May 21 2024 - Ageing is Aging

 

Those ads that show "older women" - they don't look older to me.  There used to be a little app on Microsoft that guessed your age from a picture.  It is called a face age detector.  I tried out a few faces from the internet and it seems a bit silly.  Everyone is assessed at under 80 - even the ones who look 100 with lots of wrinkles.  It seems to under assess age. I guess it is a bit concerned over feelings. You can look at 16,066 very old people on Dreamtime or Shutterstock. There are 3,636 crying old ladies on Shutterstock.  What about senior citizens driving - there are 726 pictures on Shutterstock.    Or old ladies in swimsuits?  That one falls apart - the headliner image appears to be a woman aged about 30.   Quora has lots to say about figuring out age.  here's the top post about how to predict someone's age by looking at them: "People in their 60's have wrinkles around their mouths, and loosening of the skin of their necks. People in their 50's tend to have "crow's feet" wrinkles around the corners of their eyes. People in their 40's show a hint of those crow's feet. People in their 30's look fully adult, without the wrinkles but faces that are no longer child-like. People in their 20's look like adults but retain their youthful, teenlike appearance." Did you notice something People don't seem to get over 60? And that makes sense from what is shown on the internet.  Here's the woman on the ad for pilates for older woman.  What age is she assessed at?  42.  How older is older?   This fun picture seemed to call out for some analysis so I put him through the age machine and it says he is 40 years old.  A bit of Dorian Gray.

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Oct 19 2021 - Old Enough to ...

 

Yesterday's "race to stop aging" topic got me wondering about how we view age.  What came up?  The expressions old enough and too old.  I consider old enough to be a question about maturity.  My view is philosophical.  It is much more practical than that. How old is old enough?  Google answers:  the answer, generally, is 18 -  the age when the United States, and the rest of the world, considers young people capable of accepting responsibility for their actions... The NYTimes article that this is excerpted from is about whether children should be sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes that don't involve murder. That was in 2009.  In 2012, Australia's version of the question was:  How old is old enough to be a criminal? "Every year, hundreds of children younger than 13 sit inside Australian juvenile detention centres. They aren’t old enough to drive a car. Yet the justice system has set them on a criminal pathway that sends the vast majority into adult prisons. We explore the case for raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility." This is very harsh, isn't it?  That the answer to old enough is about crime and punishment. The other subjects pale in comparison - and relate to parents more than children.  How old is old enough - to be home alone, to go to school, play alone outside, watching their younger sibling, and so on.  But then adults are writing all the articles, so the perspective of a child is mostly absent.   Let's look at the opposite end of the spectrum - How old is too old?  Journalists ask this question: Is the Presidency the wrong job for someone over seventy? Should people be in the workforce after sixty-five? This is far more fun.  You can calculate how old is too old to have children, to buy a piano, to buy a used car, to date a person, to date at all, to have a hip or knee operation,  to be a lifeguard.  Lots of advice on scattered topics organized by age.   There's even this question:  When are you too old to die young?  Of course, Quora has answers for this.  They are so full of answers over at Quora. This is another image with the overlay of the Plaid City pattern.  It doesn't fit the series, but has great texture.

Oct 18 2021 - The Disease of Aging

 

Surprise!  Aging is not classified as a disease by the US Food and Drug Administration.  As a result, it does not have a regulatory process to approve a drug for it.  Is that good or bad? What's really interesting is the RAAD Festival - (Revolution Against Aging and Death).  It has the latest longevity strategies and findings from the brightest innovators in the industry.  It is about "curing" death, which is considered an unnecessary evil and it is about reversing human aging.  All the details are in this article HERE.  In the conference, futurist Ray Kurzweil speaks of the escape velocity philosophy, which claims that, with scientific advancement, your body rejuvenates faster than its disintegrates. That way, you will always just be escaping death’s claws. To get to that point though, he says, stick around to 2050, when he believes science will take a quantum leap. Basically, live long enough to live forever. Leaving RAAD to the extreme enthusiasts, there is work underway to help you just live "better" during your final chapter.  Along the continuum "of hope", there is the study that says to increase the chances of a long life, take up at least 7,000 steps a day or play sports for more than 2.5 hours per week. These studies are about reducing the risk of premature death.  There's a lot more to come on the anti-aging revolution - there's so many of us who are aging. With this huge market,  research is increasing.  Take the Google-backed research company Calico.  It is looking into the anti-aging coenzyme Nicotinaide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+). There's $1.5 billion invested in this study.  You can already buy this in supplement form. Take a look HERE.  Coming up by the end of this year will be young blood transfusions clinics opening in New York City.   On my first read on this subject, these seem to be people who are slightly "whacko", but who am I to judge?  Even McMaster University has extensive evidence-based information on aging resources.  So this is quite the topic to research - look at all the titles:  there's the official anti-aging revolution, there's anticipating the anti-aging revolution, are you ready for the real anti-aging revolution and powerful anti-aging properties. These two images are in the working title series "Plaid City".

July 7 2021 - Iron Out Crepey Skin because the Next Stop is Immortality

 

How crepey is your skin?  It depends how old you are, doesn't it?  And how much sun exposure there was/is. This is an ever-repeating advertisement with a clearly very old pair of thighs at the seashore - one crepey leg and one fine.  It turns out there are a lot of possible treatments - like topical retinoids, fractional laser treatment, ultrasound, cryolipolysis (cool sculpting), fillers, all sorts of things. The best expression so far is:  How to "iron out" crepe skin - and of course, it concludes with: Do this every morning.  This is the anti-aging market - it is projected to reach $610 million by 2025.  The breakthroughs that are referenced are tissue regeneration therapies. Regrowing kidneys is a target. Will there be 'extraordinary' breakthroughs in anti-aging research?  Because being 120 years old with crepey skin doesn't seem that appealing. Next stop:  Immortality seems more a tag line than a reality to be enjoyed.   The Atlantic asked that question: what happens when we all live to 100?  The article seems a rather depressing outline of what happens when older people control/dominate society.  Think judges sitting on the bench into late age and for long times.  The article highlights the Buck Institute, a private, independent research facility dedicated to extending the human life span.  They've succeeded with worms, so far.   There are experts who hold positive views of how aging can unfold.  Aubrey de Grey thinks that people will live into their thousands.  That's his famous quote - that the person to do so is alive today.  He also says that they will be able to regenerate to a 'younger age', like repairing a car.  He's working fast and hard on the research to fulfill this.  He wouldn't say what age he would like to be or will chose to be.  What if he's the thousand-year-old person - doing research into eternity.   I am looking forward to being able to enjoy Niagara-on-the-Lake again. As we move to less restricted stages, it will be great to photograph the beautiful gardens and historical buildings.

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Are you aging?

There were birthdays this week at exercise class. Janet turned 79 and says she doesn't feel that old, so I asked her how old she feels.  Her answer:  Feels like 35.  I responded that I feel older than Janet - that was thirty years ago for me - a different time in society, in my activities and work, and in my interests. So I wondered:  make a chart that has rows and columns.  Put the decades along the top row (Age 10,20,30,40,50,60, etc), and the major life areas and interests along the left column, then fill in the cells. What would be the same and what would be different over the decades? Or could we take an age test that showed similarities and differences between age groups and find our place? You can take 'age tests' - here's one: Age Test - a caution that the tests don't explain the results. Here's a Guardian article asking people what age they feel they are in How old do you feel? And there is research being done in the area at the website Changing Age. For today's picture's we are looking at my conservatory in the garden. I took some video pictures of my gardens yesterday so that when I redo things in the fall and spring, I know what's where for moving, etc. I realized that I had forgotten to photograph the garden on tour days this summer - it was so busy and so many tours - so many times I've forgotten.  I realized this when I went to show the hydrangeas at the greenhouse in July compared to yesterday. All the blooms are finished except for two pink ones. They still look lovely with their lime green floppy heads.