Category Archives: Longevity

The Big Ten used to be the league of longevity. Good coaches almost always stuck around, often for more than a decade. No wonder the league's most famous bosses went by first names only: Woody, Bo, Joe, Hayden.

The longevity label didn't only apply in 1970 or 1980. Simply go back to December 2006.

At that point, Iowa's Kirk Ferentz was finishing up his eighth season in the job, making him the Big Ten's fifth-longest-tenured coach. Penn State's Joe Paterno, Michigan's Lloyd Carr, Purdue's Joe Tiller and Minnesota's Glen Mason all had been in their jobs longer than Ferentz.

As the 2012 season beckons, Ferentz is the longest-tenured coach in the league. By far. The second-longest tenured? Wisconsins Bret Bielema and Northwesterns Pat Fitzgerald. Bielema, a 42-year-old newlywed, and Fitzgerald, who turned 37 in December, both landed their first head-coaching positions before the 2006 season.

Since January 2007, the Big Ten has said goodbye to 11 head coaches, including three -- Paterno, Carr and Ohio State's Jim Tressel -- who won national championships. Michigan, which has had six head coaches serve for 10 or more years, has made two changes during the span. So has Ohio State.

Several factors play into the leagues historic turnover at the top. Carr and Tiller retired, in part because of their teams' performances. Minnesota got fed up with Mason's middling results and then took a bigger step backward with Tim Brewster before firing him midway through the 2010 season. Indiana and Illinois made understandable changes after subpar results on the field.

The most shocking changes stemmed from scandal and involved two men with solid reputations: Tressel and Paterno. Tressel had led Ohio State to six consecutive Big Ten titles, seven consecutive wins against Michigan and back-to-back BCS bowl wins before being pink-slipped for knowingly playing ineligible players and not coming forward about NCAA violations. Paterno guided Penn State to a 9-1 mark before being fired by the school's trustees days after the child sex abuse scandal broke.

After relative quiet in 2008 and 2009, the Big Ten has had three head-coaching changes in each of the past two offseasons.

Will longevity ever become a Big Ten hallmark again? There won't be another like Paterno, but several coaches could stay in their positions for a while. Ferentz has turned down multiple opportunities in the NFL to remain with Iowa, which pays him handsomely. He could easily finish his career in Iowa City. The Iowa job is somewhat of a novelty in todays college football, as only two men (Ferentz and Hayden Fry) have led the Hawkeyes since 1979.

Brady Hoke openly admits Michigan is his dream job. He'll be in Ann Arbor as long as they'll have him.

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Big Ten no longer league of longevity

BOULDER, CO--(Marketwire -07/11/12)- The Center for Productive Longevity (CPL), which serves as the bridge between people 55 and older and opportunities that enable them to continue in productive activities, is organizing three more meetings this fall in the "Spotlight on Entrepreneurship Opportunities for Baby Boomers" series. The meetings are designed to contribute to a national momentum for new-business creation, which enables Baby Boomers to remain productively engaged and also facilitates national economic growth.

The events will be held for people 50 and older at Babson College in Wellesley, MA on September 14, Northwestern University/Kellogg School of Management in Chicago on October 11, and the University of Denver on November 15. To register and view preliminary agendas, visit http://www.ctrpl.org/entrepreneurship-meeting/overview. Sponsors of upcoming meetings include AARP, CPL, and a number of other organizations.

Each of the meetings will have presentations by three successful entrepreneurs. The meetings will also include two rounds of interactive breakout sessions on topics relating to new-business creation and how to become an entrepreneur, including: risks and rewards of being an entrepreneur, strategies for identifying and selecting potential business opportunities, developing a business plan or business concept statement, and exploring funding support.

The first meeting in the series was held March 27 in Kansas City, MO at the Kauffman Foundation, a focal point for entrepreneurship in America, and attracted 95 participants. The written evaluations indicated that the meeting was extremely successful: 87 percent of the participants reported that it increased their awareness and understanding of the benefits and opportunities provided by entrepreneurship, and 97 percent stated they were now more likely to create a new business.

This interest in entrepreneurship as a career after retirement is reflected in national research as well, with increasingly more people 55 and older creating their own businesses. In fact, according to Kauffman Foundation research, the relative percentage of entrepreneurs has increased by almost seven percent for people 55-64 from 1996-2011, the largest increase among all age groups; by contrast, the percentage dropped about five percent for people 20-44.

The minimum age level is 50, and qualified people can register now for one of the following meetings at http://www.ctrpl.org/entrepreneurship-meeting/overview:

The number of participants will be limited to 125 on a first-come basis. The cost of $35 per person covers inclusion of a spouse, if desired, and a post-meeting workshop on the "how-tos" of creating a new business. Payment to the Center for Productive Longevity must be received by the first of the month in which the meeting is held to confirm participation.

CPL has also initiated a national competition, the Later-Life Story Contest, for people 55 and older. The competition has two categories: Entrepreneur Success Stories and Inspirational Later-Life Stories. A panel of three independent judges will select one winner from each category who will receive $1,000 and a specially designed trophy. CPL will post the best stories on its website (ctrpl.org) under "Success Stories." The contest deadline is August 31, and winners will be announced on October 1, 2012.

To submit a story, visit http://www.ctrpl.org/laterlifestorycontest and complete a submission form. Entrants must be 55 and older, have a compelling story to share, and be willing to have it posted on the CPL website for viewing and for possible publication. Stories may also be sent to James Hooks at jhooks@ctrpl.org.

For more information on CPL, the meetings and how to submit entrepreneur success stories, visit http://www.ctrpl.org or Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/CTRPL.

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Center for Productive Longevity Organizing Events to Stimulate Entrepreneurship Among Baby Boomers

Latest Senior Health News

THURSDAY, July 5 (HealthDay News) -- Your garden-variety rat lives about three years -- plenty long enough to become a nuisance or get a starring role in a Disney film, but not much in the big scheme of things. The naked mole rat, however, a native of East Africa, lives as long as three decades.

Even the naked mole rat's golden years aren't bad, as the rodent doesn't deteriorate much in terms of activity, bone health, sex and brainpower.

What's going on? It may have nothing to do with a lack of hair. (Sorry, bald people.) Instead, a team of researchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel, the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and the City College of New York report that a brain-protecting protein called NRG-1 could be an important factor.

The good news: Our genetic makeup is similar to that of rodents -- we share about 85 percent of our genes -- and perhaps more knowledge about this protein could help us live longer and better too, study co-author Dorothee Huchon at Tel Aviv University's department of zoology, suggested in a university news release.

The researchers found that the naked mole rat has the most and longest-lasting supply of the protein of the rodents studied. And their levels of the protein stuck around whether they were one day old or 26 years.

The protein appears to protect neurons in the brain.

Scientists note, however, that research with animals often fails to provide similar results in humans.

The study was published in a recent issue of the journal Aging Cell.

-- Randy Dotinga

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Could the Naked Mole Rat Hold Secrets to Longevity?

LAWRENCE -- Two professors from New York University and Rider have proved beyond speculation that winning a Tony Award increases the life of a Broadway show, and they have the numbers to show just how much such recognition can help.

Jeff Simonoff, a statistics professor at NYU, teamed up with his former student and now associate professor at Rider, Lan Ma Nygren, to re-evaluate and elaborate on research that the two published in the Journal of Business in 2003.

Their research incorporates the effect that winning a Tony Award has on the longevity of a Broadway show, Simonoff said. This type of research can give the business end of Broadway an idea how well their shows will perform in a week or six months, he said.

Simonoff and Nygren are looking at data such as the shows opening date, weekly attendance rates, the genre of the show, and the Tony Award bump in attendance rates a direct effect of a shows publicity at the awards ceremony.

According to our study, each Tony win in one of the major categories is associated with a 50 percent longer expected run, while a nomination without the win is associated with a 30 percent longer expected lifespan, Nygren said via e-mail. The major categories refer to musical, tuner revival, play, play revival, director and lead actor and actress.

To some, winning a Tony award may be an obvious indication that a shows popularity could increase. Nygren does not disagree.

Its quite obvious that a big Tony winner should expect to run longer than it would have otherwise, but how much longer? she said.

One genre of play the musical trumps the rest, Simonoff said.

People in the business know that musicals last longer. These arent things that are really shocking, he said. But the statistics modeling can confirm that common wisdom. It also allows you to attach a number to a (shows success).

The research shows that winning a Tony Award increases the lifespan of a show by 50 percent while nominations get 30 percent longevity. Musicals have a 50 percent longer run than nonmusicals while revivals are less successful, with 20 percent shorter runs that nonrevivals.

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Rider University, NYU professors link Tony Awards and shows' longevity on Broadway

PHOENIX, AZ. -Do honeybees hold the key to longevity?

Scientists at Arizona State University have discovered that older honey bees effectively reverse brain aging when they take care of baby bees,a phenomenon that could have implications for humans.

While current research on human age-related dementia focuses on potential new drug treatments, researchers say these findings suggest that social interventions may be used to slow or treat age-related dementia.

In a study published in the scientific journal Experimental Gerontology, a team of scientists from ASU and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, led by Gro Amdam, an associate professor in ASU's School of Life Sciences, presented findings that show that tricking older, foraging bees into doing social tasks inside the nest causes changes in the molecular structure of their brains.

"We knew from previous research that when bees stay in the nest and take care of larvae -- the bee babies -- they remain mentally competent for as long as we observe them," said Amdam. "However, after a period of nursing, bees fly out gathering food and begin aging very quickly. After just two weeks, foraging bees have worn wings, hairless bodies, and more importantly, lose brain function -- basically measured as the ability to learn new things. We wanted to find out if there was plasticity in this aging pattern so we asked the question, 'What would happen if we asked the foraging bees to take care of larval babies again?"

During experiments, scientists removed all of the younger nurse bees from the nest -- leaving only the queen and babies. When the older, foraging bees returned to the nest, activity diminished for several days. Then, some of the old bees returned to searching for food, while others cared for the nest and larvae. Researchers discovered that after 10 days, about 50 percent of the older bees caring for the nest and larvae had significantly improved their ability to learn new things.

Amdam's international team not only saw a recovery in the bees' ability to learn, they discovered a change in proteins in the bees' brains. When comparing the brains of the bees that improved relative to those that did not, two proteins noticeably changed. They found Prx6, a protein also found in humans that can help protect against dementia -- including diseases such as Alzheimer's -- and they discovered a second and documented "chaperone" protein that protects other proteins from being damaged when brain or other tissues are exposed to cell-level stress.

In general, researchers are interested in creating a drug that could help people maintain brain function, yet they may be facing up to 30 years of basic research and trials.

"Maybe social interventions -- changing how you deal with your surroundings -- is something we can do today to help our brains stay younger," said Amdam. "Since the proteins being researched in people are the same proteins bees have, these proteins may be able to spontaneously respond to specific social experiences."

Amdam suggests further studies are needed on mammals such as rats in order investigate whether the same molecular changes that the bees experience might be socially inducible in people.

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Do honeybees hold the key to longevity?

July 2, 2012

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redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports Your Universe Online

Diving seabirds reach their 30s and then die swiftly and unexpectedly, showing little signs of aging prior to their death. Studying these birds could help us understand the aging process and provide critical insights for our aging citizens.

Researchers studied Guillemots which look similar to penguins but can fly over four summers. During this time, they periodically tracked Brnnichs guillemots fitness, recording depth and for how long they would dive for prey, how far and fast they would fly, and how much energy they used on these activities. They also looked for changes in the birds behavior and metabolism.

Guillemots have the highest flight outlay of any bird and use large amounts of energy for diving. Their high metabolisms and frequent dives should produce oxidative stress, causing the birds to weaken as they age. However, the researchers discovered that the birds stay fit and active as they grow older, maintaining their flying, diving, and foraging abilities.

Kyle Elliott, a PhD student at the University of Manitoba and the studys lead author, said, Most of what we know about aging is from studies of short-lived round worms, fruit flies, mice, and chickens, but long-lived animals age differently. We need data from long-lived animals, and one good example is long-lived seabirds.

Elliott also said, Not only do these birds live very long, but they maintain their energetic lifestyle in a very extreme environment into old age.

One bird, nicknamed Wayne Gretzky by the researchers (after the Canadian hockey great who played 20 seasons and because the birds band of colors matched Gretzkys team colors), raised young for 18 uninterrupted years.

The findings will be presented today at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting in Salzburg.

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What Diving Seabirds Can Tell Us About Our Own Longevity