Month: April 2023

Every tech support task you should do for your family

How to save money, prevent hacks and make everything work smoothly.

Like getting your teeth cleaned or emptying the gutters, there are a number of digital maintenance tasks everyone should see to once or twice a year.

  • Update all the software.
  • Make sure contact emails are up-to-date.
  • Turn on two-factor authentication.
  • Set up a password system.
  • See if the storage is full.
  • Set up automatic backups. (In my opinion, this should be the very first priority.)
  • Adjust accessibility features.
  • Scan for any malware or adware.
  • Cancel unwanted subscriptions.
  • Organize cable and streaming services.
  • Check the cable, Internet and phone bill.
  • Add legacy contacts.
  • Lock down all the privacy settings.
  • Set up computers so you can help remotely.
  • Find local tech support.
  • Clear out old unwanted tech.
  • Set up any holiday tech gifts.
  • Review common scams.

Each of these tips has an explanation of why it’s important and how to do it. Yes, it’s a lot of items, but doing as many as you can will help, and you can do (for example) one item a week. 1,600 words: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/12/20/tech-support-checklist/.

How a shipping error launched the chicken industry

In 2020 alone, people around the world consumed over 70 billion (chickens), up from 8 billion in 1965…

The story begins 100 years ago in 1923, with homemaker and farmer Cecile Steele of Ocean View, Delaware. Steele, like many other rural Americans in her time, kept a small flock of chickens that she raised for eggs and waited to slaughter them for meat once their productivity waned. But one day by accident the local chick hatchery delivered 500 birds, 10 times more than the 50 Steele had ordered

Five hundred hens was a lot — bigger farms at the time had only 300.

The discovery of Vitamin D, which when added to chicken feed helped chickens survive a winter inside a barn, also made a big difference.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/2/10/23589333/cecile-steele-chicken-meat-poultry-eggs-delaware. 2,665 words.

Anti-aging vaccine shows promise (in mice)

I’m still tracking progress in life elongation. Here’s a result from 2021:

An experimental vaccine successfully eliminated aging cells from the bodies of mice, helping to prolong the rodents’ lives and reverse some signs of age-related disease…

The new vaccine targets senescent cells, which are cells that have stopped multiplying due to damage or stress, but don’t die when they should…. These cells accumulate as we age, as the immune system becomes less efficient at clearing such cells from the body. Senescent cells release compounds that trigger inflammation and thus damage nearby healthy cells. And evidence suggests that this buildup of senescent cells contributes to a slew of age-related diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer’s and atherosclerosis, a disease where plaque builds up in the arteries.

For the past decade, scientists have been working to develop “senolytic therapies,” or drugs that can clear senescent cells from the body. Some of these drugs have reduced inflammation, delayed the onset of age-related diseases and extended the life span of rodents. A couple dozen of these drugs have entered clinical trials in human patients…

To see if the vaccine showed any effect on general signs of aging, the team vaccinated middle-age mice, a little over a year old, and then tested their agility at about 1.5 years old. Mice given a placebo shot moved less often and more slowly in their old age, but mice given the vaccine remained far more spry, the team found. What’s more, in a third experiment, the team found that mice given the vaccine lived slightly longer than mice given the placebo, hinting that the shot may somewhat prolong life span.

The team didn’t notice any side effects in their vaccinated mice.

1,200 words: https://www.livescience.com/vaccine-against-aging-senescent-cells-in-mice.