Breakthrough Monday #1

If you follow scientific, health or technology, you know that breakthrough findings and developments are being made nearly everyday. We are constantly learning new things about ourselves, our world and our universe. Here are four breakthroughs which will at some point change our lives:

1. Scientists confirm DNA holds a second layer of information.
“Physicists at Leiden Institute of Physics have confirmed a long-standing hypothesis, that a second layer of information exists on top of the genetic code in DNA. Leiden theoretical physicists have proven that not only the genetic information in DNA determines who we are, but also DNA’s mechanics. Helmut Schiessel and his group simulated many DNA sequences and found a correlation between mechanical cues and the way DNA is folded.”

2. Desalination Breakthrough: Saving the Sea from Salt
“A chemist finds a way to cut supersalty discharge and CO2 as the Middle East relies ever more on seawater desalination.”

3. Tiny lasers on silicon means big things for electronics
“Scientists have found a way to create nanoscale lasers directly from silicon, unlocking the possibilities of direct integration of photonics on integrated circuits.”

4. Early Puberty in Girls Is Becoming Epidemic and Getting Worse
“Girls with early onset puberty face a number of mental and physical health risks.”

“Girls with earlier maturation are at risk for lower self-esteem and higher rates of depression. They are more likely to be influenced by older peers and more deviant peers, and initiate intercourse, substance use, and other norm-breaking behaviors at younger ages,” writes Frank M. Biro in the journal Pediatrics. “The biologic impact of earlier maturation includes greater risk of several cancers, including breast, ovarian, and endometrial cancer, as well as obesity, hyperinsulinemia, and hypertension.”

Heart disease risk is also increased. - RB

Above figure caption: The rigid base-pair model is forced, using 28 constraints (indicated by red spheres), into a left-handed superhelical path that mimics the DNA conformation in the nucleosome.

A Better World for the Grandkids

Have you noticed that life seems upside down nowadays?
The wrong things are getting all the attention when the important things are not even on the discussion agenda. I mean, the tough questions are not even being addressed. For instance, for the first time in the history of the United States, experts are saying that our grandkids will not succeed financially more than we have. They may not even own their own homes or attain the careers they want.

For lots of perfectly good reasons we have taken our eyes off the ball. We had our lives to live... jobs to work... mortgages to pay. But today all those excuses seem pretty lame, don't they?

I mean, what kind of world are we passing on to our children… our grandkids?
Are we to accept that our grandkids will have less of life’s blessing than we have? You know, less of the important things, like:

• Fewer opportunities
• Less quality of life
• Less satisfying employment
• Lower life expectancy
• Poorer healthcare 
• No home of their own
• No clean water to drink

But more of

• Monumental education debt
• Plenty of roads full of potholes and crumbling bridges
• Failing dams and levees

The truth is we have not taken care of the important things. For years we have not paid attention to the details. The result is we have allowed underfunding or no funding of schools and universities; road and bridge repair; water and sewerage systems, and much more.

Further, we have allowed our politicians to ravage our public trust by privatization of public assets and services — where contracts have been awarded without effective controls, unenforced performance measurements of the private owners and no enforced imperative to create long-term value.

It’s likely that many of us won’t live long enough to witness the impact of all this neglect — but, our grandkids will.

Over the next few months we have an opportunity to make the system work for our grandkids by forcing the candidates for office to show us their plans to turn these problems into solutions.

Let’s do it for the grandkids.

Muhammad Ali The Greatest

"I am the Greatest," I said that even before I knew I was.- Muhammad Ali. 

June 1967 was an important time in my life. I had just graduated from High School and was going to enlist in the Army with two of my friends. I thought I had enough of school and wanted to do something else.

My father stopped me from going with my friends that day. He said, "Ron, your mom and I have never asked you to not do something you wanted to do. But, today we want you to not go to enlist. Please, go to college. Then if you want, enlist after you've graduated. Don't become cannon fodder for them, Ron. Don't waste your life for nothing. I know. I enlisted. They wasted millions of lives and for what? You'll see. In a few years we will be selling things to the Vietnamese and making money, just like we did after WWII."

June 1967 was when Muhammad Ali was convicted of draft evasion. He knew then that the war in Vietnam was wrong. He had been stripped of his heavyweight title. He faced five-years in a federal penitentiary and a $10,000 fine, plus three-and-a-half-years in exile from boxing... but not from the people of the world and not from history.

After the Texas Federal District Court decision (later overturned by the Supreme Court) he said, "I strongly object to the fact that so many newspapers have given the American public and the world the impression that I have only two alternatives in this stand — either I go to jail or go to the Army. There is another alternative, and that alternative is justice. If justice prevails, if my constitutional rights are upheld, I will be forced to go neither to the Army nor jail. In the end, I am confident that justice will come my way, for the truth must eventually prevail."

Years later, he said:
"Some people thought I was a hero. Some people said that what I did was wrong. But everything I did was according to my conscience. I wasn’t trying to be a leader. I just wanted to be free. And I made a stand all people, not just black people, should have thought about making, because it wasn’t just black people being drafted. The government had a system where the rich man’s son went to college, and the poor man’s son went to war. Then, after the rich man’s son got out of college, he did other things to keep him out of the Army until he was too old to be drafted."

My family wasn't wealthy. Mom was a nurse and Dad was a postman. Yet, I was rich because of their love for me.*

Ali will always be the Greatest.

*While in my junior year at the University of Akron I enlisted in the Army. I graduated in March 1971.

Feel Much Better Now

I feel much better now that I know who is workin' the dummy.* Don't you?

*Apologies to Paul Winchell and Jerry MaHoney and, of course, Alfred E. Neuman of MAD Magazine fame.

MAD Magazine cover, August 2016. 

Paul Winchell was not only a star entertainer, He is one of my heros, too, he was the original voice of Tiger!

About Those References

Odd about some things in life.

How some times you figure you might have a handle on something. But then it turns out it’s not the way you thought.

Take references.

Back a ways, I looked for references to check before I hired a person. I felt better knowing that the applicant’s references reinforced his job-related and life accomplishments.

Recently though, I’m baffled.

I mean … the guy on the left has endorsed the guy on the right.

Could be it’s time for me to rethink the reference thing. On the other hand, perhaps what really matters is who's giving the reference. So, now I know. It all depends.

For more about the "reference thing", please see: North Korean Editorial Backs Donald Trump For U.S. President, Charlotte Alfred, The Huffington Post, 31 May 2016.

You Have the Time…

Photo: totalwomenscycling.com

… To Change the World

Boomer generation people are among the first in history to live long enough to not only retire but retire in good health.

“We’re going to see something we’ve never seen before—people in their 60s, 70s and 80s who want to continue working and remain connected.”*

Youth may be wasted on the young, but now you have the freedom of “retirement years” to accomplish those things you wanted to do when you were young but put aside to make a paycheck, have your children and take care of your family.

Please consider doing something you’ve put off doing. You have the time, the health, the knowledge and experience to do it now.

Let’s make our world a better place to live.

Please go here for more.

“The aging of America is not the crisis that is often portrayed in the media or even in scholarly papers,” says Richard Johnson, an economist and senior fellow at the Urban Institute, in Washington, D.C, who, along with a growing number of social scientists, is helping redefine what it means to be old. The rise in cases of age-related illnesses such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and dementia is a real and urgent problem. But it’s not the whole story. “Today’s seniors are healthier, better educated, and more productive than ever,” Johnson says. “The challenge we face is finding ways to harness their talents.”

* Retiring Retirement, Linda Marsa, Nautilus, 26 May 2016

Why Not Try to Stop the Killing?

For me Memorial Day is about Peace. It's about most Vet's desire to stop killing. Please take a minute or two and listen to these New York Vets when they were arrested in 2013 for reading the names of fallen Vietnam War military. Please, can't we at least try to stop the killing?

NY Vets Make a Stand — One More Time
Veterans reading the names of New York citizens who lost their lives in service to their nation during the Vietnam War were arrested once again at the NY Vietnam Memorial. They refused to vacate the memorial after the 10 pm curfew on 8 Oct 2013 while they were reading the names of the fallen.

The vets said they refused to leave the NY Vietnam Memorial at the 10pm curfew for these four reasons:

• We are calling for an end to the Afghan war after 12 years.
• We are calling for an end to all U.S. wars of empire.
• We are here to remember the fallen.
• We are here to affirm our right to assemble.

They also said they were not trying to be antagonistic toward the NYPD.

Speaking to the NYPD policemen, one vet said, “It's important for you to know your government committed atrocities every day in Vietnam because some of you are so much younger and that history has been denied you. So, you just need to know why we are here.”

That statement did not stop them from being arrested for “criminal trespass”.

Please watch the video report above. Thanks to U.S. Air Force vet Matthew Adolph for sending the link to us. Matt is currently working on his degree at the University of Akron, Akron, Ohio. (Please overlook the ad which has been inserted by YouTube. You can skip it after a few seconds interruption.)

See more at:
http://www.encoreboomer.com/encore_vets.html#sthash.eYjpDeXb.dpuf

“It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again”
During President Teddy Roosevelt’s term, 1901-1909, Mark Twain wrote about the U.S. Army torturing Filipino insurgents and slaughtering civilians during the Philippine-American War. One torture the Army used was called the “water cure.” Our CIA used the same technique in Iraq and Afghanistan, But, it's now named “water boarding.”

“There have been lies, yes, but they were told in a good cause,” Twain wrote, ridiculing the government with his acidic satire. “We have been treacherous, but that was only in order that real good might come out of apparent evil.”

Not much has changed over the past 100 years. We are still telling lies, torturing people and denying it all. Oh, and we are still accusing people of betraying the USA, just as Twain was accused, because they are outing these repugnant offenses to humanity.

Candice Millard, "Looking for a Fight", review of Honor in the Dust, Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines and the Rise and Fall of America’s Imperial Dream, by Gregg Jones, New York Times Book Review, pg 13, 19 Feb 2012.

(“Déjà vu…” quote offered with apologizes to Yogi Berra.)

See more at:
http://www.encoreboomer.com/encore_vets.html#sthash.eYjpDeXb.dpuf