Many of you perhaps have seen the movie “The Curious Case of
Benjamin Burton” a fantasy drama movie If you haven’t seen the
movie I highly recommend. The movie presents the life of Benjamin Burton (Brad
Pitt) who reverse age as he grew older.
This is a fiction movie. Reversing aging and aging backwards
is something unreal. What the new scientific breakthrough can say about aging?
One interested book that I’ve read in the last time is
Lifespan written by David Sinclair. I have been watching David Sinclair in the
last years. For those who don’t know who David Sinclair is is professor of
Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School.
I always have been obsessed with the idea of aging and I’m
still. We’ve been taught that that aging is something that come naturally, but
is still this true? Can we stop aging? Delay it? And why not to reverse it?
Lifespan is a book that gives some insights and scientific notes
about aging. Aging is associated with many diseases like cancers,
cardiovascular, neurogenerative (Alzheimer and Parkinson) and frailty to name a
few of them.
Aging Can be attributed to the following factors and present
the following hallmarks:
Genomic instability caused by DNA damage
Accumulation of senescent cells (zombie cells)
Alteration of the chromosomes that affect telomeres
Mitochondrial dysfunction
What cause aging? The New Theory of Aging?
Over
the years aging had many definitions started with something that come naturally
as time pass, shorten of the telomeres all of these are wrong.
We can define aging as the process of loss of information.
Epigenetic changes cause aging. To understand this, we have our DNA which is
the digital information, we can make an analogy with a compact disk and the
Epigenome the reader that read songs.
Epigenome is the structure that is wrapped with DNA around
protein histones which say what genes should be turn on/off. What cause aging
are scratches and distractions on the compact disk making to skip the songs. Skipping
to read the song makes the cells to read the wrong genes and the ability to
fight diseases.
Resseting the Epigenome
Sirtuins : SIRT1, SIRT6 and SIRT6 (Silent Information
Regulation) are critical for the control of epigenome and DNA repair. Other
form of SIRT3,4,5 help mitochondria and control energy metabolism. The
good news here is that we can reset the epigenome by polishing the CD and get
back to original copy.
What can be done?
The first thing that we can do is to put our body in a
survival circuit hormesis by tweaking sirtuins, mTOR and AMPK. Sirt2 control
the Epigenome. When a DNA break occurs SIRT2 is recruited repair the damage. On
average more than 2 trillion breaks occurs to our DNA.
David
Sinclair recommends the following:
Intermittent fasting restricting
your caloric intake is one of the best choices that a person can do. Inhibiting mToR (Mammalian Target Rapamycin) force cells to spend less energy and recycle old proteins.
Exercise (High Intensive Intervals) Sinclair recommends those exercise that lose your breath for few minutes to induce the body in the hypoxia state.
Resveratrol is chemical compound found special in red grapes, cacao and berries. Resveratrol activates Sirtuins
NMN Supplement Nicotinomide Mononucleotide is an NAD booster. Without NAD our life cannot be possible even for a few seconds. Once we age the level of NAD(Nicotinemide Adenine Dinucleotide) start to decline.
Metformin is a drug normally recommended for people with 2 Type Diabetes. Is considered one of the safest drug in the world. Metformin helps increase the lifespan by mimicking caloric restriction activating AMPK and also activate SIRT1
Hot/Cold showers Recent studies demonstrated that cold showers promote brown fat production can help improve health by increasing the lifespan
Genetic Reprogramming on the early stage of development. Is one the promising technology, tests that had been done over animals (mice) are mind blowing. I consider these technology the only one that can reverse aging quick.
In Conclusion I highly recommend these book is one of the best book written about longevity and lifespan. David Sinclair expertise and work can give you an overview about aging, what cause it, how can we stop it or even reverse it.
It has passed almost 76 years since the last world conflagration. The events of the second world war are still fresh in our memories. The competition between nations and the desire to extend the sphere of influence has resulted in many cases in wars. Are we close to the next world war? How the next world might look? These are the few questions we should ask.
The United States and China are the main economic powers but between these countries, a fight for supremacy began. In the last years, China has increased military build-up in South Pacific. They claim vast territories from the Pacific, have territorial disputes with Philipines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Taiwan.
The aggression actions against Taiwan have increased in the last years. Their actions are not against neighbors countries, are directed to challenge the US dominance in the Pacific. Can this become the outcome of the next world war?
A book that I found interested is "2034 -The novel of the next war" written by Admiral James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman. In this book, the authors present how a hypothetical war might look between China and US. Admiral Jim Stavridis (ret) was a Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and commanded US southern fleet.
The events in the book, how Stavridis revealed starts with the sinking of Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer " John Paul Jones" the pride of US navy and vessels "Carl Levin" and "Chung Hoon " by the Chinese Navy after the US navy seize the Chinese spy ship "When RUI".
What is important to remember is that according to Stavridis the Chinese outclassed the US military in cybersecurity and cyber warfare hacking the American information and communication systems.
At this stage of the war, the Americans were incapable of organizing centralized self-defense. It seems that regulation that resulted in many innovations and economic strength become US weakness.
The US response is prompt, the unthinkable happens a nuclear war between the two countries. On 27 June 2034 US launch a 150 kiloton bomb on the province Zhanjiang. In response to this China launched a nuclear strike against "San Diego" and "Galveston". The war finished after the US nukes Shanghai a city with a population of 33 million people.
In conclusion, I highly recommend this book for those who want to discover who the next world war might look. I hope that the events presented by Stavridis in his book will be hypothetical and never happen.
One book that I had on my reading list is "Sapiens" written by Yuval Noah Harari. I was intrigued by the evolution of the human species from its inception to the present and how the future might look.
Humans are by far the most advanced and intelligent species that live on Earth. The evolution of humans started million years ago. It is amazing to see how humans evaluated from a primitive form of life to the absolute supreme species of this planet.
There are two theories about the evolution of humans :
1) Creation
2) Evolution
The first theory claim that human is the result of the creation by a divine force. The second theory which is emphasized in the book presents that humans are ancestors of Homo Sapiens. We can argue that we (humans) are the outcome of a blind evolution process that operates without goal and purpose.
One factor that had contributed decisively to the evolution of humans from the evolution from a primitive form of Apes to lead the world is Cognitive Revolution.
Important facts to remember that emphasize the evolution of homo sapiens about 2.5 million years ago men and women's brain was about 600 cubic centimeter. Today modern sapiens have a brain between 1200-1400 cubic centimeters.
Homo Sapiens brain accounts for 2-3% of the total body weight which consumes 25 % of the body energy. On the other hand, Apes brains consume only 8% of their energy.
The evolution of humans is amazing but at the same time, we have many reasons to worry. If at the beginning total population was about few thousands today is more than 7 billion and is forecast to hit 9 billion by 2050. Facing this situation humans have to solve many problems starting with the environment, food, and so on.
In conclusion, I highly recommend "Sapiens" to have a clue of the evolution of Humankind.
They said that big fortunes are made by families and transmitted from generation to generation among families members. A book that applies this rule is Master of the Game, written by Sidney Sheldon.
The story of the book is about the Blackwell family and the Kruger Brent Company. Over the years the Kruger Brent becomes one of the biggest companies in the world, a multi-million dollar business conglomerate. If I have to find an analog today it will be Berkshire Hathaway.
The analogy with Berkshire Hathaway stops here. The Kruger Brent has another story, a story about greed, betrayal, suspense, and murder.
Master of the Game can easily be considered a drama book. The Kruger Brent company was founded by Jamie Mcgregor a Scottish who had the desire to become rich by trying his luck in South Africa to find diamonds. The key player in this story is Kate the daughter of Jamies who later becomes Mis Blackwell after married David Blackwell.
Kate Blackwell was behind the success of Kruger Brent, she builds a financial empire, she sacrifices everything around her even the life of his son Tony Blackwell who later become isolated into an asylum, for the sake of his company.
In conclusion, I highly recommend this book is full of suspense and action.
"Il Capo dei Capi" is the movie that presents the life of the Salvatore Riina. After I've seen this movie, I was curious to discover more about the life of Salvatore Riina.
One opportunity was to read the book "The Life of the Infamous Toto Riina by Attilio Bolzoni and Giuseppe D'avanzo.
Salvatore Riina aka "U Curtu " or "The Beast" was one of the prominent leaders of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. Born in Corleone Sicily the son of Giovanni Riina. After his father's death, he becomes in charge of the family affairs being the family's old brother.
From a young age, he started his criminal activity together with his friends: Bernardo Provenzano, Calogero Bagarella under the supervision of Leggio Luciano. In a short period, the coreleonesi gang controlled al Corleone after they killed Dr. Michele Navara.
The peasants from Corleone wanted more, they weren't happy with the control of their local town, they wanted Palermo and all of Sicily. With patience, cleverness, ferocity, and murder they controlled the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.
Salvatore Riina will remain in the history of Cosa Nostra who started a bloody war against the state. Victims of their ferocious actions were other leaders of Mafia-like: Bontate, Inzerillo , Busceta, police officers, magistrates, prosecutors like Giovanni Falcone, Paolo Borsellino, and many more.
In conclusion, I recommend this book to discover more about the life of Salvatore Riina.
It passed a while since I wrote my last article. We are in a full Covid-19 Pandemic, many countries are in lockdown, many businesses are forced to close their operations only essential businesses are open.
It is a tough, difficult, and challenging period for many businesses. In today's article, I will present my personal solutions for industries and businesses that is been affected most by Covid-19.
The level of the impact differs from industry to industry, from businesses to businesses. If some industries are badly affected some industries less or even become more prosperous.
I will analyze only the industries that are most affected by Covid19.
As you can see in the image above the S&P Global Market Intelligence has done research on the industries that are most affected by Covide 19. The most affected industries are airlines, leisure, oil and gas, auto parts& Equipment, and Restaurants.
In this article, we analyze and come out with solutions in my view only the industries that are affected most. The industries that I will choose for this topic are Retail, Food, and Beverage, Hospitality Industry, and Travel Industry. So let's get dive into it
1 Retail Industry
(Retail Shops, Shops, Non-essential shops)
The retail industry is one of the industries that is affected by Covid-19 restrictions. The truth is those essential businesses are affected less than non-essential. Non-essential businesses are forced to close due to restrictions. For those businesses, the only helping solutions came from the Government. The Government provides Covid19 pandemic payments. The level of the payment differs from the size of the businesses and in which country the businesses are based.
My solution
If you are the owner of the shop who does not get any pandemic payment, the online solution to keep alive your business is to Go Online.
Going Online means the first start building a digital asset. The most important digital asset for every business is the website. My suggestion is: if your business does not have a website, I suggest to create a platform where you can sell your products. If your businesses have a website and do not convert, my advice is to update and optimize existing content. Social Media platforms are also ideal for promoting your business online. Here are some recommendations I don't go too deep on how to do digital marketing.
2 Food and Beverage
We can include this category businesses like restaurants, pubs, night clubs, and coffee shops.
Restaurants
Like many other businesses, restaurants are one of the businesses that are most affected by Covid 19.
My Solutions:
Managing this kind of business on Covid-19 Pandemic differ from the level of restrictions from country to country. If for example, your business is operating in a country where the government has eased some restrictions, a restaurant business can operate under normal conditions, but keeping social distance.
If your restaurant business is facing severe restrictions and can not operate under normal conditions, the only solution is to change the business model and transform it into a Food Delivery Business.
The transition from a restaurant to a food delivery business can be done. In the lockdown period, many restaurants have transformed into a food delivery business with success.
Pubs
The situation with pubs is a bit different from restaurants. If in some countries pubs remain closed during the Covid19 restrictions in some countries when the government ease restrictions let the pubs open for businesses. The only source for pubs to survive, like in restaurants cases are government payments. However, is a big difference in selling alcohol under-delivery business is prohibited in many countries. We took out this solution from the equation.
My Solutions:
Selling Stuff Online
When I say "selling stuff online" I don't mean alcohol as you probably think. Pubs are places designed for selling alcohol. Pubs have different characteristics and traditions from country to country. One example that I have in mind are Irish pubs. Irish pubs are promoters of Irish traditions, they promote the culture, music, and lifestyle of Ireland.
A business like this can take advantage of that by trying to promote traditions, culture, and lifestyle instead of selling alcohol. Temple Bar is a well know place in Dublin where you can find famous pubs.
If you are a pub owner you can try something to keep your businesses by selling different souvenirs online.
VR and Augmented Reality
In full Covid-19 Pandemic with many restrictions imposed by governments, creating a virtual world is the only solution that seems it will work, excepting social distancing that I have some doubts about the efficiency. VR technologies are in the early stage of development. I consider those technologies will have a huge impact on the near future.
From a pub business perspective creating a virtual world where you can feel and live the sensation of an Irish pub. Imagine what feeling you will have to be in a virtual world that replicates exactly The Temple Bar with traditional Irish music.
To be feasible first you need to be able to develop a Virtual Reality application, that can be accessed from a headset.
3 Hospitality Industry
In the hospitality industry, we can include businesses like: (Hotels, Resorts, Hostels and so on)
Is one of the industries that is been hit by the Covid19 Pandemic. Despite the introduction of restrictions, these businesses are still open for businesses. However, even if the businesses are open their profit margin is severely impacted. What can be done in this case? The answer not to many options. Even the options are few, I believe we should exploit them.
My Solutions:
Food Delivery Businesses
A hotel from example can easily transform the business model in food delivery businesses. In general, hotels provide food for their existing customers. I don't see any reasons why a hotel can not be converted to a delivery food business.
Selling Souvenirs Online
You can find hotels everywhere in the world. If you are based in a country that has traditions why you don't try to promote and sell it. Creating an online platform where you can sell different souvenirs that are representative of your country is a good solution. You might say: Well The income that you can get from selling these souvenirs will be enough to cover operating costs?
The answer is no, but I remember you that this kind of business is still open. So you can get an important percentage of your turnover from bookings.
VR & Augmented Reality
This kind of application can help to improve the user experience. I will give an example, Imagine you are a US citizen and want to book a hotel in Ireland Dublin. The person that is interested in making the booking can feel the experience of the hotel in a virtual world. If he likes the experience the probability to make the booking will be higher.
4 Travel Industry
The travel industry is big and includes many types of businesses. I will take only a few types of businesses. The businesses that I will choose will be Travel Agencies and Cruise Shipping Line.
Cruise Shipping Line
One of the industries that were hit badly by Covid19. It was sad to see companies that are liquidated and no longer exist and ships that are dismantled. I have friends that are working in the industry and I know how sad they are about this situation. For a cruise shipping line business there are not too many solutions that can be implemented to keep the business alive.
My Solution
VR & Augmented Reality
Living the experience of Cruise Line Shipping in a virtual world is not something S.F. Immersive VR Education is a software company based in Ireland dedicated to transforming how training and educational content is delivered and consumed. In the video above you have one of the applications developed by the company to recreate a virtual world for Titanic.
Having said that. Why some important cruise shipping line businesses like Royal Caribbean for example will not develop this kind of application to recreate the life of cruise shipping in a virtual world. Developing VR technologies can also help cruise shipping businesses to improve User Experience before somebody can make a booking.
Travel Agencies
Are also one of the businesses hit hard by Covid19 restrictions. For this kind of business like cruise shipping businesses, there are not too many solutions that can be done to keep this kind of business alive.
VR & Augmented Reality
To feel the experience to be in the Maldives or Seychelles from your headset is something that can make travel agencies around the world think seriously. Creating a virtual world for the Maldives islands for example is something that will improve the experience for potential users.
In conclusion, these are my solutions to how businesses can survive the Covid-19 Pandemic. I'm not saying that are feasible or will work 100 % but sometimes is far better to try to do something rather than nothing.
I consider skills one of the best assets that a person can have. Today having gifted with many skills is a real blessing. Skills are important and will remain important in the near future. We live in a period where science and technologies are moving very fast. What we been taught in the past is not valid in the present and will not be in the future.
In today's article, I will list my top 6
skills that need to have to be successful in the future.
1 Communication
Seen by many as not so important, communication is perhaps the most important skill that a person can have. I have to admit communication is not my strong part, actually, I'm very bad on this. Improving my communication skills is one of my tops priorities. Having good communication skills can improve your value with 50 % according to Warren Buffet.
2 Marketing& Sales
The concept is very simple: "you can't sell, you can't make money". In life and business, sales are what count most. The example that I have in mind now is Steve Jobs, he was an extremely good marketing guy. The presentation when he had introduced for the first time the iPhone was amazing.
Developing selling skills by digital marketing today is something that a person don need to miss if wants to become successful in the near future.
3 Coding
I discovered coding very interesting and I fall in love with this. Seen difficult by many, coding is a skill that you need to have success in the near future. The opportunities for software developers are endless.
Having coding skills like HTML, Javascript, Java, CSS can help you to solve some problems related to developing websites, apps, and other applications.
Coding can help you to develop complex systems using: machine learning, AI, and blockchain technologies.
4 Biotechnology
We are in a full pandemic crisis generated by the spread of COVID-19. The important biotech companies in the world are in a full race to develop a vaccine. The opportunities to be involved in the biotech field today are endless and with future perspectives.
Cellular agriculture is perhaps one of the most trendy parts of biotechnology today. There are companies startups that are working to create meat in another way that we used for. They are developing meat by culturing muscle tissues.
Agriculture is not the only domain where biotechnology is evolving. The food industry, medicine, plastic surgery are only a few fields.
5 Creativity and Content creation
If there are jobs that will not be extinct by AI, definitely will be jobs that imply creativity. People with creative skills can be successful in the near future. Social Media platforms are places where we can find those people starting with: bloggers, vloggers, and influencers.
6 Copywriting
After communication, I consider copywriting another important skill that a person should master if he wants to become successful in the near future. The two examples that I have in mind are Richard Branson and Bill Gates. What those people have in common? Both are successful business leaders and have a strong online presence on social media and they are posting periodically to their blogs.
