Welcome to your Monday open thread. After the long holiday weekend I’m having a bit of trouble refocusing my mind. I certainly needed the vacation! How was your weekend? Did you avoid political fights with your relatives?
Reagan’s former budget director David Stockman has been speaking out about Republican budget shenanigans. He’s increasingly shrill:
While independent economists have shown these arguments to be false, today on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, President Reagan’s former budget director took on his own party for pushing this faulty logic. David Stockman, who led the all-important Office of Management and Budget under Reagan and was a chief architect of his fiscal policy, criticized today’s GOP for misreading Reagan’s legacy by adopting a “theology” of tax cuts. Stockman has spoken out before, but took perhaps his strongest stance yet against his own party today, saying “I’ll never forgive the Bush administration” for “destroying the last vestige of fiscal responsibility that we had in the Republican Party.”
I’m glad Stockman is speaking out but old-school Republicans are no longer important voices in the party. Where was Stockman in 2001 when Bush was pushing his disastrous tax cuts?
Do you all remember Dolly the cloned sheep? She died at a relatively young age for a sheep. The reason she died early, scientists believe, is because of “telomeres.” Telomeres are the “end caps” on DNA, which tell DNA how much to replicate. Since Dolly was made from adult cells, her telomeres were shorter than normal. Now scientists have found they can extend life in mice by slowing down the process that shortens telomeres.
The Harvard group focused on a process called telomere shortening. Most cells in the body contain 23 pairs of chromosomes, which carry our DNA. At the ends of each chromosome is a protective cap called a telomere. Each time a cell divides, the telomeres are snipped shorter, until eventually they stop working and the cell dies or goes into a suspended state called “senescence”. The process is behind much of the wear and tear associated with ageing.
At Harvard, they bred genetically manipulated mice that lacked an enzyme called telomerase that stops telomeres getting shorter. Without the enzyme, the mice aged prematurely and suffered ailments, including a poor sense of smell, smaller brain size, infertility and damaged intestines and spleens. But when DePinho gave the mice injections to reactivate the enzyme, it repaired the damaged tissues and reversed the signs of ageing.
“These were severely aged animals, but after a month of treatment they showed a substantial restoration, including the growth of new neurons in their brains,” said DePinho.
Of course, it wouldn’t be so easy for humans. But it certainly points us into a direction for research.