Clearing the Body's Retired Cells Slows Aging and Extends Life →

I'm looking at a picture of two mice. The one on the right looks healthy. The one on the left has graying fur, a hunched back, and an eye that's been whitened by cataracts. “People ask: What the hell did you do to the mouse on the left?” says Nathaniel David. “We didn't do anything.” Time did that. The left mouse is just old. The one on the right was born at the same time and is genetically identical. It looks spry because scientists have been subjecting it to an unusual treatment: For several months, they cleared retired cells from its body.

Throughout our lives, our cells accumulate damage in their DNA, which could potentially turn them into tumors. Some successfully fix the damage, while others self-destruct. The third option is to retire—to stop growing or dividing, and enter a state called senescence. These senescent cells accumulate as we get older, and they have been implicated in the health problems that accompany the aging process.

By clearing these senescent cells from mice, Darren Baker and Jan van Deursen at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine managed to slow the deterioration of kidneys, hearts, and fat tissue. The animals lived healthier and, in some cases, they lived longer.

Obama to seek new tax on oil in budget proposal →

Congress has failed to raise taxes and tax allocations in line with increased costs of maintaining our roads, bridges, etc. Our transportation infrastructure is a mess. It makes a lot of political sense for President Obama to make a push for increased taxes now, when gasoline prices are low and falling, and a slight rise may be ignored.

The Rent-Seeking Is Too Damn High →

On Tuesday, a Senate subcommittee held a hearing on “occupational licensing” laws, which require government-issued licenses to perform certain types of work. Such laws have long existed for doctors, lawyers and others in highly skilled professions, but they are increasingly spreading to low- and mid-skill jobs as well. A White House report last summer found that occupational licensing requirements have increased fivefold since the 1950s, covering more than a quarter of all workers in 2008. Cosmetologists, tree trimmers and even interior designers need licenses in some states.

Defenders of occupational licensing typically argue that the rules help protect consumers and workers, and that’s undoubtedly true in some cases. I want the people filling my cavities to know what they’re doing. But it’s hard not to suspect that in many cases, these rules serve another purpose: to make it harder for new competitors to enter the marketplace. In Nevada, according to Politico, barbers need more than two years of training to qualify for a license; that’s a high bar to anyone looking to break into the business.

Economists call this kind of behavior “rent-seeking,” which is another way of saying “gaming the system to make more money than you’ve earned.” (A company that wins a no-bid contract through political connections is a rent-seeker. So is a CEO who gets a raise by stacking the board of directors with friends.) Occupational licenses are good for existing businesses, which face less competition, and for workers who already have licenses, who according to one study earn roughly 15 percent more than they would in a free market. But they’re bad for everyone else. Research has found that occupational licenses inhibit entrepreneurship, especially among low-income workers. They also raise prices, lower productivity and limit workers’ ability to change careers or cities. One recent study estimated that licensing laws cost the U.S. as many as 2.85 million jobs.

DNA Got a Kid Kicked Out of School—And It’ll Happen Again →

The situation, odd as it may sound, played out like this. Colman has genetic markers for cystic fibrosis, and kids with the inherited lung disease can’t be near each other because they’re vulnerable to contagious infections. Two siblings with cystic fibrosis also attended Colman’s middle school in Palo Alto, California in 2012. So Colman was out, even though he didn’t actually have the disease, according to a lawsuit that his parents filed against the school district. The allegation? Genetic discrimination.

Yes, genetic discrimination. Get used to those two words together, because they’re likely to become a lot more common. With DNA tests now cheap and readily available, the number of people getting tests has gone way up—along with the potential for discrimination based on the results. When Colman’s school tried to transfer him based on his genetic status, the lawsuit alleges, the district violated the Americans With Disabilities Act and Colman’s First Amendment right to privacy. “This is the test case,” says the Chadam’s lawyer, Stephen Jaffe.

Drone footage of a Syrian city destroyed by war →

Until recently, the Syrian city of Homs was the country's third largest, with an estimated population of more than 800,000. As you can see from this drone footage, The Siege of Homs left much of the city destroyed and its population displaced.

Are cities the new countries? →

The OECD raises the question about whether such cities are "now the most relevant level of governance, small enough to react swiftly and responsively to issues and large enough to hold economic and political power".

It stirs echoes of the long history of city states, like Italian cities during the Renaissance, with wealth and creativity operating within civic fiefdoms, rather than national boundaries.

What Bernie Sanders Has Already Won →

...With uncomplicated language and simple sincerity, Sanders has rallied millions of Democrats under the banner of “democratic socialism”—a kind of neo–New Deal liberalism, set against Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s attempted synthesis of Great Society policies and Third Way politics—and moved “socialist” from the realm of epithet to legitimate label.

Win or lose, that counts. It’s the Democratic analogue to Reagan’s 1976 primary against Gerald Ford—a sign of the times and of the future. If Sanders wins Iowa, New Hampshire, and the nomination, then he’ll bring (or drag) the Democratic Party to the left. If he loses, then he’ll represent the largest faction in the party, with the power to hold a President Hillary Clinton accountable and even shape her administration, from appointments and nominations to regulatory policy.

...

The Iowa caucus will make or break the Sanders campaign. Without a win, it’s hard to see his path to the nomination. But it means little for his legacy. Sanders is already a historic candidate—the first socialist in a century to build a genuine mass movement in American party politics. And whatever the Democratic Party is in the next 20 or 30 years, it will owe a great deal to Sanders and all the people—young or otherwise—who felt the Bern.

As W.H.O. Deems Zika a Global Emergency, a Look at the World’s Failed Mosquito Policies →

Behind the Zika headlines, there are underlying drivers of disease risk that are not getting sufficient attention. Climate change and El Nino have been mentioned, and – as with any pest and illness restricted to certain temperature zones – can be factors.

But most important is the simple fact that, after a burst of effective mosquito eradication decades ago, a host of countries (Brazil in particular) relaxed such efforts, and did so just as humanity’s boom in urbanization and global mobility got into high gear.

In essence, the tropics are not facing a Zika emergency nearly as much as they are facing an Aedes aegypti emergency.

This mosquito species thrives in trash-strewn, puddly cities, bites in daylight (limiting the utility of bed nets) and has long posed a peril by carrying a host of dangerous ailments, including yellow fever, chikungunya and dengue.

Zika is simply the newest globe-hopping hitchhiker.