltons,” has died, his manager said Thursday. He was 85.

Waite, who lived in the Palm Springs area, died midday Thursday, said his manager, Alan Mills.

Mills did not know the cause of death. He said he was taken aback because Waite had been in good health and still working. He appeared last year in episodes of the series “NCIS,” “Bones” and “Days of Our Lives.”

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Kentucky Gay Marriage: Judge Says State Must Recognize Gay Marriages Performed in Other States

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Photo Credit: APA federal judge has ruled that Kentucky must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, pointing not only to recent decisions that have struck down bans in other states but also to older rulings on a person’s right to marry.

The state’s ban treated “gay and lesbian persons differently in a way that demeans them,” U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn wrote Wednesday. While the case dealt with out-of-state marriages, it does not require the state to perform same-sex marriages.

Heyburn cited a long line of cases going back to the legalization of mixed-race marriages and mentioned recent same-sex marriage decisions in nine other states, including Hawaii and Utah. But he mainly relied on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling striking down a section of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, on which Kentucky’s same-sex marriage amendment had been based.

The judge also pointed to older rulings dealing with race and gender, noting that bans on interracial marriage, segregation and restrictions on women had been cited in the past as keys to a more stable society. But courts gradually did away with those restrictions.

“Each of these small steps has led to this place and this time, where the right of same-sex spouses to state-conferred benefits of marriage is virtually compelled,” wrote Heyburn, who took a seat on the federal bench in 1992 after being appointed by President George H.W. Bush with the backing of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, both Republicans.

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Media Double-Standard on Display with Nagin Corruption Coverage

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Photo Credit: NBC News via BizPac ReviewYesterday, former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was found guilty of 20 out of 21 counts including bribery and conspiracy. I’m always curious how the mainstream media will cover these stories. Hat tip to Michael Dorstewitz at BizPac Review for collating the “big three” responses.

ABC 
WORLD NEWS 2/12/14 
[6:42 p.m. EST] GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And back home, down in New Orleans today, a conviction for the former mayor Ray Nagin. He became a household name in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The face and voice of a city in ruins. But today, Nagin was found guilty of corruption for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and a family vacation to Hawaii in exchange for lucrative city contracts…

Not one of these reports mentioned Nagin was a Democrat. There was a similar pattern during the episode surrounding former Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. And as a matter of fact, how many of you remember former Louisiana Congressman William “Cold Cash” Jefferson, was a Democrat?

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Advance for Kansas Bill Allowing Denial of Services to Gay Couples Based on Religious Beliefs

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Photo Credit: John Hanna/APGay rights advocates are outraged over a bill — passed by Kansas lawmakers earlier this week — that would allow businesses and state government employees to deny services to same-sex couples if “it would be contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

The bill — H.B. 2453 — passed the GOP-led House in a 72 to 49 vote on Wednesday and now heads to the Republican-controlled state Senate. If it succeeds there, it could then be signed into law by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.

Supporters say the legislation would protect business owners and state employees who don’t agree with gay marriage from potential discrimination lawsuits.

“Discrimination is horrible. It’s hurtful,” GOP Rep. Charles Macheers said during a debate on the house floor. “It has no place in civilized society, and that’s precisely why we’re moving this bill.

The law, Macheers said, would put Kansas “on the right side” of history.

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Tens of Thousands of Connecticut Gun Owners Engage in State-Wide Act of Civil Disobedience

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On Jan. 1, 2014, tens of thousands of defiant gun owners seemingly made the choice not to register their semi-automatic rifles with the state of Connecticut as required by a hastily-passed gun control law. By possessing unregistered so-called “assault rifles,” they all technically became guilty of committing Class D felonies overnight.

Police had received 47,916 applications for “assault weapons certificates” and 21,000 incomplete applications as of Dec. 31, Lt. Paul Vance told The Courant.

At roughly 50,000 applications, officials estimate that as little as 15 percent of the covered semi-automatic rifles have actually been registered with the state. “No one has anything close to definitive figures, but the most conservative estimates place the number of unregistered assault weapons well above 50,000, and perhaps as high as 350,000,” the report states. Needless to say, officials and some lawmakers are stunned.

Due to the new gun control bill passed in April, likely at least 20,000 individual people — possibly as many as 100,000 — are now in direct violation of the law for refusing to register their guns. As we noted above, that act is now a Class D Felony.

Mike Lawlor, “the state’s top official in criminal justice,” suggested maybe the firearms unit in Connecticut could “sent them a letter.” However, he said an aggressive push to prosecute gun owners in the state is not going to happen at this point.

Read more from this story HERE.