Children Age Faster When Exposed To Violence And Bullying

Researchers have found that violence in the lives of children can cause changes in their DNA equivalent to seven to 10 years of premature aging. Scientists measured this cellular aging by studying the ends of children’s chromosomes, called telomeres.

Telomeres are DNA sequences that act like the plastic tips on shoelaces, which prevent the DNA in chromosomes from unraveling. Each time a cell divides, the telomeres become shorter until a cell dies when it can’t divide anymore, reports Liz Szabo for USA Today.

Idan Shalev, a post-doctoral researcher in psychology and neuroscience at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy and lead author of the study in today’s Molecular Psychiatry says, “This is the first time it has been shown that our telomeres can shorten at a faster rate even at a really young age, while kids are still experiencing stress.”

The researchers analyzed DNA samples from twins at ages 5 and 10 and compared telomere length to three kinds of violence: domestic violence between the mother and her partner, being bullied frequently, and physical maltreatment by an adult. Moms were also interviewed when kids were 5, 7, and 10 to create a cumulative record of exposure to violence.

The research team plans to further explore the new findings by measuring the average length of telomeres in the twins after they become adults. They’ll also repeat the study in a second, older group of 1,000 individuals in the Dunedin Study, who have been under observation since their birth in the 1970s in New Zealand.

The study suggests that children exposed to such stresses could be expected to develop age-related diseases such as heart attacks or memory loss, seven to 10 years earlier than their peers.

Whether or not these changes are reversible is not clear. Shalev and colleagues plan to study the children for longer periods of time to see what happens later on in life.

“Research on human stress genomics keeps throwing up amazing new facts about how stress can influence the human genome and shape our lives,” said Caspi, the Edward M. Arnett Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience.

“The study confirms a small-but-growing number of studies suggesting that early childhood adversity imprints itself in our chromosomes,” says Charles Nelson, a professor of pediatrics and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School.

In a 2011 study, Nelson and colleagues found shorter telomeres in Romanian children who had spent more time in institutions, compared with children sent to foster care.

Nathan Fox, a professor of human development at the University of Maryland and co-author of the 2011 paper explains, “We know that toxic stress is bad for you. This paper provides a mechanism by which this type of stress gets ‘under the skin’ and into the genes.”

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” said Terrie Moffitt, study co-author, “Some of the billions of dollars spent on diseases of aging such as diabetes, heart disease and dementia might be better invested in protecting children from harm.”

Researchers have found that violence in the lives of children can cause changes in their DNA equivalent to seven to 10 years of premature aging. Scientists measured this cellular aging by studying the ends of children’s chromosomes, called telomeres.
Telomeres are DNA sequences that act like the plastic tips on shoelaces, which prevent the DNA in chromosomes from unraveling. Each time a cell divides, the telomeres become shorter until a cell dies when it can’t divide anymore, reports Liz Szabo for USA Today.
Idan Shalev, a post-doctoral researcher in psychology and neuroscience at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy and lead author of the study in today’s Molecular Psychiatry says, “This is the first time it has been shown that our telomeres can shorten at a faster rate even at a really young age, while kids are still experiencing stress.”
The researchers analyzed DNA samples from twins at ages 5 and 10 and compared telomere length to three kinds of violence: domestic violence between the mother and her partner, being bullied frequently, and physical maltreatment by an adult. Moms were also interviewed when kids were 5, 7, and 10 to create a cumulative record of exposure to violence.
The research team plans to further explore the new findings by measuring the average length of telomeres in the twins after they become adults. They’ll also repeat the study in a second, older group of 1,000 individuals in the Dunedin Study, who have been under observation since their birth in the 1970s in New Zealand.
The study suggests that children exposed to such stresses could be expected to develop age-related diseases such as heart attacks or memory loss, seven to 10 years earlier than their peers.
Whether or not these changes are reversible is not clear. Shalev and colleagues plan to study the children for longer periods of time to see what happens later on in life.
“Research on human stress genomics keeps throwing up amazing new facts about how stress can influence the human genome and shape our lives,” said Caspi, the Edward M. Arnett Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience.
“The study confirms a small-but-growing number of studies suggesting that early childhood adversity imprints itself in our chromosomes,” says Charles Nelson, a professor of pediatrics and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School.
In a 2011 study, Nelson and colleagues found shorter telomeres in Romanian children who had spent more time in institutions, compared with children sent to foster care.
Nathan Fox, a professor of human development at the University of Maryland and co-author of the 2011 paper explains, “We know that toxic stress is bad for you. This paper provides a mechanism by which this type of stress gets ‘under the skin’ and into the genes.”
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” said Terrie Moffitt, study co-author, “Some of the billions of dollars spent on diseases of aging such as diabetes, heart disease and dementia might be better invested in protecting children from harm.”

Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

Source: redOrbit (http://s.tt/1a0HM)

Researchers have found that violence in the lives of children can cause changes in their DNA equivalent to seven to 10 years of premature aging. Scientists measured this cellular aging by studying the ends of children’s chromosomes, called telomeres.
Telomeres are DNA sequences that act like the plastic tips on shoelaces, which prevent the DNA in chromosomes from unraveling. Each time a cell divides, the telomeres become shorter until a cell dies when it can’t divide anymore, reports Liz Szabo for USA Today.
Idan Shalev, a post-doctoral researcher in psychology and neuroscience at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy and lead author of the study in today’s Molecular Psychiatry says, “This is the first time it has been shown that our telomeres can shorten at a faster rate even at a really young age, while kids are still experiencing stress.”
The researchers analyzed DNA samples from twins at ages 5 and 10 and compared telomere length to three kinds of violence: domestic violence between the mother and her partner, being bullied frequently, and physical maltreatment by an adult. Moms were also interviewed when kids were 5, 7, and 10 to create a cumulative record of exposure to violence.
The research team plans to further explore the new findings by measuring the average length of telomeres in the twins after they become adults. They’ll also repeat the study in a second, older group of 1,000 individuals in the Dunedin Study, who have been under observation since their birth in the 1970s in New Zealand.
The study suggests that children exposed to such stresses could be expected to develop age-related diseases such as heart attacks or memory loss, seven to 10 years earlier than their peers.
Whether or not these changes are reversible is not clear. Shalev and colleagues plan to study the children for longer periods of time to see what happens later on in life.
“Research on human stress genomics keeps throwing up amazing new facts about how stress can influence the human genome and shape our lives,” said Caspi, the Edward M. Arnett Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience.
“The study confirms a small-but-growing number of studies suggesting that early childhood adversity imprints itself in our chromosomes,” says Charles Nelson, a professor of pediatrics and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School.
In a 2011 study, Nelson and colleagues found shorter telomeres in Romanian children who had spent more time in institutions, compared with children sent to foster care.
Nathan Fox, a professor of human development at the University of Maryland and co-author of the 2011 paper explains, “We know that toxic stress is bad for you. This paper provides a mechanism by which this type of stress gets ‘under the skin’ and into the genes.”
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” said Terrie Moffitt, study co-author, “Some of the billions of dollars spent on diseases of aging such as diabetes, heart disease and dementia might be better invested in protecting children from harm.”

Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

Source: redOrbit (http://s.tt/1a0HM)

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Researchers have found that violence in the lives of children can cause changes in their DNA equivalent to seven to 10 years of premature aging. Scientists measured this cellular aging by studying the ends of children’s chromosomes, called telomeres.
Telomeres are DNA sequences that act like the plastic tips on shoelaces, which prevent the DNA in chromosomes from unraveling. Each time a cell divides, the telomeres become shorter until a cell dies when it can’t divide anymore, reports Liz Szabo for USA Today.
Idan Shalev, a post-doctoral researcher in psychology and neuroscience at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy and lead author of the study in today’s Molecular Psychiatry says, “This is the first time it has been shown that our telomeres can shorten at a faster rate even at a really young age, while kids are still experiencing stress.”
The researchers analyzed DNA samples from twins at ages 5 and 10 and compared telomere length to three kinds of violence: domestic violence between the mother and her partner, being bullied frequently, and physical maltreatment by an adult. Moms were also interviewed when kids were 5, 7, and 10 to create a cumulative record of exposure to violence.
The research team plans to further explore the new findings by measuring the average length of telomeres in the twins after they become adults. They’ll also repeat the study in a second, older group of 1,000 individuals in the Dunedin Study, who have been under observation since their birth in the 1970s in New Zealand.
The study suggests that children exposed to such stresses could be expected to develop age-related diseases such as heart attacks or memory loss, seven to 10 years earlier than their peers.
Whether or not these changes are reversible is not clear. Shalev and colleagues plan to study the children for longer periods of time to see what happens later on in life.
“Research on human stress genomics keeps throwing up amazing new facts about how stress can influence the human genome and shape our lives,” said Caspi, the Edward M. Arnett Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience.
“The study confirms a small-but-growing number of studies suggesting that early childhood adversity imprints itself in our chromosomes,” says Charles Nelson, a professor of pediatrics and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School.
In a 2011 study, Nelson and colleagues found shorter telomeres in Romanian children who had spent more time in institutions, compared with children sent to foster care.
Nathan Fox, a professor of human development at the University of Maryland and co-author of the 2011 paper explains, “We know that toxic stress is bad for you. This paper provides a mechanism by which this type of stress gets ‘under the skin’ and into the genes.”
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” said Terrie Moffitt, study co-author, “Some of the billions of dollars spent on diseases of aging such as diabetes, heart disease and dementia might be better invested in protecting children from harm.”

Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

Source: redOrbit (http://s.tt/1a0HM)

The Wild Hypocrisy of America's Conservative Christians

In Britain, the devout tend to be economic progressives. Why have American Christians embraced social Darwinism?

April 20, 2012  | 

 

Here's a newspaper headline that might induce a disbelieving double take: "Christians 'More Likely to Be Leftwing' And Have Liberal Views on Immigration and Equality." Sounds too hard to believe, right? Well, it's true -- only not here in America, but in the United Kingdom.

That headline, from London's Daily Mail, summed up the two-tiered conclusion of a new report from the British think tank Demos, which found that in England 1) "religious people are more active citizens (who) volunteer more, donate more to charity and are more likely to campaign on political issues" and 2) "religious people are more likely to be politically progressive (people who) put a greater value on equality than the non-religious, are more likely to be welcoming of immigrants as neighbours (and) more likely to put themselves on the left of the political spectrum."

These findings are important to America for two reasons.

First, they tell us that, contrary to evidence in the United States, the intersection of religion and politics doesn't have to be fraught with hypocrisy. Britain is a Christian-dominated country, and the Christian Bible is filled with liberal economic sentiment. It makes perfect sense, then, that the more devoutly loyal to that Bible one is, the more progressive one would be on economics.

That highlights the second reason this data is significant: the findings underscore an obvious contradiction in our own religious politics.

Here in the United States, those who self-identify as religious tend to be exactly the opposite of their British counterparts when it comes to politics. As the Pew Research Center recently discovered, "Most people who agree with the religious right also support the Tea Party" and its ultra-conservative economic agenda. Summing up the situation, scholar Gregory Paul wrote in the Washington Post that many religious Christians in America simply ignore the Word and "proudly proclaim that the creator of the universe favors free wheeling, deregulated union busting, minimal taxes, especially for wealthy investors, and plutocrat-boosting capitalism as the ideal earthly scheme for his human creations."

The good news is that this may be starting to change. In recent years, for instance, Pew has found that younger evangelicals are less devoutly committed to the Republican Party and its Tea Party-inspired agenda than older evangelicals. Additionally, surveys show a near majority of evangelicals agree with liberals that the tax system is unfair and that the wealthy aren't paying their fair share. Meanwhile, the organization Faith in Public LIfe has highlighted new academic research showing that even in America there is growing "correlation between increased Bible reading and support for progressive views, including abolishing the death penalty, seeking economic justice, and reducing material consumption."

Of course, many Americans who cite Christianity to justify their economic conservatism may not have actually read the Bible. In that sense, religion has become more of a superficial brand rather than a distinct catechism, and brands can be easily manipulated by self-serving partisans and demagogues. To know that is to read the Sermon on the Mount and then marvel at how anyone still justifies right-wing beliefs by invoking Jesus.

No doubt, only a few generations ago, such a conflation of religion and right-wing economics would never fly in America. Whether William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" crusade or the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.'s poor people's campaign, religion and political activism used to meet squarely on the left -- where they naturally should.

Thus, the findings from Britain, a country similar to the United States, evoke our own history and potential. They remind us that such a congruent convergence of theology and political ideology is not some far-fetched fantasy -- it is still possible right here at home.

House Republicans Would Rather Kick 280,000 Low-Income Kids Off Free Lunch Program Than Raise Millionaires' Taxes

House Republicans recently proposed cuts to nutrition assistance that will kick 280,000 low-income children off automatic enrollment in the Free School Lunch and Breakfast Program. Those same kids and 1.5 million other people will also lose their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamp benefits) that help them afford food at home.

Ten years’ worth of these nutrition cuts could be prevented for the price of one year of tax cuts on 3,340 multimillion dollar estates that House Republicans are protecting in their budget.

On April 18 the House Agriculture Committee passed a bill cutting over $33 billion from SNAP over the next decade. About one-third of these cuts ($11.5 billion) comes from putting restrictions on “categorical eligibility,” a provision that enables states to better coordinate between programs and improves access to assistance for low-income families.

By restricting this provision, the bill would kick an average of 1.8 million low-income people a year off of food aid and end automatic enrollment in free school meals for 280,000 children in struggling families.

The Republican budget sells this bill as an effort to “reduce lower‐priority spending” to avert military cuts that will otherwise take place in January 2013 due to the debt deal agreed to last summer. But when it comes to reducing the deficit, it’s clear the House would rather ask low-income kids and families struggling against hunger to foot the bill than asking multimillion-dollar estates to pay their fair share.

Case in point: As part of the 2010 tax-cut compromise, House Republicans insisted on including a tax cut on multimillion dollar estates, adding an estimated $11.5 billion to the deficit this year alone. That’s the same amount they’re now claiming is necessary to cut from low-income families through these restrictions.

By making it more difficult for low-income schoolchildren to access school breakfast and lunch, this bill will likely increase child hunger, which is associated with worse educational outcomes and higher long-term health costs. Both of these trends affect our economy and our deficits over the long run.

We should reconsider reduced spending on “lower priority” items — a.k.a breakfast, lunch, and dinner for low-income children — and instead adopt a deficit-reduction approach that asks everyone to pay their fair share—including multimillion-dollar estates.

Weather Warfare: Beware the US military’s experiments with climatic warfare

Rarely acknowledged in the debate on global climate change, the world’s weather can now be modified as part of a new generation of sophisticated electromagnetic weapons. Both the US and Russia have developed capabilities to manipulate the climate for military use.

Environmental modification techniques have been applied by the US military for more than half a century. US mathematician John von Neumann, in liaison with the US Department of Defense, started his research on weather modification in the late 1940s at the height of the Cold War and foresaw ‘forms of climatic warfare as yet unimagined’. During the Vietnam war, cloud-seeding techniques were used, starting in 1967 under Project Popeye, the objective of which was to prolong the monsoon season and block enemy supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The US military has developed advanced capabilities that enable it selectively to alter weather patterns. The technology, which is being perfected under the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), is an appendage of the Strategic Defense Initiative – ‘Star Wars’. From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction, operating from the outer atmosphere and capable of destabilising agricultural and ecological systems around the world.

Weather-modification, according to the US Air Force document AF 2025 Final Report, ‘offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary’, capabilities, it says, extend to the triggering of floods, hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes: ‘Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather… and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of [military] technologies.’

In 1977, an international Convention was ratified by the UN General Assembly which banned ‘military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects.’ It defined ‘environmental modification techniques’ as ‘any technique for changing –through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes – the dynamics, composition or structure of the earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space.’

While the substance of the 1977 Convention was reasserted in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, debate on weather modification for military use has become a scientific taboo.

Military analysts are mute on the subject. Meteorologists are not investigating the matter and environmentalists are focused on greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. Neither is the possibility of climatic or environmental manipulations as part of a military and intelligence agenda, while tacitly acknowledged, part of the broader debate on climate change under UN auspices.

The HAARP Programme

Established in 1992, HAARP, based in Gokona, Alaska, is an array of high-powered antennas that transmit, through high-frequency radio waves, massive amounts of energy into the ionosphere (the upper layer of the atmosphere). Their construction was funded by the US Air Force, the US Navy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Operated jointly by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research, HAARP constitutes a system of powerful antennas capable of creating ‘controlled local modifications of the ionosphere’. According to its official website, www.haarp.alaska.edu , HAARP will be used ‘to induce a small, localized change in ionospheric temperature so physical reactions can be studied by other instruments located either at or close to the HAARP site’.

HAARP Program, Alaska




HAARP array of antennas

But Rosalie Bertell, president of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, says HAARP operates as ‘a gigantic heater that can cause major disruptions in the ionosphere, creating not just holes, but long incisions in the protective layer that keeps deadly radiation from bombarding the planet’.

Physicist Dr Bernard Eastlund called it ‘the largest ionospheric heater ever built’. HAARP is presented by the US Air Force as a research programme, but military documents confirm its main objective is to ‘induce ionospheric modifications’ with a view to altering weather patterns and disrupting communications and radar.

According to a report by the Russian State Duma: ‘The US plans to carry out large-scale experiments under the HAARP programme [and] create weapons capable of breaking radio communication lines and equipment installed on spaceships and rockets, provoke serious accidents in electricity networks and in oil and gas pipelines, and have a negative impact on the mental health of entire regions.’*

An analysis of statements emanating from the US Air Force points to the unthinkable: the covert manipulation of weather patterns, communications and electric power systems as a weapon of global warfare, enabling the US to disrupt and dominate entire regions. Weather manipulation is the pre-emptive weapon par excellence. It can be directed against enemy countries or ‘friendly nations’ without their knowledge, used to destabilise economies, ecosystems and agriculture. It can also trigger havoc in financial and commodity markets. The disruption in agriculture creates a greater dependency on food aid and imported grain staples from the US and other Western countries.

HAARP was developed as part of an Anglo-American partnership between Raytheon Corporation, which owns the HAARP patents, the US Air Force and British Aerospace Systems (BAES).

The HAARP project is one among several collaborative ventures in advanced weapons systems between the two defence giants. The HAARP project was initiated in 1992 by Advanced Power Technologies, Inc. (APTI), a subsidiary of Atlantic Richfield Corporation (ARCO). APTI (including the HAARP patents) was sold by ARCO to E-Systems Inc, in 1994. E-Systems, on contract to the CIA and US Department of Defense, outfitted the ‘Doomsday Plan’, which ‘allows the President to manage a nuclear war’.Subsequently acquired by Raytheon Corporation, it is among the largest intelligence contractors in the World. BAES was involved in the development of the advanced stage of the HAARP antenna array under a 2004 contract with the Office of Naval Research.

The installation of 132 high frequency transmitters was entrusted by BAES to its US subsidiary, BAE Systems Inc. The project, according to a July report in Defense News, was undertaken by BAES’s Electronic Warfare division. In September it received DARPA’s top award for technical achievement for the design, construction and activation of the HAARP array of antennas.

The HAARP system is fully operational and in many regards dwarfs existing conventional and strategic weapons systems. While there is no firm evidence of its use for military purposes, Air Force documents suggest HAARP is an integral part of the militarisation of space. One would expect the antennas already to have been subjected to routine testing.

Under the UNFCCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has a mandate ‘to assess scientific, technical and socioeconomic information relevant for the understanding of climate change’. This mandate includes environmental warfare. ‘Geo-engineering’ is acknowledged, but the underlying military applications are neither the object of policy analysis or scientific research in the thousands of pages of IPCC reports and supporting documents, based on the expertise and input of some 2,500 scientists, policymakers and environmentalists. ‘Climatic warfare’ potentially threatens the future of humanity, but has casually been excluded from the reports for which the IPCC received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Archive of Global Research articles on Weather Warfare

The Persistence of Racial and Ethnic Profiling in the United States (pdf)

 Formed in the aftermath of September 11th, the Rights Working Group (RWG) is a national coalition of civil liberties, national security, immigrant rights and human rights organizations committed to restoring due process and human rights protections that have been eroded in the name of national security. RWG works to ensure that everyone in the United States is able to exercise their rights, regardless of citizenship or immigration status, race, national origin, religion or ethnicity. With more than 260 member organizations across the United States, RWG mobilizes a grassroots constituency in support of a policy advocacy agenda that demands accountability from the U.S. government for the equal protection of human rights. The RWG Steering Committee is composed of leading organizations representing the key constituencies of The coalition. Members include the ACLU as well as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; American Immigration Lawyers Association; Arab American Institute; Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services; Asian American Justice Center; Bill of Rights Defense Committee; Breakthrough; Center
for National Security Studies; Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles; Human Rights First;
Human Rights Watch; Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights; Leadership Conference on Civil Rights & Education Fund; National Council of La Raza; National Immigration Forum; National Immigration
Law Center; New Jersey Immigration Policy Network; New York Immigration Coalition; One America; Open Society Policy Center; South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow; Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee
Rights Coalition (TIRRC).
The full breadth of the RWG’s work can be seen at www.rightsworkinggroup.org.


 Follow-Up Report to the U.N. Committ ee on the Elimination of  Racial Discrimination