GRG Resources ...
Last updated on Tuesday, June 16, 2015

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• February 18, 2014; (The Scientist) - - Here's a curious photo of an apoptotic cell from an aggressive cancer line; as HeLa Cells die, they produce characteristic spikes and rounded blebs on their surfaces...
  

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  June 24, 2013; Brain Fibers: The white matter fibers of the human brain are tracked with Diffusion Tensor Imaging.
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  February 20, 2013; (The Scientist) - - Neural pathways form a mesh, with yellow representing language and connecting the frontal lobe on the Left to the temporal lobe on the Right, and the purple curlicue representing Broca's Area that has the job of coordinating speech (tongue, lips, throat, vocal folds, and diaphragm muscles).
  Click on the photos above for more details on the Human Connectome Project. One of the key participants is LONI (Laboratory of Neural Imaging) at UCLA and now USC.

Note: Prof. Arthur W. Toga, Ph.D. left UCLA with his team to join the USC Keck School of Medicine last September 2013.

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  Thursday, November 14, 2013; At Stanford University's Department of Physiology, Prof. Stephen J. Smith has been working on a new technique for high resolution scanning of the mouse brain called Array Tomography . He and his team have created a new YouTube video called "Machinery of the Mind" (TRT = 2:18 min.) with Introductory MRI Data from Brookhaven National Lab that was set to spooky music (by Catherine Rose Smith) intended presumably to emulate the buzz of the EEG (from all the synapses firing, whether awake or asleep). Remember, there are no sounds in outer space despite the swishing sound you hear when a rocket ship blasts away from a space station in Sci-Fi movies, nor is there music going on in the brain when synapses are firing. Nevertheless, you are led through multiple layers of cortex panoramically from top to bottom. The complexity of what you're looking at is really scary if you originally thought that the brain was a simple textbook model of neurons connected like the computer simulations of neural networks from good old days (1990's). As you can now see, there are thousands of dendrites connecting axons, not just a dozen or so. Click on the photo above to watch the video at The-scientist.com/Cortex-Tour.
  Additional clips are available at Smith Lab.

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Sunday, March 17, 2013; Click for details of a A brain scan of white matter fibers, color-coded by direction.
(Courtesy of the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at UCLA and Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at MGH September 5, 2012)
• Friday, November 30, 2012; Click for a series of nine one-hour lectures entitled "Introduction to Gerontology," video recorded by the UCLA Office of Instructional Development (OID) Chem-19-2.
• Thursday, October 4, 2012; 4:00 PM PDT; Click for a short, extraordinary video-clip of mitosis in a Drosophila S2 cell expressing GFP-Ndc80, GFP-gamma tubulin, and mCherry alpha tubulin. Time lapse photography images were recorded at 60 second intervals using a spinning disc confocal microscope on a Nikon TE-200 stand with a 100x 1.4 NA Plan APO DIC objective lens and recorded with a Hamamatsu Orca-ER CCD camera. Note the oscillations of the Mitotic Spindle Apparatus at the end of Metaphase but before the rapid sister-chromatid separation occurs in Anaphase. This requires both a forward and a reverse kinase protein infrastructure. Why does Nature need such an expensive pulley system? Is it to ensure that all chromosomes are connected to their own tubule before there is a "go" signal to start sister-chromatid separation? One wonders why eukaryotic cells evolved so as to do this at all, and why it works so often without pathological trisomies. A single non-synonymous mutation in one of the kinekore- protein genes would be lethal, since they are on the critical path for all mitotic divisions.
• Wednesday, September 12, 2012; 3:00 PM EDT; Click for a presentation at NIA/NIH in Bethesda, MD, entitled Is Aging Reversible? Resetting the Clock by Prof. Thomas Rando, M.D., Ph.D. of Stanford University School of Medicine (TRT = 62:40 min).
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  A nerve ending that has been broken open (and stained) to reveal the synaptic vesicles inside.

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The Candida Diet.

• July 25, 2012; Click for Glybera, a newly-approved in Europe gene therapy for LPL, a Lipoprotein disorder, with a beautifully-done animation of the general process of genetic engineering.
August 1, 2012; Click for three PBS-TV videos by Ray Kurzweil on the prospect for immortality in our life times..
• July 17, 2012; Click for the US Genome Institute's current cost of DNA sequencing www.genome.gov/sequencingcosts
• July 20, 2012; Click for a comparison of next generation sequencers.
• July 16, 2012; Click for a view of smart nanoparticles destroying a blood clot at Harvard University. (TRT = 19 sec.)
• June 12, 2012; Click for an Australian animaiton on the subject of Synthetic Biology (TRT = 6:36 min.).
• April 26, 2012; Click for a Flash Animation of Scope of the Universe , a video assembled by a pair of 14 yo twin brothers; TRT = 6:25 min. This animation will give students of gerontology a feeling for the vast dynamic range {from atoms and molecules to organelles, cells, tissues, organs, subsystems, and our largest Earthly creatures, whales} about 10 orders of magnitude, in which Darwinian stochastic processes have been operating on our relatively undistinguished planet for more than five billion years. Aging and senescence can take place at any one of the ten levels.
• May 12, 2012; Click for a "History of the Universe" compressed into one year . Interesting things from our point of view don't happen until the last second of the last hour of the last day of the last month.
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• May 12, 2012; Click for a scan of a small portion of a mouse brain , in a false-colorized video (to the accompaniment of classical music) that reveals the complexity of the mammalian brain in unprecedented detail (as published by Stephen Smith of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University in the journal Neuron (2010). (TRT = 4:26 min.)
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• May 18, 2012; Click for a zooming-out video animation from the The Human Brain Project, with random clusters of synapses firing (but this time without accompanying of music). It also reveals the complexity of a hypothetical mammalian brain in unprecedented detail. (TRT = 1:33 min.)
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• April 12, 2010; Click for the Folate Newsletter by Karlis Ullis, M.D. and Critiana Paul, M.S. in Nutrution
• Click for "In Pursuit of the Longevity Dividend: What Should We Be Doing To Prepare for the Unprecedented Aging of Humanity?" by S. Jay Olshansky, Ph.D., Daniel Perry, Richard A. Miller, M.D., Ph.D., and Robert N. Butler, M.D.; The Scientist (March 2006).
• Click for a Letter-to-the-Editor in Science on Anti-Aging Medicine published in the April 26, 2002 issue. Most of the seven co-authors are active members of the GRG.
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  Click on either of the photos above for 41 PowerPoint slides on "The Secrets of the Oldest Old". [Microsoft browser Internet Explorer ver. 7.0.6 or above preferred.] This presentation was given by L. Stephen Coles at the SENS-3 Conference at Queen's College, Cambridge University; UK on Thursday, September 6, 2007; [3:35 3:50] PM GMT.


• Prof. Kathrin Plath's PowerPoint Slides in PDF format on the topic of "Reprogramming Somatic Mouse Cells to Form Pluripotent Stem Cells without Embryos."

• Click for Jon Eisenberg's Chart entitled, Philanthropy Roundtable, revealing the inter-relationships among the various funding sources who facilitated Florida state and Federal lawsuits for the Schindler family on behalf of maintaining Ms. Terri Schiavo on life support indefinitely and, in particular, by not removing her feeding tube on the grounds that she was in a potentially reversible long-term coma and not in an irreversible Persistent Vegetative State (PVS) (with no sign of a cortical EEG). (There is an intriguing intersection between this Chart and the funding of a lawsuit opposing the implementation of California Prop. 71 on Stem Cells in the Superior Court of Alameda County.) Three recent books on the topic of Ms. Schiavo are as follows:
  
  1. Jon Eisenberg, Using Terri: The Religious Right's Conspiracy to Take Away Our Rights (Hardcover; 288 pages; ISBN: 0060877324; Harper, San Francisco, CA; 2005; $15.72 on Amazon.com).
  Comment: "If you care about preserving your right to control how you die this book will prove to be vital reading." -- Prof. Arthur Caplan, The Emanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics, Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics, and Director, Center for Bioethics University of Pennsylvania.
  
  2. Michael Schiavo and Michael Hirsh Terri: The Truth (Hardcover; 384 pages; ISBN: 0525949461; Dutton Adult, New York; 2006; $15.72 on Amazon.com).
  
  3. Mary and Robert Schindler, Bobby Schindler, Terri's Family, and Suzanne Schindler Vitadamo, A Life That Matters: The Legacy of Terri Schiavo -- A Lesson for Us All, (Hardcover, 272 pages; ISBN: 0446579874; Warner Books, New York; 2006; $15.57 on Amazon.com).




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  Click on either of the photos above to review the 29 PowerPoint slides of the Autopsy of California Supercentenarian, Mr. George Johnson, 112 yo World War I Veteran performed at the Palo Alto VA Hospital, presented by L. Stephen Coles at Noon on Saturday, November 11th at The Age Management Medicine Conference at the Red Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV.

• Click to view the 28 PowerPoint slides presented by Prof. S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois at the Longevity Dividend Conference on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 at 11:30 AM EDT at the Hart Senate Office Bldg. in Washington, D.C. sponsored by The Alliance for Aging Research to an audience of about 60 persons. Jay made it clear that, although he believes that stopping or reversing human aging is still practically impossible, he and some of his colleagues now endorse the prospect of slowing the aging process through various types of medical interventions. Jay and the next speaker, Prof. Leonard Guarente of MIT, addressed the topic of "How Soon before Science Can Slow Aging and at What Cost?"

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  Click on the photo of the King Frederick II's Palace [1296 - 1336] above (which is the oldest building still standing in Palermo with its original Roman arches preserved inside) to review the 39 PowerPoint slides now containing photos taken at The Third International Conference on Functional Genomics and Aging, [March 29th - April 1st] in Polermo, Sicily; ITALY on the topic of "Why Supercentenarians Live So Long?" by L. Stephen Coles.

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  Click on the photo of Jay P. Sharma, CEO of Celprogen, Inc. for the 23 PowerPoint slides from our January 2006 LA-GRG Guest Lecture at UCLA on "Synchronized Contraction of Differentiated Cardiomyocyte Stem Cells Derived from Tissue Culture."
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  Click on the photo of Dr. Jennifer R. Berman, M.D. for her 47 PowerPoint slides from our February 2006 LA-GRG Guest Lecture at UCLA on "Female Sexual Medicine."
• Click for our recommended list of legitimate studies, published in reputable peer-reviewed scientific journals by established researchers, that employ the term Anti-Aging" to describe the attempted postponement of chronic age-related diseases.
• Catalog of Journals on Aging from Rutgers University
• Chapter 1 -- Introduction to a new book by Henry J. Aaron and William B. Schwartz, Eds. entitled Coping with Methuselah: The Impact of Molecular Biology on Medicine and Society in pdf format. This is a very well written text published by the Brookings Institution ( ISBN: 0815700407; 2004).
• Science Magazine article on the "Genetics of Aging" by C. E.Finch and R. E. Tanzi
• JAMA article (Vol. 278. No. 16, pp. 1345-1348; October 22/29, 1997) on "Telomeres, Cancer, and Aging: Altering the Human Life Span" by Dwayne A. Banks, Ph.D. and Michael Fossel, M.D., Ph.D.
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  Click on the photo for 121 PowerPoint slides taken from the presentation on Bioethics for Anti-Aging Medicine by L. Stephen Coles, M.D., Ph.D. presented at the 2nd Annual East-Coast Primedia Anti-Aging Conference held at the Palm Beach Convention Center in Palm Beach, FL on Saturday Morning, November 19, 2005; [8:45 - 10:15] AM EST). The audio and video clips linked to the PowerPoint slides have been deleted to conserve on bandwidth. A full VHS Video Tape is available upon request. Click to obtain your free copy of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute DVD on "Ethics in Biomedical Research."
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  Click on Stan's photo for the PowerPoint slides on the Supercentenarian Research Foundation by Stanley Primmer, Elliot Bergman, and L. Stephen Coles presented at the 34th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Aging Association (AGE) in Oakland, CA (Saturday, June 3, 2005 [5:30 - 6:30] PM PDT).
• Click for the text that goes with these slides.
• Position Paper on Human Therapeutic Cloning by L. Stephen Coles (65 pages; April 15, 2002)
• CoEnzyme Q-10, Lifespan Extension, and Oral Supplementation Problems" a 38-slide PowerPoint-Presentation by Dr. Steven B. Harris, M.D. presented to the GRG at UCLA on Monday night, April 11, 2005.
• 77-slide PowerPoint-Presentation (but without video clips) of Dr. Stephen Coles's talk on "Ethical Challenges in Anti-Aging Research -- Profits vs. Science" presented on Tuesday, March 16, 2004 at a Noon-time Seminar on Medicine, Ethics, and Human Values at the Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center (best viewed in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or greater). Click on the photo for the slides.
• 90-slide PowerPoint-Presentation (including background slides but, due to bandwidth limitations, without audio or ten video clips) from Dr. Stephen Coles's talk on "What Can We Learn from Supercentenarians? The Implications for Human Longevity" the first part of which was presented on October 31, 2004 at the 12th Congress of the Anti-Aging Medicine at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas (Revised on November 24, 2004).
  There is also a 44-slide PowerPoint Presentation entitled "Nutritional Supplements: The Scientific Data" that was presented in San Francisco on September 29, 2002 (revised on September 17, 2004 and November 10, 2004). In particular, in Slide 18 regarding Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), we have withdrawn our prior recommendation of [400 - 800] iu qd based on a report from Johns Hopkins of increased mortality of 5 percent at these higher doses. We now recommend only 150 iu qd.
  
  Furthermore, on April 20, 2005, the US Department of Agriculture has issued a new Food Pyramid. If you click on the icon above, you can link to a much larger poster-quality version (in pdf format) that can then be printed out on a color printer for wall mounting.
  The new pyramid is actually 12 different pyramids indexed by age, gender, and level of physical exercise on a typical day that needs to be customized for each subject at the USDA website.
  
  The two presentations above taken together replace slides from four previous talks as follows:
  (1) a Symposium on Anti-Aging Skin in May 2001 in San Diego;
  (2) "Ten Unsolved Problems in Anti-Aging Medicine" presented on December 15, 2001 at the annual A4M Conference in Las Vegas;
  (3) "Why Do Centenarians Live So Long?" presented at the Longevity Boot Camp on April 27, 2002 in Las Vegas, and
  (4) a talk given at the Annual Plastic Surgery Conference on May 27, 2002 in Rancho Mirage.
  
  (These presentations can at last be viewed in either Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6.0.2 or Netscape Navigator 7.2 or greater. It was not always the case that the Netscape browser could show PowerPoint slides in html format.)


• 59 PowerPoint Slide Presentation "The 90+ Study: A Population-based Study of the Oldest Old" by Prof. Maria M. Corrada of the University of California at Irvine given at the UCLA LA-GRG Meeting on Monday, August 9, 2004. (Best viewed in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher)
• 84 PowerPoint-Slide Presentation "Overview of Concepts in Anti-Aging Medicine" by Brian M. Kinney, M.D. presented at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons Annual Meeting in Rancho Mirage, California on Memorial Day, May 27, 2002 (Best viewed in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 )
• 17 PowerPoint Slide Presentation "Problems with the Theory of SuperCentenarians" by Mr. Robert Young presented at Supercentarian Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia on May 8, 2002 (Best viewed in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 )
• 64 PowerPoint Slide Presentation of Dr. Karlis Ullis's Talk on Sex Hormones in Aging Skin in San Diego on May 18, 2001 (Best viewed in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 )
• 38 PowerPoint Slide Presentation of Stephen Coles's O2SA Talk in Maui, Hawaii on April 3, 2001 (Best viewed in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 )
• Chapter 48 "Epidemiology of Antioxidants in Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease;" by Dr. L. Stephen Coles in SECTION 7 EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INTERVENTION STUDIES of the new textbook Oxidative Stress and Aging: Diagnostics, Intervention, and Longevity, Edited by Richard G. Cutler and Henry Rodriguez, pp. 821-844 (World Scientific Publishing Company, Ltd.; Singapore; 2002); Proc. of the Second International Conference on Oxidative Stress and Aging, Technologies for Assessment and Intervention Strategies (April 2-5, 2001; Maui, Hawaii). Click the photo of the book cover to access this chapter.
• 90 PowerPoint Slide Presentation of Dr. Alfred J. Koonin's Talk on "The Antioxidant Effects of Ultra-Low Microcurrents" given on February 12, 2001 [ Warning: The slides at the end of this talk are highly graphic depictions of severe skin lesions and wounds in various stages of healing.] (Best viewed in Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 )
• 65 PowerPoint Slide Presentation of Stephen Coles's Extropy III Conference Talk in San Jose, California (Best viewed in Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 )
• 40 PowerPoint Slides of Dr. Michael Fossel's talk on "Reversing Human Aging" to the GRG on Aug. 11, 1997.
• Prof. John H. Campbell's talk on "A Vision of Human Germline Engineering" to the GRG on Aug. 10, 1998
• 20 Slides of Prof. Michael Rose's talk on "Aging: A Target for Germline Engineering" to the GRG on Sept. 14, 1998.
• 43 Slides of Dr. Steven M. Kaye, M.D.'s talk on "Improvement of Balance through Vestibular Rehabilitation: Balance Retraining Can Result in a Significant Reduction of Injuries Due to Falls in the Elderly" to the GRG on Dec. 14, 1998.
• 70 Slides taken from Prof. Bruce Ames's talk on "Oxidative Stress" to The Kronos Group in Phoenix, Arizona on February 19, 2000. [Best Viewed in Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 ]
• 54 Slides on the Evolution of Infectious Disease given to a AAAS Meeting in Anaheim, California (Saturday, February 1999). [Best Viewed in Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 ]
• Slides of 30 Books on Genetics and Cloning
• Unfortunately, Phil Green (University of Washington) has deleted his lengthy response to the "Jason Report on the Human Genome Project" (Prof. Steven Koonin of CalTech was our guest speaker in April 1998) from his web site
• The caloric-restriction research of Prof. Roy Walford
• Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine
• Top Ten Unsolved Problems in Aging
• George Duve of Hamburg, GERMANY has contributed a short essay on his view of a Theory of Aging
• GRG White Paper on the Theories of Aging
• How Does Aging Affect Your Body? from Seniors' Health (January 2000)
• Other Gerontology-Related Web Sites of Interest
• Physicians Specializing in Anti-Aging Medicine
• Short Glossary of Technical Terms in BioGerontology
• Brief Glossary of Technical Terms in Stem-Cell Biology
• Proposed Five-Day Course for Physicians on Anti-Aging Medicine
• Radio Interview with the BBC World News on Thursday, November 12, 1998.
• Prof. Leonard Hayflick, Ph.D.; Department of Anatomy; UCSD School of Medicine, Chapter: "Modulating Aging, Longevity Determination, and the Diseases of Old Age," Modulating Aging and Longevity, pp. 1-15, S. I. S. Rattan, Ed. (Kluwer Academic Publishers; 2003).
• A short version of The Bridge Plan GRG Recommendations for what we should be doing in the mean time, while we're all waiting for that big breakthrough in Anti-Aging Medicine.
• Click for the full version of the Bridge Plan GRG Recommendations. This 48-page document provides our life-style and supplement recommendations, first published in 1996 and revised continuously since then, as to what we should be doing while we're all waiting for the predicted breakthrough in Anti-Aging Medicine. This current version was revised on August 3, 2012.
• Click for the Maximum Life Foundation's SALADS Document by David Kekich (61 pages).
• International Academy of Alternative Health and Medicine
• Alliance for Aging Research in Washington, D.C. Daniel Perry, Executive Director; 2021 K Street, NW, Suite 305; Washington, D.C. 20006; Voice: 202-293-2856; FAX: 202-785-8574. Founded in 1986, The Alliance for Aging Research is a non-profit organization promoting a broad agenda of scientific research on human aging.
• University of Malta Institute of Gerontology
• "Gene Expression as a Function of Age" Figure submitted by Stan Primmer
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  "Is Aging Another Disease?" by Michael Darwin (August 10, 2013)

August 3, 2013;

Here are the 27 elements that compose the human body taken from The Periodic Table in order of descending body weight (our cosmic recipe derived from star dust) [1,2]. For interest, elements that are toxic have been added in the next section.

Essential Elements:

Atom Percent by Weight Full Name
1. O 65.0 oxygen
2. C 18.5 carbon
3. H 9.5 hydrogen
4. N 3.3 nitrogen
5. Ca 1.5 calcium (in bone)
6. P 1.0 phosphorus (in phosphates)
7. K 0.4 potassium
8. S 0.3 sulfur
9. Cl 0.2 chlorine (in salt)
10. Na 0.2 sodium (in salt)
11. Mg 0.1 magnesium
12. I * iodine (in thyroxin T3, T4)
13. Fe * iron (in hemoglobin)
14. Zn * zinc (in carbonic anhydrase)
15. Co * cobalt (in Vitamin B12)
16. Mn * manganese (in SOD)
17. Cr * chromium (in picolinate)
18. B * boron
19. Ni * nickel
20. V * vanadium
21. Sn * tin
22. Si * silicon
23. Mo * molybdenum
24. Cu * copper
25. F * fluorine (fluoride placed in municipal water supplies to strengthen tooth enamel)
26. Li * lithium (contaminates some water wells in the form of lithium carbonate and is now used for Rx: Bipolar Disorder)
27. Se * selenium (only at low doses; see Toxic Table)
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* Only trace amounts (< 0.1 percent); some mineral elements are essential while the value of others (or their dosages) in human nutrition has not been established. Conversely, too much of some of these minerals - - like manganese, chromium, or selenium - - can also be toxic or even fatal.

Note: Plutonium and uranium are both heavy metals, and thus are toxic due to chemical effects, but not more so than all other heavy metals. However, if we consider only chemical effects, radon doesn't belong on the list, since it is an inert noble gas, and thus is harmful only because it's radioactive. (Also, radium and polonium, which are mentioned, are harmful mostly because of their radioactivity.) If it is meant to include the effect of radioactivity, there are elements whose common isotopes are far worse than plutonium or uranium (in some cases by several orders of magnitude). Some of these are also more radioactive than radium, polonium, or radon, which in turn are more radioactive than plutonium and uranium. - - Donald Gennery, Biostatistics, JPL; Pasadena, CA (August 7, 2013)

Compounds: Both fiber glass and asbestos insulation are highly toxic (and complex) compounds when inhaled due to the physical dimensions of the fibers when they get lodged in the lungs. Poisonous mushrooms, belladonna (deadly nightshade, atropine), and extremely minute amounts of LSD when swallowed have caused many deaths. But so has alcohol (wood alcohol [methanol] as well as pure ethanol, as in wine, beer, and liquor) and nicotine (in tobacco). Even too much water can lead to water intoxication. Castor beans (Ricin) and Anthrax, likewise. Poison gas (phosgene) was used in chemical warfare heavily in WW-1.

Refs.:

1. Discover Magazine, p. 11 (September 2013).
2. Biology (Campbell and Reece, 8th Edition).

The third most common atom in the human body, hydrogen, was created shortly after the time of the "Big Bang" and was not synthesized and blown out in supernovas as so-called "star dust" for the heavy elements. If there are question marks (?) in the Wikipedia Tables referenced below [3-5], this indicates that nobody knows, not that Wikipedia doesn't know.
3. Abundance of elements in the human body
4. Composition of elements in the human body
5. Minerals
6. Plutonium is less toxic than arsenic in terms of being a metallic poison, so breathing plutonium dust will not normally deliver a toxic dose, but of course it's not the metal that will do most damage; it's the radiation. A large dose of a uranium salt will cause vomiting and diarrhea but again it's not as dangerous as consuming arsenic. I assume breathing uranium dust would again not deliver a fatal dose, but you never know with the lungs because there are some metals which breathed-in cause chronic illnesses such as beryllium and manganese.
-- John Emsley. (johnemsley38@aol.com) August 9, 2013