Deleting Genes Could Boost Lifespan by 60 per Cent, Say Scientists

/0 Comments/in , /by

The secret of extending life by decades may lie in switching off certain genes, scientists believe, after showing that small genetic tweaks can make organisms live 60 per cent longer.

Ten years of research by the Buck Institute for Research on Ageing and the University of Washington has identified 238 genes that, when silenced, increase the lifespan of yeast cells.

Many of the genes are present in mammals, including humans, suggesting that switching them off could dramatically increase lifespan.

“This study looks at aging in the context of the whole genome and gives us a more complete picture of what aging is,” said lead author Dr Brian Kennedy.

“Almost half of the genes we found that affect aging are conserved in mammals. (Read more from “Deleting Genes Could Boost Lifespan by 60 per Cent, Say Scientists” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Hillary Clinton: ‘I’m Really Not Even a Human Being’

/8 Comments/in , /by

Hillary Clinton declared in a new interview that she is a robot, implying that humanity should despair and bend to her superior A.I. will by voting for her in the 2016 election.

The shocking admission came during an interview with the BuzzFeed podcast Another Round, in which an astute interviewer noted that the Democrat presidential candidate did not sweat during the interview. Other reporters and Clinton associates have remarked upon Clinton’s remarkable ability to not sweat, even when working the rope line on a hot Iowa day. “I don’t mean sweat because you’re nervous,” said host Tracy Clayton. “I just mean physically. I’m genuinely curious what your deodorant is.”

After some banter over the thermostat and the traditional One Weird Fact about Clinton (“The weirdest thing about me is that I don’t sweat”), BuzzFeed foolishly suggested that Clinton was a robot . . .

HILLARY CLINTON: You guys are the first to realize that I’m really not even a human being. I was constructed in a garage in Palo Alto a very long time ago. People think that, you know, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, they created it. Oh no. I mean, a man whose name shall remain nameless created me in his garage.

ANOTHER ROUND: Are there more of you?

(Read more from “Hillary Clinton: ‘I’m Really Not Even a Human Being'” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Freaky: Aspiring Vampires Enjoy a Blade-Themed ‘Blood Rave’

/8,511 Comments/in , /by

Terminal 5 was beset with hundreds of would-be vampires Friday night for a classic Blood Rave—inspired by Wesley Snipes’ 1998 film Blade.

Put on by BBQ Films and tied to the weekend-long ruckus that is NYC Comic Con, the Blood Rave featured a live action performance of scenes from the film, with ticket-buyers encouraged to dress the part of hemoglobin-craving vampires. Also adding to the ambiance was electronic music legends The Crystal Method, who headlined the evening.

But the star attractions were Blade… and all the (fake) blood. Just before midnight, a squadron of technicians suited up with body-mounted sprayers surrounded the crowd and, on cue, soaked the writhing masses with synthetic blood. No leather corset or bare tattooed back was spared as the ravers seethed with fanged glee beneath the crimson rain. For a few hours, it was truly weird and wonderful to see a sea of giddy daywalkers living out fantasy bloodlust.

When asked what it was he loved about Blade so much, one happy raver screamed “He fears nothing!” Numerous faux-gore-soaked attendees told Gothamist that they had seen the film and its sequels over a hundred times. (Read more from “Freaky: Aspiring Vampires Enjoy a Blade-Themed ‘Blood Rave'” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Here’s What Obama Had to Say About Rapper Kanye West’s Presidency Run

/1 Comment/in , /by

If you’re going to run for president, Kanye West, you might as well listen to someone who’s been there and done that.

“I do have some advice for him,” President Barack Obama said during a West Coast fundraiser featuring an appearance by the rapper. “Just some stuff that I’ve picked up on the way” . . .

“First of all, you’ve got to spend a lot of time dealing with some strange characters who behave like they’re on a reality TV show,” Obama said. “So you’ve just to be cool with that.” (Read more from “Here’s What Obama Had to Say About Rapper Kanye West’s Presidency Run” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

This Is How a Shark Attack Saved a Man’s Life

/0 Comments/in , /by

A man’s potentially fatal encounter with a shark saved his life, after doctors treating him for his injuries discovered he had cancer.

Eugene Finney was on a family holiday with his two children, aged 6 and 10, and his girlfriend on Huntington Beach, California, when he went for a swim and felt something “slam into his back” . . .

Returning to work in his home town of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, he struggled with back and chest pain caused by the attack and visited [the] hospital, Boston CBS Local reported.

Doctors treating Mr Finney for his blunt force trauma wounds then confronted him with the news that they had discovered a stage one tumour on his right kidney, around the size of a walnut.

Medics were then able to operate on Mr Finney and remove the growth in its early stages. (Read more from “This Is How a Shark Attack Saved a Man’s Life” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

This Is What Stephen Hawking Claims Could ‘Wipe out Humanity’

/7 Comments/in , /by

By Andrew Griffin. Stephen Hawking has warned that artificially intelligent machines could kill us because they are too clever.

Such computers could become so competent that they kill us by accident, Hawking has warned in his first Ask Me Anything session on Reddit.

A questioner noted that Professor Hawking’s ideas about artificial intelligence are seen as “a belief in Terminator-style ‘Evil AI’”, and asked how he would present his own beliefs.

“The real risk with AI isn’t malice but competence,” Professor Hawking said. “A super intelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals aren’t aligned with ours, we’re in trouble.

“You’re probably not an evil ant-hater who steps on ants out of malice, but if you’re in charge of a hydroelectric green energy project and there’s an anthill in the region to be flooded, too bad for the ants. Let’s not place humanity in the position of those ants.” (Read more from “This Is What Stephen Hawking Claims Could ‘Wipe out Humanity'” HERE)

________________________________

‘Psychic Robot’ System Guesses Intentions From Your Movements

By Devin Coldewey. If we are to have artificial intelligence assisting us in driving, working and walking around, it will need to understand not just what we’re doing but what we mean to do.Researchers, at the University of Illinois at Chicago have created a system that does just that, albeit on a limited scale.

By carefully watching the motion of a person’s arm, the system determines what the intention of that arm is — to pick up an object, for example — and can tell when that intention has changed or been disturbed.

“We call it a psychic robot,” said lead author Justin Horowitz in a news release. “If you know how someone is moving and what the disturbance is, you can tell the underlying intent — which means we could use this algorithm to design machines that could correct the course of a swerving car or help a stroke patient with spasticity.” (Read more from this story HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Private Database Lets Police Skirt License Plate Data Limits

/0 Comments/in , /by

For years, police nationwide have used patrol car-mounted scanners to automatically photograph and log the whereabouts of peoples’ cars, uploading the images into databases they’ve used to identify suspects in crimes from theft to murder.

Nowadays, they are also increasingly buying access to expansive databases run by private companies whose repo men and tow-truck drivers photograph license plates of vehicles every day.

Civil libertarians and lawmakers are raising concerns about the latest practice, arguing that there are few, if any, protections against abuse and that the private databases go back years at a time when agencies are limiting how long such information is stored. (Read more from “Private Database Lets Police Skirt License Plate Data Limits” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

The Decline of Play and Rise in Children’s Mental Disorders

/1 Comment/in , /by

Rates of depression and anxiety among young people in America have been increasing steadily for the past 50 to 70 years. Today, by at least some estimates, five to eight times as many high school and college students meet the criteria for diagnosis of major depression and/or anxiety disorder as was true half a century or more ago. This increased psychopathology is not the result of changed diagnostic criteria; it holds even when the measures and criteria are constant.

The most recent evidence for the sharp generational rise in young people’s depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders comes from a just-released study headed by Jean Twenge at San Diego State University. Twenge and her colleagues took advantage of the fact that the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), a questionnaire used to assess a variety of mental disorders, has been given to large samples of college students throughout the United States going as far back as 1938, and the MMPI-A (the version used with younger adolescents) has been given to samples of high school students going as far back as 1951. The results are consistent with other studies, using a variety of indices, which also point to dramatic increases in anxiety and depression—in children as well as adolescents and young adults—over the last five or more decades.

We would like to think of history as progress, but if progress is measured in the mental health and happiness of young people, then we have been going backward at least since the early 1950s.

The question I want to address here is why.

The increased psychopathology seems to have nothing to do with realistic dangers and uncertainties in the larger world. The changes do not correlate with economic cycles, wars, or any of the other kinds of world events that people often talk about as affecting children’s mental states. Rates of anxiety and depression among children and adolescents were far lower during the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and the turbulent 1960s and early ‘70s than they are today. The changes seem to have much more to do with the way young people view the world than with the way the world actually is. (Read more from “The Decline of Play and Rise in Children’s Mental Disorders” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Girl, 10, Kills 800-POUND Monster Alligator With One Shot From Her Crossbow

/1 Comment/in , /by

Armed with a loaded crossbow, 10-year-old Ella Hawk did not flinch when she faced off against an 800-pound, 13-foot alligator in Texas.

Ella, who has been hunting with her parents, Tony and Cindy Hawk, for a few years now, delivered a perfect shot above the scaly beast’s eyes, killing it on the spot . . .

In fact, the slain gator was big enough to rank No. 1 in the world in Trophy Game Records of the World’s database, according to the Victoria Advocate.

The 10-year-old had been preparing for last month’s hunting expedition by shooting her crossbow from an elevated position.

Once on location on the Guadalupe River, Ella’s training immediately kicked in and she quickly proved her mettle by felling the beast with a bolt to the head. (Read more from “Girl, 10, Kills 800-POUND Monster Alligator With One Shot From Her Crossbow” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

You’ll Never Guess What Burger King’s Halloween Burger Does to You

/4 Comments/in , /by

The scariest part of Burger King’s Halloween Whopper doesn’t happen until after you eat it.

Something in the burger’s pitch-black bun turns eaters’ poop a ghastly bright green — sometimes for as long as three days . . .

Not everybody was amused by the frightening after-effects of the Halloween treat, with some even vowing to never eat the burger again.

“Yesterday I had the Halloween Whopper,” added Daniel Rodriguez. “Today my poop is green. Yesterday was the last time I’ll have the Halloween Whopper.”

It is unclear what ingredients in the black Whopper turn stool such a haunting color, but a spokesperson for the fast food giant told ABC news that the bun contains less than 1% food dye. (Read more from “You’ll Never Guess What Burger King’s Halloween Burger Does to You” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.