Letter to my sons

Dear Sons,

Someone decided long ago to set aside a special day in June to celebrate dads. I'm not sure why they thought I needed to be honored for loving you. Being your dad is the greatest privilege in the world.

You're nearly adult's now. It seems like yesterday that I cradled you all in my arms after lulling you to sleep on my chest. I still try to cuddle you, but you're not as easily convinced anymore. LOL. Besides, how big you've gotten! Bigger and taller than me.

People tell me all the time that you're my clone, a bona fide me. If only they knew how proud it makes me to hear that. At the same time, it's terribly frightening that someone in the world has my DNA, along with the tendency to reproduce my quirks and frailties. Thankfully, mom's DNA helps to balance that out. That's the beauty of God's system. Two flawed and feeble human beings reproduce a blend of themselves in someone who has a lifetime to live life better than they did.

You're well on your way, already pondering hard questions and sensitive to deep insights.

I love that you are so strong willed. Even at birth, you wanted to enter the world at your pace, on your terms. So what that it took many hours! Mom would have to deal with it (which she did, I might add, with remarkable grace and enduring strength).

If there's only one thing I successfully pass onto you (besides 80% of your physical features, which, frankly, I had no control over) let it be this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and love your neighbors as yourself. These truths, combined with the strength of your character, have the power to change the world. Do harm to no one and respect all of life!!!

They're hardly original thoughts, but there are none better to build your life around. The God who fearfully and wonderfully formed you in your mother's womb deserves every ounce of your love and affection. Throughout life's challenges, He will always provide, never steer you wrong, and empower you to fulfill a destiny that's exceedingly abundantly above all you, or anyone, can think or imagine.

That destiny intimately involves other people. God saw fit that you would be born at a time when over 6 billion of them would share your world (with two added each second!). Leave your mark by loving each and every person your life touches as God first loved you: your future bride, your children, your mommy and daddy; friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and those you meet in passing; those who love you and those who don't; those who spitefully use you. Love attaches no conditions. It expects nothing in return. It gives freely and in abundance, only then to multiply and grow.

As you learn to love others, don't forget that your love for them can go only as deep as your love for yourself. Not narcissistic self-obsession (remind me in a couple of years to explain what "narcissism" is), but rather, an understanding that you are God's handiwork, crafted for His good pleasure. He uniquely designed you to be you alone, comfortable in your own shoes. Be ready to create your own path. Never will there be another James, Chris or Jacob. Never will someone else impact the lives you will as only you can. Imperfect though you will be, learn to appreciate your weaknesses, as it's in them that you will experience your Creator's greatest strengths.

James, Chris and Jake, strive to create a home here on earth that you esteem and want to share with others. A place of security and love, laughter and nourishment, where you can cry without fear, grow without judgment, and discover without prejudice.

I'm tempted to say that I can't wait to see what your future holds, the joys and challenges that await you, the legacy your life will create. But I'm enjoying you too much right now. Wither you believe it or not.

I pray you cherish your life's journey as much as I am.

Love, Dad.

Easter Island compound extends lifespan of old mice

These Easter Island monoliths have endured for centuries. New research suggests that a compound first discovered in soil of the remote South Pacific island might help humans stand the test of time, too. Credit: Image copyright Happy Alex, 2009. Used under license from shutterstock.com

The giant monoliths of Easter Island are worn, but they have endured for centuries. New research suggests that a compound first discovered in the soil of the South Pacific island might help us stand the test of time, too.

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Wednesday, July 8, in the journal Nature, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and two collaborating centers reported that the Easter Island compound - called "rapamycin" after the island's Polynesian name, Rapa Nui - extended the expected lifespan of middle-aged mice by 28 percent to 38 percent. In human terms, this would be greater than the predicted increase in extra years of life if cancer and heart disease were both cured and prevented.

The rapamycin was given to the mice at an age equivalent to 60 years old in humans.

The studies are part of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) Interventions Testing Program, which seeks compounds that might help people remain active and disease-free throughout their lives. The other two centers involved are the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine.

The Texas study was led by scientists at two institutes at the UT Health Science Center: the Institute of Biotechnology (IBT) and the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies.

"I've been in aging research for 35 years and there have been many so-called 'anti-aging' interventions over those years that were never successful," said Arlan G. Richardson, Ph.D., director of the Barshop Institute. "I never thought we would find an anti-aging pill for people in my lifetime; however, rapamycin shows a great deal of promise to do just that."

Versatile compound

Discovered in the 1970s, rapamycin was first noted for its anti-fungal properties and later was used to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients. It also is used in stents, which are implanted in patients during angioplasty to keep coronary arteries open. It is in clinical trials for the treatment of cancer.

The new aging experiments found that adding rapamycin to the diet of older mice increased their lifespan. The results were the same in Texas, Michigan and Maine.

"We believe this is the first convincing evidence that the aging process can be slowed and lifespan can be extended by a drug therapy starting at an advanced age," said Randy Strong, Ph.D., who directs the NIA-funded Aging Interventions Testing Center in San Antonio. He is a professor of pharmacology at the UT Health Science Center and a senior research career scientist with the South Texas Veterans Health Care System.

The findings have "interesting implications for our understanding of the aging process," said Z. Dave Sharp, Ph.D., director of the Institute of Biotechnology and professor and chairman of the Health Science Center's Department of Molecular Medicine.

"In addition," Dr. Sharp said, "the findings have immediate implications for preventive medicine and human health, in that rapamycin is already in clinical usage."

Molecular pathway

Aging researchers currently acknowledge only two life-extending interventions in mammals: calorie restriction and genetic manipulation. Rapamycin appears to partially shut down the same molecular pathway as restricting food intake or reducing growth factors.

It does so through a cellular protein called mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin), which controls many processes in cell metabolism and responses to stress.

A decade ago, Dr. Sharp proposed to his colleagues that mTOR might be involved in calorie restriction. "It seemed like an off-the-wall idea at that time," Dr. Richardson said.

In 2004, a year after the launch of the NIA Interventions Testing Program, Dr. Sharp submitted a proposal that rapamycin be studied for anti-aging effects. The proposal was approved, and testing centers in San Antonio and elsewhere began to include rapamycin in the diets of mice.

The male and female mice were cross-bred from four different strains of mice to more closely mimic the genetic diversity and disease susceptibility of the human population.

Dr. Strong soon recognized a problem: Rapamycin was not stable enough in food or in the digestive tract to register in the animals' blood level. He worked with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio to improve the bioavailability of the compound through a process called microencapsulation. The reformulated drug was stable in the diet fed to the mice and bypassed the stomach to release in the intestine, where it could more reliably enter the bloodstream.

Older mice

The original goal was to begin feeding the mice at 4 months of age, but because of the delay caused by developing the new formulation, the mice were not started until they were 20 months old - the equivalent of 60 years of age in humans.
The teams decided to try the rapamycin intervention anyway.

"I did not think that it would work because the mice were too old when the treatment was started," Dr. Richardson said. "Most reports indicate that calorie restriction doesn't work when implemented in old animals. The fact that rapamycin increases lifespan in relatively old mice was totally unexpected."

Added Dr. Strong: "This study has clearly identified a potential therapeutic target for the development of drugs aimed at preventing age-related diseases and extending healthy lifespan. If rapamycin, or drugs like rapamycin, works as envisioned, the potential reduction in overall health cost for the U.S. and the world will be enormous."

Source: University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

A CREED TO LIVE BY

Don't undermine your worth
by comparing yourself with others.
It is because we are different
that each of us is special.

Don't set your goals by what
other people deem important.
Only you know what is best for you.

Don't take for granted the things closest to your heart.
Cling to them as you would your life,
for without them life is meaningless.

Don't let your life slip through your fingers
by living in the past or for the future,
By living your life one day at a time.

Don't give up when you still have something to give
nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.

Don't be afraid to admit that you are less then perfect.
It is a fragile thread that binds each of us to each other.

Don't be afraid to encounter risks.
It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.

Don't shut love out of your life by saying it impossible to find.
The quickest way to receive love is to give love;
The fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly;
And the best way to keep love is to give it wings.

Don't dismiss your dreams.
To be without dreams is to be without hope;
to be without hope is to be without purpose.

Don't run through life so fast
that you forget not only where you have been
but also where you are going.
Life is not a race,
but a journey to be savored each step of the way.

MEANING OF LIFE

When compiling his great dictionary, the young Noah Webster travels to the Himalayas, where he climbs to the cave of the world's wisest man. "O, great sage," he says, "tell me the meaning of life." The sage sits Noah at his feet and, with great solemnity, commences to unfold the meaning of life. When finished, he places a hand on the young man's shoulder and says, "Do you have any other questions, my son?" Noah flips a page in his notebook and says, "You wouldn't know the meaning of lift, would you?" ~Robert Brault

!!!RAIN!!!

What is this? This wet stuff. OMG it is rain. I am sitting in my office looking out my window watching the rain. It is so nice. I just want to go back home and crawl in bed and just listen...But I have to make money so I will continue to just sit here and watch...