A DAY TO BETTER ENJOY LIFE

Enough of wars, Trump, Blanche, and bad news.  Well, one, as awful as Europe is having with high temperatures, the largest heat dome is now in the USA.

Coming Monday, we leave for Iceland, and our cruise ship from there will have several stops in Greenland.  According to Google AI:

High temperatures today reach about 59°F (15°C) in parts of Iceland and 54°F (12°C) in parts of Greenland. 

Ship arrives in Montreal, which has a high of 81 F today, then we go on to Vancouver, up to 79 F today.  Of course, this trip is to bask in the cool of a total eclipse of the sun, on 12August2026.

Another bit of good news is that Hurricane Fausto passed north of the Hawaiian Islands without causing any effect here.  Yesterday morning, from where I sit at my computer, no clouds.

And rainbows.

The other East Pacific ocean storm, Genevieve, which was a super hurricane four days ago, is now a tropical storm, and headed north, away from Hawaii.  Were you aware that hurricanes can affect weather far away from where it is?  Meteorologist blame Genevieve for strengthening that heat dome over the USA.

One more piece of scary news is that Super Typhoon Dolphin, still at 160 MPH, which at one time headed for Tokyo, is now looking to strike Naha, Okinawa.  However, the track keeps moving southward, so it remains uncertain where the eye will be in two days.

Today is National Avocado Day:

• Only declared in 2017.
• Is a super food.
• Targets insulin resistance with heart-healthy fats.
• Fights Alzheimer's with Omega 3 fatty acids.
• High in Vitamins C, E and K. 
• Used in facial creams.  Avocado is high in oleic acid content, which keeps skin soft and hydrated, while supports the regeneration of damaged skin cells.

• 
  According to Google AI:

The U.S. avocado market reached a historic milestone in 2025 by surpassing 3 billion pounds of total volume for the first time, reflecting a 4 percent volume increase and 12 percent dollar growth over the previous year. [1, 2, 3]

• 
  But isn't an avocado high in calories?  
• Yes, a whole medium sized has 320 calories and 30 grams of fat.
• Yet, this fat is monounsaturated, which is good for you heart.
• Plus, contains a lot of dietary fat.
• Solution:  half an avocado/day should be good for you.

• 
  This might be the worse way to consume avocado, but here are three alcoholic drinks.
• Avocado Margarita: Blends fresh ripe avocado with silver tequila, lime juice, simple syrup, and triple sec or Cointreau for a rich, velvety texture. A famous version is served at EPCOT's Mexico pavilion. [1, 2]

• 
  Batida de Abacate: A traditional Brazilian cocktail that blends fresh avocado, coconut milk, condensed milk, and cachaça (a Brazilian sugar cane spirit) into a frosty, sweet drink. [1]
• Avocado Smash / Zen Cocktails: Modern craft variations that muddle fresh avocado with gin or cucumber vodka, lime, and mint syrup for an earthy, garden-fresh profile. [1, 2, 3, 4]

According to Google AI:

The most popular avocado song is Dr. Jean's Guacamole Song (featuring the viral "form the avocado, peel the avocado" chant), alongside popular streaming tracks like "Avocado" by The Vegetable Plot. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Others:

"Avocado" by Cali Conscious (feat. Rastacado): A reggae-inflected track with an animated music video.

"Avocado" by Cookiee Kawaii: An electronic/hip-hop style track from the artist known for viral hits.

"AVOCADO" by Chaeyoung (feat. Gliiico): A modern upbeat track featured on solo project work.

"The Avocado Song" by Alton Eugene: A viral comedy/soul track about making avocado toast. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

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THE SCIENCE TO STOP AND REVERSE AGING: Part 2

As was expected, the USA again bombed Iran last night.  From the New York Times this morning, a graphic showing that the USA/Israel vs Iran War recycles a series of conflict and calm:

Source: Data on U.S. and Iranian attacks comes from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED, a nonprofit that tracks global conflict. Adina Renner/The New York Times

And, by the way, Israel is still doing things, yesterday bombing a mosque in Gaza they said was where the Hamas stored weapons.

Also this morning from the New York Times:

The number of data centers in the United States is poised to explode. Source: Cleanview. Jacqueline Gu/The New York Times

I earlier this month posted on:  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE DATA CENTERS.

So on to Part 2 of my series about stopping, if not reversing, aging.

• If new to this blog site, or you forgot what I earlier said, read Part 1.
• My earliest posting on this subject reaches back to 1September2009.
• Leonard Hayflick, a dragon twelve years older than me, is a professor of anatomy at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), and is previously from Stanford University. He is known for the Hayflick Limit (most cells divide 20-100 times before dying, as a limit for humans), which directed research towards the cell as the controller of aging. Importantly, he determined that the capped telomere enzyme region appeared to be the key to aging. He effectively found this biological clock in 1961, when I was a chemical engineering junior at Stanford.
• I should add that he did well, passing away 2 years ago at the age of 96.
• 
  University of Colorado behavioral geneticist Thomas Johnson, in 1988, extended the life of a worm called Caenorhabditis elegans by 60%, thus introducing this nematode to the scientific world. He chaired two Gordon Conferences on the Biology of Aging.

• 
  Biologist Cynthia Kenyon, MIT PhD associated with Lenny Guarente, holding the Herbert Boyer (who was earlier mentioned) Professorship, and who previously worked for Nobel Laureate Sydney Brenner, wants to live to be 150. She has increased the life span of C. elegans by a factor of six, meaning the equivalent human life of 400 years. She has merely suppressed the regulator gene, daf-2. C. elegans is a good lab model because it only has about a thousand types of cells and is translucent, so you can see the organs. She helped found a company, Elixir, with Guarente, raising $37 million to find a Fountain of Youth pill. Kenyon believes it is in the realm of possibility that just changing the right human gene could double our lifetime. Then, who knows?
• 
  Aubrey de Grey a biomedical gerontologist from the United Kingdom, has been working on “strategies for engineered negligible senescence" (SENS), or, finding a cure for human aging. He lists seven types of aging damage, but I’ve compressed them into five:
• cancer
• mutations
• junk molecules
• death of cells
• loss of elasticity linking cells
• 
  He co-founded the Methuselah Mouse Prize (MMP), with a sum of $4.5 million to fund researchers to extend the lifespan of mice.  Methuselah reached the age of 969 years in The Bible. 
• Has been quoted to say that people will start living thousand year lives at any selected age in 25 years.
• 
  Michael West offers a personal journey in his The Immortal Cell. He was initially a creationist, devoted to dispelling evolution, but made a full reversal after witnessing the death of his father, shifting from Greek and Hebrew to biology, gaining a PhD degree, and turning to immortality science. He co-founded Geron in 1990, the first to biotechnologically treat age-related disorders, becoming a pioneer in stem cell R&D. Very simply, their goal is to take the patient’s own cells, rejuvenate and modify them, and insert them back in the person to treat diseases. Specifically, telomeres would be lengthened. Their experimental cells now double more than a 100 times. Macular degeneration and atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) will someday thusly be treated. He is now president and CEO of Advanced Cell Technology, which is the only American company pursuing human therapeutic cloning research, and serves as Adjunct Professor Bioengineering at the University of California at Berkeley.

• 
  Sixteen years ago, my posting was on Eternal Life.
• This article was released two years after publishing one of my books, described below.

Chapter 2 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity deals with immortality.  On July 15 The Huffington Post published my article on this subject (Science and the Future of Cloning: Is Immortality Possible?), the same day and time that another posting appeared by David Stipp on "Why Anti-Aging Science Really Matters."  Stipp just this month came out with a book entitled, The Youth Pill: Scientists at the Brink of an Anti-Aging Revolution

• Anyway, he drew 7 comments while mine received 222.  The best I can figure out is that his article is rather clinical and factual, while mine is somewhat conjectural.
• Remember, this was 16 years ago, so I was definitely premature in saying the following in that posting:
• There are at least two pathways to continue your presence. One does not involve human cloning. Without going into telomeres and ribonucleoproteins, let me just say that science is actually close to finding and checking the aging gene. Someday, you might be able to take a pill and stop growing old. The question is, can this technique be perfected before you get too old?
• The other is cloning, and there are two kinds: therapeutic and reproductive. The former is almost okay, while the latter is verboten, except in certain countries where the laws are fuzzy. You can expect some future breakthrough in countries where religion is not dominant.
• 
  So let's say you can afford to be cloned.  You still need to transfer the information in your brain to this new cloned you.  Elon Musk has suggested that his brain-computer interface startup, Neuralink, could eventually allow humans to upload memories and consciousness into digital immortality.
• However, when formed in 2016, Neuralink was not looking into this potential.
• More recently in 2020, How to Live Forever was posted on progress.
• I asked Google AI today, how Neuralink is doing:

Neuralink today is successfully translating specific physical and communicative intent from the brain into a computer, rather than directly downloading complex abstract thoughts. Patients with the implant use their thoughts to control a cursor, type text, play video games, and operate speech-restoration software. [1, 2, 3]

To come, Part 3.

The path of Super Typhoon Dolphin has shifted.  Formerly to Tokyo, now further south, with a median predictive path between Kyushu and Okinawa.

Dolphin:

• Became a typhoon on July 28.
• Attained super typhoon strength on July 29 up to 165 MPH.
• Today still a super typhoon at 155 MPH.

Predictive paths of Dolphin:

To end, 50 years ago today, the #1 song on Billboard was Kiss and Say Goodbye, by The Manhattans.

In the UK on this day half a century ago?  Don't Go Breaking My Heart, by Kiki Dee and Elton John.

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ARE WE GETTING MORE EARTHQUAKES?

Before my blog on earthquakes, two newsworthy items:

• The lull in the Iran War is over.  Iran lobbed missiles at American bases in the Middle East.
• Here is the backdrop:

• 
  Way back in February, Netanyahu and Trump felt that, if they could surprise Iran with a serious series of bombardments, they could assassinate the Supreme Leader, plus many dozens of top government leaders, stimulating the people to rebel and overcome.  Israel and the USA could then swoop in, establish a new government, and totally demolish any nuclear ambitions.

• 
  The USA/Israel did succeed in killing Ali Khamenei and 53 leaders.  Here is the complete list.
• However, Iran knew someday this would happen, and they organized a plan to take control of the Strait of Hormuz, and if necessary, also the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

• 
  Here is the current situation.
• The people did not rebel, a new government formed and Iran has been able to maintain control over the two oil flow choke points.
• They also are not idiots.  Remember what AI has indicated?

A wily Iranian carpet dealer is commonly stereotyped as a shrewd, charming, and highly skilled negotiator who uses hospitality, theatrical storytelling, and deep product knowledge to close a sale.

• 
  Iran knows that they can survive with no timing problem, if the USA does not place many thousands of boots on the ground, something that  will lead to a long ground war with huge casualties, perhaps more than the 7,000 American troops killed in the Middle East since 2001.
• The result of this war is a major economic problem for the U.S. and world, spurred by higher petroleum and fertilizer costs.

• 
  President Trump is faced with a mid-term election problem that is only 97 days away.
• Who knows what will happen.
• Invasion of Kharg Island?
• Postponement of mid-term elections? 
• The Supreme Court and Congress have no enforcement powers, all controlled by the President, an existential flaw of our Constitution.  Thus, the end of democracy in the U.S.?

• 
  How goes the confirmation process of now acting attorney general Todd Blanche in the U.S. Senate?
• John Cornyn (R-Texas), is threatening to vote against the confirmation of Blanche.  My sense is that Cornyn will be provided enough satisfaction for Blanche to come to floor vote.
• This is when it could get embarrassing for Republicans, for they have a 3-vote majority.
• 
  There are three senators not returning next year because they defied Trump, and either voluntarily chose to retire, like Senator Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), or lost primaries, like Cornyn and Senator Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana).
• However, a tie just means that Veep JD Vance will break it.
• 
  The interesting wild card is Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky).
• He remains not well enough to return for a floor vote, but just his absence would deny Blanche confirmation.
• Or, if a vote is held, he could show up on the floor, and rather dramatically vote no.  For good personal reasons.
• But, so what.  Another person will be nominated who will be similarly loyal only to President Trump.

So on to my posting of the day, I asked Google AI, are we getting more serious earthquakes?

No, we are not getting more serious earthquakes in the 21st century; the long-term frequency of major earthquakes remains remarkably constant. Instead, better technology, higher global populations, and instant news make normal seismic activity feel more frequent and intense. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Why It Feels Like There Are More Earthquakes

Better Technology: Modern global networks use sensitive tools that spot and record tiny tremors we used to miss entirely.
Instant News: Fast digital communication and social media mean we hear about remote or minor shakes right away.
More People: Growing cities mean more humans live near active fault lines, leading to higher damage and media coverage when a quake hits. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

The Scientific Reality

Stable Averages: Long-term data shows the Earth averages about 15 to 18 major earthquakes (magnitude 7.0 or higher) every year, a rate that has not changed over the past century. [1, 2]
Normal Variation: Yearly totals naturally go up and down slightly, but these shifts are regular random fluctuations, not a sign of an upward trend. [1, 2]

The key statement above is that our Planet Earth has suffered from 15 to 18 magnitude 7.0 earthquakes each year for the past century.

We will be into our 8th month in a few days, and have suffered from 9 (or 10) earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 and above.  So in the next 5 months, we should, perhaps, experience around 6 or 7 more.

Major Earthquakes (Magnitude 7.0+)

Magnitude 7.8: Offshore the Philippines (June 7)
Magnitude 7.5: Tonga (March 24) and Venezuela (June 24)
Magnitude 7.4: Indonesia (April 1) and Japan (April 20)
Magnitude 7.3: Vanuatu (March 30) and Mexico (July 17)
Magnitude 7.2: Venezuela (June 24)
Magnitude 7.1: Malaysia (February 22) [1, 2]
Magnitude 7.1: Kumamoto, Japan (July 29).  That was the measurement of the Japan Meteorological Agency.  The USGS called it a 6.8.

Further:

• Two of the above earthquakes resulted in deaths.
• 5,546 from both Venezuela shakes.
• 107 from the one in the Philippines.
• In addition, 18 (and counting) died yesterday in the 6.8 (or 7.1) Kumamoto (Japan) quake and 12 in 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Afghanistan on April 3.  
• Can you believe that we have had 53 earthquakes this year of magnitude 6.0-6.9?
• If you are in a 5.0 earthquake, it can scare you.

• 
  I reported in the Huffington Post in 2011 when I was reporting for them of a 7.1 magnitude in Tokyo.  This was a late aftershock of the cataclysmic 9.0 Great Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster.  Just saw that this earthquake is now officially of 9.1 magnitude.
• The largest five?

• 11960 Valdivia, Chile (Magnitude 9.4 - 9.6)
• 21964 Anchorage, USA (Magnitude 9.2)
• 32004 Indian Ocean, Indonesia (Magnitude 9.1 - 9.3)
• 42011 Tohoku Earthquake, Japan (Magnitude 9.1)
• 51952 Kamchatka Earthquake, Russia (Magnitude 9.0)

• 
  
  

I had another HuffPo assignment earlier, when on 27February2010, Chile was hit by an 8.8 magnitude earthquake.  The title was, Hawaii Tsunami?  This was an interesting story because I wrote this article from Amsterdam, Netherlands.

You can also rate earthquakes by number of deaths:

• #1  1556 Shaanxi Earthquake, China (8.0), up to 850,000.
• #2  1976 Tangshan Earthquake, China (7.6), up to 300,000.
• #3    526 Antioch Earthquake, Syria/Turkey, up to 300,000.
• #4  1920 Haiyuan Earthquake, China (7.8), 273,407.
• #5  2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami, Indonesia (9.2 or 9.3), 227,898.

What a way to close....but:

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