Heatwaves and Accelerated Aging

Nature Climate Change has this new study on heatwaves and accelerated aging.  The abstract: 

 

Cheers, 

Colin

The Last Breakfast (... when the kids are grown)

 

Today my youngest son moved out, heading off to university.  I made him one last breakfast-- toasted bagel, grapes and a protein/fruit shake.  It was only partially eaten, as he was in a rush to pack things before leaving.

And so I am now an "empty nester", a stage of life I am still processing.  It is something that feels bitter sweet.  Of course every parent wants their children to grow up into independent adults, capable of exercising their own autonomy and face life's adventures of their own.  But for every parent I'm sure this stage seems to come way, way too quickly.  Kids grow up so fast!  

The daily habits of cooking meals, packing lunches, cleaning clothes, walking/driving kids to school, friends' houses, sporting activities, doctor's appointments, work, etc. have been such an integral part of my fatherhood identify for the past quarter of a century. And now these duties, along with their memories, are a long shadow cast by a previous stage of my life.  

I am trying to see the silver lining in this parental transition in terms of its potential to be a catalyst for my own growth and development.  It is an opportunity for me to take on new hobbies and projects that I did not have time to pursue before. Perhaps I will travel more.  I scaled back on attending work-related conferences over the past decade, after my divorce, so I could better manage juggling career and parental duties.  And I have never taken a solo vacation in my life, so perhaps that is something I should experience.  No doubt I can fill up the extra time with more research and writing as that has always been an integral part of my life.  But at the same time I know I need to work on attaining a better work-life balance.   

Fatherhood has been, and no doubt will continue to be, among the most formative life events in my growth and development, with a profound impact on my emotional wellbeing.  The world my boys face, like the future all previous generations have faced, is full of uncertainty and stress, along with valuable opportunities and hidden treasures.  I hope the paths they choose brings them adventure, meaning and fulfillment, and when adversity crosses their path they can always count on me for a compassionate ear and support.

As for me, at home it is now just Moe and I.  And who knows what the future will bring for us.

  

The "mighty" Moe!

Cheers, 

Colin

Final Push (Book update)

 

Final push to complete my new book on aging and translational gerontology!  All the substantive work is finished.  But hundreds of citations need to be uniformly formatted.  And a few final proof-reads.  

Cheers, 

Colin

Love for Reading (earliest memories)

 

Over my lifetime so far I have read many books-  most covered topics in philosophy, political theory and science (e.g. genetics, evolutionary biology, psychology, etc.).  I would estimate that 95%+  of the total books I have read over my entire life were non-fiction.  But it wasn't always this way.  And in this post I share some reflections on the first memory I have of when I discovered my love for reading.  

It was my initial engagement with works of fiction during the formative years of  childhood that I discovered my passion for reading, which helped lay the foundation for what would become a multi-decade engagement in works of non-fiction during my adulthood.  And eventually a passion for writing my own works of non-fiction. 

In 1980, as a 10 year old in grade 4, and I remember reading the book above:  The Secret of Phantom Lake, a book in the series the Three Investigators.  At that time I ended up reading every book in the series I could get my hands on.  I still have a complete collection of the book series, all these years later.  

As I noted in a previous post from over a decade ago, I read the whole collection (40+ books) to my older sons which rekindled my appreciation for how formative these books were on my intellectual development.  I can still recall the feeling I experienced when I started reading this book at age 10-- it was something I never experienced before.  I was engrossed in the book, reading it made me experience flow.  

My first memory of the deep enjoyment I experienced reading the book was that I could relate to the main characters.  Jupiter, Pete and Bob were three teenagers, amateur sleuths that enjoyed solving mysteries and crimes and ventured around California on their bikes,  Each of them had their own distinctive strengths and weaknesses:  Jupiter was brilliant (but could also be arrogant at times, leading to mistakes); Peter was the most athletic, but not always the most attentive; Bob was methodical in research but at times his lack of physical strength could be a liability.  

The first book I read, like all of them, detailed their "home base"- an old trailer hidden in a junk yard that had secret entrances only they could access.  The boys could retreat to this hidden sanctuary to plan their next adventures, hidden away from the gaze of adult/parental control.  This presented a very compelling story to me.  Like the characters in the book, I enjoyed the companionship my friends provided, riding my bike and, I would discover- engaging with this book series-  my love for trying to solve mysteries.  Entering into the headspace of different characters in each story- friends and foes alike, also helped me expand my understanding of the social landscape.  Transcending my own personal point of view, so I could empathetically understand/ try to anticipate the beliefs, actions and motives of other people, was engrossing and enjoyable.  You learn that some people are full of surprises- being more brave than you previously thought- or others are not trustworthy (you never really know what motivates others until more information is gathered about their history, character, etc.).  Trough reading fiction one acquires a lifetime of different experiences and insights, much faster and more nuanced tha one could from only interacting with people in real life.    

My fondest memories are sitting in my father's reclining lazy boy-chair, with a bowl of chips, reading this book.  I recall me asking my mother if it was OK that I sat and read for hours on end.  Until that point in my childhood I never sat still for long.  I was extremely active, involved in multiple sports and seldom sat still, let alone experienced being engrossed in reading before.  The engagement with this book was the beginning of a transformation in my life- both intellectually and emotionally.  A life of "the inner mind" began to take hold, one where my imagination could be celebrated, providing enjoyment and meaning in ways I had never experienced before. Inhabiting different times, places and minds (even if fictional) captured my imagination and was enjoyable.  And I learned that such joy enabled me to concentrate for hours on end, in a state of flow.   

Five years later, in grade 9, I volunteered to write some short mystery stories for my high school newspaper.  For a shy and awkward 14 year old this was a real risk.  I still aspired to become a fiction writer through grade 10, until my father put an end to those dreams, bluntly telling me that such career aspiration would lead me to starve.   

So while my "inner writer" remained dormant for many years after than time, it was always there, percolating away just below the surface.  By age 20 I began to study history and philosophy at university, and as I began to read non-fiction and acquired the intellectual skills to comprehend and assess arguments my passionate for research and writing was quickly engulphed.  And I haven't look back since then.  

By university my father also became my strongest champion, having read everything I ever published in his lifetime, and he was an avid reader of this blog up until he passed away.  He was glad to see that I was able to eek out a living through my research and teaching.    

Engaging with books from a young age, in a time before digital distractions could re-wire my brain, was, I believe, critical to my intellectual development.  And I try to remain vigilant about maintaining an existence that permits me times of undistracted solitude for deep reflection and writing.  This is not always an easy thing to do in the fervor of today's digital-centric / muti-tasking environment. 

Cheers, 

Colin

Tenure's Impact on Publishing

Nature news has the scoop on this PNAS study on research productivity after tenure.  From the news item:

"Faculty members in all disciplines tend to publish the most in the year before they’re granted tenure, the analysis found. After achieving it, their output varies by field: it plateaus for biologists and others who tend to work in the laboratory, and dips for those in fields such as mathematics that generally do not require lab research. The analysis was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Cheers, 

Colin

Update on Book Project

This summer I am furiously working away at completing a decade-long research monograph on the ethics of longevity science that will be published with Oxford University Press.  The book is motivated by the general question: 

 "How can philosophy help us think about the ethical significance of translational science?"  

The case study for the book, which illustrates how philosophy can help us think sagely about translational science, is translational gerontology--  new knowledge about the biology of aging and how different genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors can influence healthy/unhealthy longevity.  

The book draws upon the past 25 years of research I have been undertaking to explore how biological knowledge ought to inform our normative theorizing about ethics and biomedical innovation.  The book covers the intellectual history of both the war against disease and rate (of aging) control, the war against cancer, the role of imagination in science, women's health and longevity, folkbiology, science communication, pragmatism, Frankenstein, philosophy of science, the COVID-19 pandemic, intersectionality, the "medialization" of science and climate change.  The book really has been a genuine labour of love for me (equal parts labour and love!), something I feel I have been writing my whole life.  

I have a draft of approximately 105 000 words completed, and am just going over the final revisions of the full document before writing a concluding section and formatting the countless references I rely upon.  The book builds upon, and integrates into a coherent whole, insights and arguments I have published in journal articles on geroscience in the following (mostly) scientific journals in recent years:

JAGS

GeroScience

Aging and Disease

Public Health Ethics

Age and Ageing

Biogerontology

Journals of Gerontology

Journal of Medical Ethics

Aging Cell

Bioscience

Biology Letters

Open Science

Journal of Population Ageing

HEC Forum

The book will be available as an open access book in 2026.  Now back to writing and revising!

Cheers, 

Colin

  

The Detective's Virtues

 

The detective's virtues:  thinking of coherent explanations of the facts (source).

Cheers, 

Colin 

Exposome and accelerated aging

Nature news has the scoop on an important new study on the exposome and accelerated aging in different regions of the world.  From the news item:

Social inequality and weak democratic institutions are linked to faster ageing, as are other environmental features such as high levels of air pollution, finds a study spanning four continents1. Education was one of the top factors that protected against faster ageing.

The study also showed that ageing is accelerated by less-surprising factors such as high blood pressure and heart disease. But the link to social and political influences could help to explain why rates of ageing vary from country to country, the authors say.

The abstract from the study:

Protective and risk factors can drive healthy or accelerated aging, with distinct environments modulating their effects. The impact of the exposome—the combined physical and social exposures experienced throughout life—on accelerated aging remains unknown. We assessed delayed and accelerated aging in 161,981 participants from 40 countries (45.09% female; mean age, 67.06; s.d., 9.85) by measuring biobehavioral age gaps (BBAGs), defined as the difference between estimated age from protective and risk factors and chronological age, in cross-sectional and longitudinal designs. BBAGs predicted chronological age, followed by regional and exposomal factor analyses, linked to accelerated aging. Europe led in healthy aging, while Egypt and South Africa showed the greatest acceleration; Asia and Latin America fell in between (Cliff’s delta (δd) = 0.15–0.52; all P < 0.0001). Accelerated aging was more evident in eastern and southern Europe; globally, it was also associated with lower income (δd = 0.48–0.56, P < 1 × 10−15). Exposomal factors of accelerated aging include physical (air quality), social (socioeconomic and gender inequality, migration) and sociopolitical (representation, party freedom, suffrage, elections and democracy) determinants (all Cohen’s d (d) > 0.37, P < 0.0001). BBAGs predicted future functional (r (Pearson correlation) = −0.33, P < 1 × 10−15, d = 0.70) and cognitive declines (r = −0.22, P < 1 × 10−15, d = 0.44), and larger BBAGs (P < 0.0001, d = 1.55). Healthy and accelerated aging are influenced by physical, social and sociopolitical exposomes, with considerable disparities across nations.

Cheers, 

Colin 

Potter on Bioethics (55 years ago)

 

Van Rensselaer Potter (1911-2001) was a biochemist who devoted his career to the study of cancer, and in 1970 he proposed the term “bioethics” to emphasize the two most important ingredients in achieving what he called “new wisdom”- biological knowledge and human values.  Article “Bioethics, the Science of Survival” (1970)

Cheers, 

Colin