Why naked mole rats don’t get cancer

Last updated on: June 25, 2013 at 7:07 pm By Gene Veith

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post in praise of the naked mole rat, an exceedingly odd little creature with seemingly super powers when it comes to health and longevity. Well, scientists have recently discovered why these things don’t get cancer, something that could lead to treatments in human beings. (more…)

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In praise of the naked mole rat

Last updated on: October 18, 2011 at 5:00 am By Gene Veith

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Scientists have sequenced the genome of a strange little creature, the naked mole rat. Why? Because it never gets cancer, lives an unbelievably long life without mental decline, and has many other amazing powers that may hold clues for human health.

Mole rats are hairless, buck-toothed rodents four inches long that live in underground colonies in arid sections of Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea. Their social structure is the mammalian equivalent of an ant colony. There’s a queen who takes two or three male consorts and is the only female to reproduce. She lords over the rest of the realm — which can be as large as 200 animals — so that the other females cease ovulating and the males give up.

Mole rats can survive in environments low in oxygen (as little as 8 percent as opposed to 21 percent in the atmosphere) and laden with ammonia and carbon dioxide. Unlike other mammals (but like reptiles), they have a hard time regulating their body temperature. They have to move toward the warmer upper reaches of the burrow or huddle with their brethren when they get cold.

But their most unusual features are extreme longevity and apparently complete resistance to developing cancer.
Naked mole rats can live more than 25 years; mice live about four. Buffenstein said she has never found a malignant tumor in a mole rat in her 30-year-old colony, which has 2,000 animals. In a recent experiment, a group of mole rats had patches of skin painted with a chemical carcinogen at a dose 1,000 times stronger than what causes skin cancer in mice. None developed tumors.

A study published in 2009 found that naked mole rats had a molecular anticancer mechanism not present in mice or people. But a first look at the species’ full complement of 22,561 genes shows that’s just the beginning.

There are changes in genes involved in maintaining telomeres, the “tails” of chromosomes that determine how long a cell lives. There are changes in genes involved in marking damaged proteins for destruction. There’s an increase in “chaperone” genes that keep proteins folded into their right shapes. There are genes that appear to let the animals maintain stem cells in their tissues longer than other rodents.

The study looked at 54 human brain genes that become less or more active as a person ages. In the mole rat, 30 of those genes remain stable throughout life, and two others change their activity in a direction opposite to what occurs in human brains.

Mole rats have 96 gene families unique to the species. Interestingly, they and humans also share 178 gene families that neither mice nor other rats have.

via Naked mole rat genome may point way to long, healthy life – The Washington Post.

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Temptation of the “High IQ Stupid”: Preferring Theory to Reality

Last updated on: June 10, 2022 at 2:31 pm By Gene Veith

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Agree with her or not, Peggy Noonan is one of our most interesting and provocative pundits. In her Wall Street Journal column The Boiling Over of America [behind a paywall], she discusses the recall of San Francisco’s soft-on-crime district attorney Chesa Boudin.

San Francisco is one of America’s most liberal cities, and yet the vote to recall the progressive criminal justice reformer was overwhelming (60%-40%) due to the upsurge of crime occasioned by the D.A.’s woke refusal to prosecute. Noonan notes that minority citizens voted to recall at a higher rate than white, affluent, college-educated citizens. She writes (my bolds),

This is because they suffer more and have fewer protections when crime spikes and homeless encampments seize new ground.

This is what the foes of progressives are saying: We won’t let our city go down. We won’t accept the idea of steady deterioration. We will fight the imposition of abstract laws reflecting the abstract theories of people for whom life has always been abstract and theoretical. We can’t afford to be abstract and theoretical, we live real lives. We wish to be allowed to walk the streets unmolested and with confidence. This isn’t too much to ask. It is the bare minimum.

Drawing on the leadup to the election and its aftermath, she goes on to generalize about extreme progressives:

One is they don’t listen to anybody. To stop them you have to fire them. They’re not like normal politicians who have some give, who tack this way and that. Progressive politicians have no doubt, no self-correcting mechanism.

Another characteristic: They are more loyal to theory than to people. If the people don’t like the theories the progressives impose, that’s too bad; the theory is pre-eminent. . . .

Here the third distinguishing characteristic: The progressive can’t understand why [after he is “fired”]. He tells reporters the voters are “in a bad mood” because of inflation and housing costs.

A final characteristic of progressive politicians is that they tend to be high-IQ stupid people. They are bright and well-educated but can’t comprehend the implications of policy. They don’t understand that if an 18-year-old is repeatedly arrested for assaulting people on the street and repeatedly let go, his thought may not go in the direction of, “What a gracious and merciful society I live in, I will do more to live up to it.” It is more likely he will think, “I can assault anyone and get away with it. They are afraid of me.”

But Noonan doesn’t let conservatives off the hook. Republicans say that the rash of mass shootings is not a gun problem but a mental health problem. And yet many conservatives oppose laws to prevent teenagers from buying weapons, even as they blame the culture for making young people unstable, and oppose red flag laws that might identify some of these mentally ill folks and prevent them from carrying out their murderous delusions.

I would argue, though, that sometimes it is important to stand for principle, despite the “practical” consequences. This is so especially when it comes to moral truths and human rights issues. And yet, I accept that it’s possible for people of all convictions to be “high-IQ stupid” by clinging to theory rather than reality. I don’t know my IQ but I am highly-educated, and I can recognize this temptation in myself, a tendency that is probably an occupational hazard of us academics.

Our preference for theory over reality can be found not only in politics but in other areas of life, including religion. In fact, this was one of the main points of tbe 18th century Lutheran thinker J. G. Hamann: We often treat Christianity as a set of abstractions rather as a mighty reality–as if God were just an idea rather than an actual, living Person; as if God were not physically manifest in Jesus Christ; and as if the Holy Spirit is not really at work in our lives through the tangible Word and the Sacraments.

Photo: Peggy Noonan by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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The Epstein Case Is a Major Scandal

Last updated on: July 12, 2019 at 7:41 pm By Gene Veith

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Billionaire hedge-fund manager Jeffrey Epstein has been indicted by New York federal prosecutors for the sex-trafficking of children. He is charged with molesting underaged girls–some as young as 14–and making them part of a sex network. This is not just another case of a prominent individual behaving badly. Epstein made the girls available to wealthy businessmen, celebrities, and politicians.

Epstein would reportedly fly guests on his private jet to sex parties at his various residences around the world. His Boeing 727 was nicknamed “The Lolita Express.” He would take some guests to his private island, which locals called “Pedophile Island.”

Wikipedia quotes the Miami Herald: “[Epstein’s] plane records show that during the time he was abusing young girls, he was flying former President Bill Clinton, Harvard professors and administrators, Nobel-prize winning scientists, actresses, actors, philanthropists and a who’s who of wealthy and powerful people to his island.”

Bill Clinton was a frequent flier on the Lolita Express, taking some 26 flights. Clinton claims he never went to the island and that he never knew about the “terrible crimes” for which Epstein has been indicted. Clinton claims that the trips were made on behalf of the Clinton Foundation, for which Epstein is a major funder. But on at least five of those flights, Clinton reportedly ditched the Secret Service contingent assigned to protect ex-presidents, which raises suspicions.

In 2002, in a now embarrassing puff piece praising the financier, the New Yorker quoted Donald Trump: “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” President Trump hasn’t been connected, as far as I know, to the Lolita Express or Pedophile Island. In fact, he reportedly banned Epstein from his Mar-A-Lago resort for sexually assaulting a young girl there.

But though Epstein was a major donor to Democrats, the Trump administration has already been impacted. Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta was the Florida prosecutor who in 2008 plea-bargained a prior case against Epstein. Instead of being convicted of statutory rape, Epstein pled guilty to the much-lesser charge of soliciting prostitutes. (Because he gave money to his victims after he abused them, they were classified as prostitutes!) For this, Epstein served 13 months in a private room in prison, with a work-release provision allowing him to go work in his office every day. The deal also included keeping the details secret–to protect the “big names”?–and promising immunity from further federal prosecution. This new case is said to focus on particular sex-abuse crimes in New York, not covered by the Florida deal, but Epstein’s lawyers will insist that any new trial would constitute double jeopardy. We shall see, but prosecutors–as well as dogged investigative reporting from the Miami Herald‘s Julie K. Brown–are bringing the secrets to light.

Acosta defended his plea-bargain. When asked if he would do it again differently, he said that today “we live in a very different world.” No, Mr. Acosta, the world in 2008 is the same world that we have in 2019. And while it is true that in recent decades our cultural mavens were much more accepting of the sexual abuse of children, it would still be wrong on Mars or Proxima Centauri b or whatever different worlds you choose. Under the pressure of the Epstein controversy, Acosta has resigned.

It will be interesting to see now who else will be brought down. Authorities have the log books of the Lolita Express. They have served a warrant at Epstein’s home, where they found thousands of documents, records, photos, and films. Some reports say that Epstein filmed the goings-on at his parties and at the island so as to have blackmail material, should he ever need it. Victims are coming forward and telling their stories, including accounts of rape and sex slavery. Prosecutors have issued a call for anyone who knows anything about the case, including those who flew on the plane or attended the parties, to come forward voluntarily before they are become subjects of investigation.

Quite a few names have already been leaked. You can find them on the internet. Perhaps some are innocent, simply attending a scientific conference at the island, Epstein being a big patron of scientific institutions, or were simply socializing with a fellow jet-setter apart from any sexual activities. But the sexual abuse of children is particularly heinous, and anyone involved–or who, knowing about it, said nothing to the authorities–may face their downfall, no matter how rich and famous and powerful they are.

Photo: Jeffrey Epstein mug shot, Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons

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The Top Religion Stories of 2017 Are Mostly About Trump

Last updated on: December 26, 2017 at 7:52 pm By Gene Veith

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Continuing our look back at 2017, we turn our attention to developments in religion. A poll of religion journalists has given us another Top Ten list of the top stories in that realm. But it’s an odd list, though revealing in its own way. Most of the items have to do with Donald Trump, as if he has some kind of religious significance! I’ll give the list and offer some comments.

From ‘Trumpvangelicals’ top religion journalists’ poll | Religion News Service and Religious News Association:

1. Trumpvangelicals. That is, the phenomenon of evangelicals and other conservative Christians supporting and having a voice in Donald Trump’s presidency. The secularist left finds it hilarious that Christian conservatives who once went by the name “moral majority” are among the most reliable backers of a thrice-married casino magnate with a history of womanizing who says he has never asked for God’s forgiveness because he has never done anything that needs forgiving. For the left, this just confirms that Christian conservatives don’t really believe in any of that morality stuff and that all they care about is gaining political power.

But maybe there is a different explanation. Perhaps the Trump alliance shows that the Christian right is neither hypocritical nor dead. Maybe it has matured. Perhaps the Christian right has turned away from identity politics, in which voters line up behind someone like them (which Democrats have started to depend on), for the more pragmatic tactic of realpolitik, voting for the candidate who will advance your interests. Evangelicals started their serious political involvement by voting for the born-again Jimmy Carter and continued in that vein with various Republicans, but with little to show for it. Trump, on the other hand, though not one of the tribe, is advancing the pro-life cause, setting religious freedom policies, and appointing culturally-conservative judges.

2. White supremacists march in Charlottesville, Va. I suppose the religious angle to that event is the neo-Nazi torchlight anti-semitism. But there were far more expressions last year of anti-semitism from the academic left. The Charlottesville march, though, was supposedly in support of Trump.

3. Muslim travel ban. The story is that Trump doesn’t like Muslims. So why didn’t he ban Muslims from all of the other Islamic countries? Why did he just ban the Muslims from a small handful of countries involved with terrorism?

4. Trump moves U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Why is this a religion story? Because it offended Muslims who consider Jerusalem to be one of their holy cities? Because it pleased end-times Christians and radical Jews, both of whom want to rebuild the Temple and re-establish the Levitical laws and sacrifices so that the Messiah will come? But I didn’t read any mainstream news treatments about that. And the U.S. action, which hasn’t happened yet, didn’t make Jerusalem the capital. Israel had already done that after the Six Day War in 1967. The U.S. moving its embassy doesn’t make Jerusalem any more the seat of Israel’s government than it already was. But this was the work of Trump, so it must be a religion story.

5. Atrocities against the Muslim Rohingya. The Buddhist state of Myanmar has been carrying out a genocidal ethnic cleansing campaign against its Rohingya minority group, which are Muslims. Over six thousand have been massacred, villages have been destroyed, with 500,000 fleeing to Bangladesh. This is a new picture of Buddhism to Westerners. Christians are not responsible for this story. Neither is Donald Trump.

6. Church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas. A militant atheist spouse-abuser goes into a small Baptist Church towards the end of a worship service and starts shooting, killing 26 worshippers of all ages and wounding 20. This was the deadliest church shooting in history. It sparked discussion not of a growing hostility to religion but of gun control (even though private citizens with guns stopped the killer). The lack of gun control was blamed on Trump.

7. Judge Roy Moore’s Senate campaign. Again, secularists love hypocrisy narratives. Judge Moore, famous for his refusal to take down monuments of the Ten Commandments, turned out to have a history of pursuing and in some cases molesting under-aged teenaged girls. In perhaps a test case of my hypothesis in my comments above, some Christian conservatives supported him anyway for the pragmatic reason of keeping a Republican majority in the Senate. But other Christians held on to their traditional moral criteria, leading to Moore’s defeat. Now a liberal Democrat represents the arch-conservative state of Alabama. Surely, though, this is more of a political than a religious story. Coverage somehow turned Moore’s campaign into another Trump story, though Trump opposed Moore in the primary.

8. The appointments of Neil Gorsuch and other conservative judges. By Donald Trump. Again, is this a religious story, as such, just because religious people are glad to have another conservative on the Supreme Court and have high hopes for pro-life judges?

9. National Football League protests. Why is this a religious story, except to the extent football has become the national religion? The Religious News Service, in announcing the list, said that some of the players refusing to honor the flag–by kneeling? I thought that was a religious gesture of offering extreme honor!–were motivated by their religious beliefs. I did learn that the player, Colin Kaepernick, who started the protests–in support of Black Lives Matter–was a Lutheran, though I don’t recall reading about national anthems in the Book of Concord. The protests seem to have hurt NFL ratings and shaken the national faith in football. And some pundits have connected it to a larger protest of Donald Trump. So the Trump connection must have helped this story make the list.

10. The 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. I’m glad this story made the cut! As a Lutheran, it was gratifying to see our top theologian getting so much press. And yet, so much of it missed the point of Luther’s emphasis on the Word of God and on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This would have been a good occasion also to discuss other elements of his theology, such as the distinction between Law and Gospel, his Theology of the Cross, and his view of the Sacraments. But most of the stories on Luther were about his cultural influence, often getting that wrong too by presenting Luther as the precursor of the Enlightenment, Modernism, and even Secularism!

So, what repeated themes do we see in these top stories?

Six of the 10 are about Donald Trump. Two more, in their journalistic coverage were indirectly tied to President Trump. Only two–the Rohinga genocide and the Reformation anniversary–were completely Trump-free.

None of the 10 had anything to do with actual religious leaders. Nothing about Pope Francis, despite the many controversies and provocative changes that the Pope was involved in this past year.

Is Trump the leader of American religion? At least according to those who don’t think much of either Trump or American religion?

Half of the top stories involved not so much religion as real or perceived hostility to religion. And two more of the stories indicated the journalists’ own hostility to religion.

There are no stories in the top 10 list about religious freedom or attempts to curtail it. Nothing about sexual morality, neither the heralds of change in the culture’s acceptance of LGBT issues nor the heralds of the pendulum starting to swing the other way in the rise of severe consequences for “sexual misconduct” (a story which made #1 in the secular news top 10!).

What other religious developments happened in 2017 that should have made this list?

Photo of President Trump at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem by Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv (DSC_3714OSD) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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The Threat to American Conservatism

Last updated on: November 14, 2017 at 3:00 pm By Gene Veith

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American conservatism is in jeopardy. If people who say they are conservatives vote for candidates who violate conservative principles–for example, “family values,” moral integrity, fidelity to the constitution, etc.–conservatism is proven to be a sham, just as the progressives claim.

So says John Daniel Davidson in The Federalist. He discusses the Judge Roy Moore debacle, showing that the Senate candidate now accused of child molestation has never really been a conservative.

His defiance of the court order to remove the Ten Commandments monument and his defying the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling by forbidding Alabama courthouses to obey it might have shown that he was on the right side of the culture war.

But he disobeyed the law. He defied the Constitution by repudiating the authority of the judicial system. That is not being conservative.

Nevertheless, many conservatives are supporting Judge Moore even in the face of the child molestation charges, which are growing in their credibility as evidence emerges. Social conservatives, including Christian conservatives, hold to a high standard of sexual morality. Or do they really, if they are willing to make an exception for Judge Moore?

If political and social conservatives don’t really believe in political and social conservatism, why should anyone take their beliefs seriously?

Progressives keep saying that conservative ideals are nothing more than rhetoric, just a smokescreen for getting power. Some conservatives act like they are trying to prove that the progressives are right.

From John Daniel Davidson, Long Before Assault Allegations, Roy Moore Betrayed Conservatism, in The Federalist:

Progressives tend not to believe that conservatives are sincere about their opposition to abortion, or gay marriage, or much of anything that conservatives profess. For most Democrats, conservative policy positions are all cynical ploys to secure an advantage at the expense of some minority group or other. When conservatives put forward regulations on abortion, they’re not really concerned about protecting the unborn but controlling women. When they oppose the expansion of the welfare state, they’re not really concerned about limiting government expenditures but punishing the poor. When they talk about protecting religious liberty, they’re really talking about discriminating against gay Americans.

The revelation of Moore’s alleged sexual misdeeds and crimes are repugnant enough on their own, and should cost him the election. But to the extent that he continues to receive significant support from Alabama conservatives, the accusations will have consequences beyond this one election. Much like the support Moore received earlier in his career, his supporters are sending the message that social conservatives are hypocrites: they don’t care about family values or morality or even basic decency, all they care about is power. Every time Republican voters embrace a non-conservative like Moore, that message gets harder to refute.

The threat to American conservatism is not that it will lose elections. That happens, but conservatism can survive to fight another day. But if conservatives stop abiding by conservative principles, then conservatism will cease to exist.

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