Darcie Moore is an expert on cargo. Not the kind you’d find on a freight train, though—it’s the cargo you’d find in stem cells, the kind that can transform into the different types of cells your body needs in your brain, skin, hair follicles, and lots of other places. They’re especially critical when we’re developing at an early age, but adults have them, too.
As stem cells grow and replicate, they can accumulate misfolded proteins and other gunk—“cargo”—that harms their function by, in Moore’s words, “exhausting” them. Nautilus caught up with Moore, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to talk about how she investigates stem cell exhaustion and how it contributes to the puzzle of aging.
What do stem cells have to do with aging?
The theory is that during aging, your stem cells begin to dysfunction. For example, you begin to lose the ability to make pigment in your hair with aging due to melanocyte stem cells becoming depleted. Some of the concepts that apply to stem cell aging have been initially studied quite a bit in yeast, including the work my lab does, and it’s only recently that this work has started to take off in mammalian systems.
When President Donald Trump on Thursday met with victims, families and others affected by the shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas, which left 10 people dead and 13 wounded, at least one parent was not impressed with his demeanor, continuing a pattern of the president failing to show empathy during tragedies.
Rhonda Hart, whose daughter, Kimberly Vaughan, was among eight students who died in the shooting last month, told The Associated Press her conversation with Trump “was like talking to a toddler.”
According to Hart, Trump repeatedly brought up arming teachers, a policy proposal he has frequently promoted after school shootings.
Hart, an Army veteran, said she also suggested employing veterans as sentinels in schools. She said Trump responded, “And arm them?” She replied, “No,” but said Trump “kept mentioning” arming classroom teachers. “It was like talking to a toddler,” Hart said.
She said the president also focused on the shooter and his appearance, repeatedly describing him as “wacky.”
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Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images
Trump received backlash after being seen holding a notecard reminding him to tell shooting victims and families that “I hear you.”
Surveillance systems that track the locations of cellphone users and spy on their calls, texts and data streams are being turned against Americans as they roam the country and the world, say security experts and U.S. officials.
Federal officials acknowledged the privacy risk to Americans in a previously undisclosed letter from the Department of Homeland Security to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) last week, saying they had received reports that “nefarious actors may have exploited” global cellular networks “to target the communications of American citizens.”
The letter, dated May 22 and obtained by The Washington Post, described surveillance systems that tap into a global messaging system that allows cellular customers to move from network to network as they travel. The decades-old messaging system, called SS7, has little security, allowing intelligence agencies and some criminal gangs to spy on unwitting targets — based on nothing more than their cellphone numbers.
Mario Batali, the world-famous chef and restaurateur who has been accused by at least 11 women of sexual misconduct, is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the New York Police Department into allegations of criminal sexual misconduct.
News of the investigation was first reported by the CBS news show “60 Minutes” this evening. A source at the NYPD confirmed the investigation to HuffPost but declined to elaborate further.
Sexual misconduct allegations against Batali first surfaced in December when Eater published a story detailing four women’s allegations against Batali that included sexual assault. At the time, Batali acknowledged that he engaged in inappropriate behavior and took leave from his restaurant group.
With each new school shooting — the latest left 10 dead Friday in Santa Fe, Texas — the routine of death and grief grows numbingly familiar, and so does the inescapable question: Is there any way for schools to stop them?
School districts trying to avoid becoming next on the list are urgently chasing answers, with an increasing number staking their hopes on high-tech security systems originally developed for the military, police and private industry.
These modern tools range from instant background checks for visitors and social-media monitoring software to gunshot-detection sensors and ID cards equipped with panic buttons. They’re driving a rapidly growing school security market, which has ballooned to a multibillion-dollar industry — despite little proof that the new methods prevent violence.
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One of more than 100 security cameras keeps watch during a class change at Shawnee Mission West High School, in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, on April 23, 2018.Colin E. Braley / for NBC News
The US Secret Service overpaid presidential campaigns an estimated $4 million for plane travel during the 2016 election, a government watchdog says in a new report obtained by CNN.
Secret Service officials realized eight months before Election Day that they were using the wrong formula to calculate the costs, “but did not ensure the agency reverted to its longstanding policy,” according to the Government Accountability Office report.
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The Secret Service, which incurred millions of dollars in travel expenses to provide security during presidential campaigns, said it has asked the campaigns that were overpaid to provide the government refunds.
GAO said the Secret Service spent an estimated $58 million on travel expenses related to the campaigns. Of that total, $17.1 million was paid to the campaigns of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Ben Carson as reimbursements for seats occupied by Secret Service agents onboard campaign charter flights.
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US Secret Service overpaid presidential campaigns $4 million
When a new meme explodes, the race to transform it into merchandise is fierce. Within hours of the laurel vs. yanny controversy, for instance, Instagram meme pages were attempting to cash in by selling yanny-and-laurel-themed T-shirts, aprons, and more.
But there was a time, from around 2008 to 2012, when seeing memes out in the world, plastered on books, merchandise, and T-shirts, was still novel. Social media was just catching hold, and memes began to seep out of forums and corners of the internet like Reddit into broader culture.
The literary agent Kate McKean, who has sold several meme-based books, refers to this time in history as the “OH! The Internet Is a Thing!” stage. It was a time when almost anyone could slap a meme onto a T-shirt, mug, plate, book, or poster and cash in. Meme-focused Tumblrs began to get book deals, FunnyJunk.com started carrying “rage face” merchandise, and Urban Outfitters ordered boatloads of T-shirts emblazoned with an image of “Scumbag Steve.”
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The online joke cycle moves too fast now for e-commerce businesses to keep up
Karthik Nemmani of McKinney, Tex., was declared champion of the 2018 Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night, winning on the word “koinonia” and surviving what was arguably the most intense competition in the bee’s 93-year history.
In doing so, the 14-year-old emerged the top speller from a record-shattering 515 contestants at the national bee, compared with 291 last year, after organizers expanded eligibility with a new wild-card program.
Along the way, he had to outlast a field of 16 finalists who vanquished words such as “Praxitelean,” “ispaghul” and “telyn” — sometimes without batting an eyelash — in a breathtaking show of spelling skill broadcast live on ESPN.
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Karthik Nemmani, 14, won the 2018 Scripps National Spelling Bee on May 31 with the word “koinonia.”(ESPN)
When Coca-Cola announced plans earlier this year to recycle the equivalent of 100 percent of its packaging by 2030, the company touted the effort as building on its success with sustainable water use. In a 2016 full-page ad published in TheNew York Times, the company proclaimed, “For every drop we use, we give one back,” boasting on its website that it was “the first Fortune 500 company to hit such an aggressive target.” But a year of reporting into Coca-Cola’s water program shows that the company is grossly exaggerating its water record, which suggests that its new “World Without Waste” recycling plan should also be viewed with skepticism.
Coca-Cola came under fire for its water practices in the mid-2000s. (The company did not answer specific questions, but it did issue a lengthy statement for this article.) Coca-Cola keeps distribution costs low by tapping local water sources, a practice it has continued since the company’s early success at Atlanta-area soda fountains in the late 1800s. By the 2000s, however, local people in some of the world’s increasingly water-stressed regions were looking more critically at big water users, and Coca-Cola found itself a target of public ire. By 2007, US college students took up the cause, calling for a nationwide boycott in support of Indian farmers who accused the company of stealing their water and livelihoods. It was an international PR nightmare that threatened Coca-Cola’s brand image and global business strategy.
E. Neville Isdell, Coke’s CEO at the time, took heed.
The NBA Finals tipped off Thursday with Commissioner Adam Silver addressing assembled media, saying his league is about “celebrating greatness.”
“That’s what you’re seeing on the floor here,” Silver added.
In Golden State’s 124-114 overtime victory in Game 1, greatness was indeed celebrated — and a memorable mistake by Cleveland’s J.R. Smith was immortalized — in a game that delivered on the hype of the fourth straight Finals meeting between the Warriors and Cavaliers.
Ultimately, LeBron James’s 51 points, a career playoff high, were not enough to save Cleveland in overtime. Add in his 19-for-32 shooting and his eight rebounds and eight assists, and it still wasn’t enough.
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Cleveland’s J.R. Smith may have cost his team the win by not knowing the score in the final minutes of Game 1 of the NBA Finals on May 31.(Reuters)
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
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One of more than 100 security cameras keeps watch during a class change at Shawnee Mission West High School, in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, on April 23, 2018.
US Secret Service overpaid presidential campaigns $4 million
The online joke cycle moves too fast now for e-commerce businesses to keep up
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Coke claims to give back as much water as it uses
James' World 2 