WELCOME TO THE WEEKLY MEETING

FRIDAY, May 13, 2016

In this meeting:

Rotary Minute
ABCs of Rotary
District 7020 Conference 2017
Declaration of Rotarians
An Update on Polio
Rotary Calendar
Rotary on Youth
President Ravi on video re Youth
What happened Wednesday
Alzheimer's from a new angle
Adults need to learn from kids
Western Canada Fires - Fort McMurray
Foundation Corner
Rotary Anthem
Four-Way Test to close

NOTE: Where links are provided in the meeting, click the link to view the video. To return to the meeting, click either your browser's BACK button or click the previous window or TAB.

OUR GREETER THIS WEEK IS DAWN JOHNSON

President's Message

Dear fellow Rotarians and Guests,

We continue to Inspire, Mentor & celebrate our youths in the month of May. We are encouraged to help them find the mental strength to recognize and take advantage of all the opportunities available at their disposal.

Let us make a difference in the lives of many. We may not be able to touch the lives of all, but if we touch one, and the other person one, we would have made a significant difference.

Please continue to join us on a weekly basis as we bring to you interesting guest speakers and articles.

At Wednesday’s Happy Hour Hangout, as we can appreciate, the youth will eventually grow old. A little old lady, Mary Maxwell, who is a professional comedian, shared a very funny light on growing old. Those in attendance surely had a belly full of laughs.

May 14 – Board Meeting and then Weekly Meeting

May 21 – Weekly Meeting – Guest Speaker – Jerome Cowans

May 28 – Weekly Meeting – Dana Fletcher speaking on mental health

May 28 – June 2 International Conference – Seoul, Korea

June 4 – Weekly Meeting – Guest Speaker – DC Rema Martin

June 11 – CLUB ASSEMBLY

June 18 – Weekly Meeting

June 25 – Weekly Meeting

CLUB ASSEMBLY COMING UP IN JUNE!!!!!!!!! HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL THERE.

ROTARY MINUTE

QUOTATIONS REGARDING ROTARY

by Rotary International Presidents

1962-63 Nitish C. Laharry (motion pictures distribution), Rotary Club of Calcutta, India. Rotary vision: To kindle the spark within each Rotarian that lights the path to service.

“Man’s instinct for making and amassing wealth…the profit motive…cannot be rooted out from human nature either by the sword or by legislation. Let us make all the legitimate profit we can, but, in doing so, let the basis of that profit be service to all concerned. Idealism in practice should be characteristic of the Rotary movement.”

— That’s a Good Question, THE ROTARIAN, March 1963

1963-64 Carl P. Miller (journalism), Rotary Club of Los Angeles, California, USA. Rotary vision: That it meet the challenge of the Space Age.

“We must have the ability to learn from our friends; to listen to the ideas of other people and to weigh them…to have the contemplative quality of our [Asian] friends…to be scholars as are our friends in Germany, England and Scandinavia… to learn from our Spanish and Latin brothers the art of gracious living.”

— Address to 1963 Rotary Convention, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

ABCs OF ROTARY

RI President (1992-93) Cliff Dochterman

Concern for the Aging

One current area of interest for Rotary clubs focuses on providing "new opportunities for the aging." In 1990 the Rl Board of Directors urged Rotarians to identify new projects serving the elderly that emphasize intergenerational activities and the integration of seniors into society and the workplace.

The following year, the board called for an approach that stressed service "with" the elderly as well as "for" them.

With the substantial upswing in the worldwide population of older persons, their needs for special attention have greatly multiplied. As citizens grow older, it becomes increasingly important for them to retain their personal independence and to remain in control of their own lives to the extent this is possible.

Many Rotary clubs are seeking ways to serve the older persons of their community who face problems of deteriorating health, loneliness, poor nutrition, transportation difficulties, inability to do customary chores, loss of family associations, reduced recreational opportunities, inadequate housing, and limited information about available social agencies for emergency assistance.

Some clubs have initiated a valuable community service to assist older persons in retirement planning and adjustment by organizing and sharing the wealth of information available within the club's membership. Other clubs have developed foster grandparent programs and other inter-generational activities that allow seniors to use their experience and knowledge to help young people. Rotarians often can provide services that seniors can no longer do for themselves.

The greatest need of aging individuals is frequently a mere expression of real caring and concern by

thoughtful friends. All Rotarians should seriously consider how they and their clubs may actively participate in programs for the aging. It is one area of Community Service in which then is a growing possibility that each of us may some day be on the receiving end.

International Conventions

Each year in June, Rotary International holds a worldwide convention "to stimulate, inspire and inform all Rotarians at an international level." The convention, which may not be held in the same country for more than two consecutive years, is the annual meeting to conduct the business of the association. The planning process usually begins about four or five years in advance.

The RI board determines a general location and invites cities to make proposals. The conventions are truly international events that 20,000 to 35,000 Rotarians and guests attend. All members should plan to participate in a Rotary International convention to discover the real internationality of Rotary. It is an experience you'll never forget.

**********************

DISTRICT CONFERENCE 2017

...from AG Manoj

Manoj Ramchandani

Conference Chairman 2017

Click the link below and watch this Promotion Video. Make sure not to get lost in Awe and forget to read the rest of the instructions after the video!

Follow-up links:

Visit the District Website and download the Flyer and Registration Form. Read all the information about registering.

http://7020.org/conference-2017.html

There is no way you want to miss this conference, and you should probably register as soon as possible to secure your cabin! This is a great value-for-money Conference to attend, as prices include your room, all food, taxes and fees, and Conference Registration.

Only a $200 deposit is required right now to secure your ROOM. (not per person). Several months to pay the balance! (Prices on Flyer are per person based on double occupancy. Rate sheet has more detailed pricing).

Action is the key to success and you fill out the Registration form and email to our travel agent partner STEVE (His information is on the Flyer and Registration Form). These forms must be sent to STEVE for processing.

Ensure you have the immigration ability to enter the USA (where we are boarding the Ship). Only Haitians will require additional visa for Bahamas.

Daydream and count the days until D7020 PETS, Assembly and Conference 2017 aboard the Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the Seas, along with your family and friends, for 5 days you will never forget.

Go ahead and register and secure your room for now. You will have more information from me throughout the year with more details...

ALL ABOARD!

...the graphic below contributed by Rotarian Lou

DECLARATION OF ROTARIANS

The Declaration of Rotarians in Businesses and Professions was adopted by the Rotary International Council on Legislation in 1989 to provide more specific guidelines for the high ethical standards called for in the Object of Rotary:

As a Rotarian engaged in a business or profession, I am expected to:

Consider my vocation to be another opportunity to serve;
Be faithful to the letter and to the spirit of the ethical codes of my vocation, to the laws of my country, and to the moral standards of my community;
Do all in my power to dignify my vocation and to promote the highest ethical standards in my chosen vocation;
Be fair to my employer, employees, associates, competitors, customers, the public, and all those with whom I have a business or professional relationship;
Recognize the honor and respect due to all occupations which are useful to society;
Offer my vocational talents: to provide opportunities for young people, to work for the relief of the special needs of others, and to improve the quality of life in my community;
Adhere to honesty in my advertising and in all representations to the public concerning my business or profession;
Neither seek from nor grant to a fellow Rotarian a privilege or advantage not normally accorded others in a business or professional relationship.

AN UPDATE ON POLIO

Polio this week as of 04 May 2016

From the 17 April to the 1 May, 155 countries and territories participated in the historic trivalent to bivalent oral polio vaccine switch, withdrawing the type two component of the vaccine to protect future generations against circulating vaccine derived polioviruses.

A group of independent experts in Ukraine met to assess the country’s response to the polio outbreak and concluded that transmission of the poliovirus has likely stopped in the country. However, they emphasized the need to continue to strengthen immunization and surveillance to protect children in Ukraine against further outbreaks.

The Trivalent to Bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine Switch

Between 17 April and 1 May, the type 2 component of the oral polio vaccine (OPV) is being removed from use through a globally synchronized switch from the trivalent to bivalent oral polio vaccine.

This is the first stage of objective 2 of the Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-2018 to withdraw OPV in a phased manner starting with the type 2 component following the eradication of wild poliovirus type 2 in September 2015.

Thanks to the efforts of a wide range of stakeholders from Ministries of Health, health workers, volunteers, switch monitors, WHO, UNCEF and partners of the World Health Organization, confirmation has been received that 152 countries have completed the switch.

The following indicators are being carefully tracked to ensure the switch goes smoothly. As of 3 May:

152 of 155 (98%) countries and territories have stopped using the trivalent oral polio vaccine.
Independent monitoring to ensure the switch goes smoothly has begun in 126 of 153 countries (82%).
The National Validation Committee has received switch monitoring data from 16 of 153 countries.
The WHO Regional Office has received the National Validation Report from 10 countries.

ROTARY ON YOUTH

Rotaract, Interact, and RYLA

Leadership is an essential aspect of Rotary—and we offer both clubs and programs to help emerging leaders develop their skills. Through these groups, participants strengthen their leadership skills, serve their communities, increase their world understanding, build friendships, and more.

Rotaract

Rotaract brings together people ages 18-30 in universities and communities worldwide to organize service activities, develop leadership and professional skills, and have fun. Rotary clubs sponsor them, but Rotaract members manage and fund their clubs independently. Rotaract members work closely with their local Rotary club, and may join after their Rotaract membership ends.

Rotaract clubs are part of a global effort to bring peace and international understanding to the world. We are a non-religious, non-political and non-profit organization which is involved in community and international service. Rotaract clubs are open to people between the ages of 18 and 30 years old.

How can I participate in Rotaract?

Follow Rotaract on , , , and to see what Rotaract clubs are doing around the world.

To find a Rotaract club in your area, .

Interact

Interact is a club for youth ages 12-18 who want to connect with others in their community or school. Interact club members have fun while carrying out service projects and learning about the world. Interact clubs organize at least two service projects a year: one that benefits their community and one that encourages international understanding. While Interact clubs receive guidance from individual Rotary clubs, they govern and support themselves.

Every Interact club carries out two service projects a year: one that helps their school or community and one that promotes international understanding. Clubs meet at least twice a month and are sponsored by their local Rotary club.

How can I participate in Interact?

Follow Interact on and visit Interact’s to see what Interact clubs are doing around the world.

To find an Interact club in your area, .

RYLA

Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) is a leadership development program run by Rotary. While participants can be any age, most events focus on secondary school students, university students, or young professionals. RYLA events are typically 3–10 days long and include presentations, activities, and workshops that cover a variety of topics, including:

Leadership fundamentals and ethics
Communication skills
Problem solving and conflict management
Community and global citizenship

How can I participate in RYLA?

Follow RYLA on to learn about inspirational events happening around the globe.

RYLA participants are nominated by their local Rotary clubs. To learn more about a RYLA event in your area, .

GIVING KIDS A PLACE TO PLAY

WHAT HAPPENED ON WEDNESDAY!

May 11

Cancer is a very clever, adaptable disease. To defeat it, says medical researcher and educator Paula Hammond, we need a new and powerful mode of attack. With her colleagues at MIT, Hammond engineered a nanoparticle one-hundredth the size of a human hair that can treat the most aggressive, drug-resistant cancers. Learn more about this molecular superweapon and join Hammond's quest to fight a disease that affects us all.

Why you should listen

Professor Paula T. Hammond is the Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and David H. Koch Chair Professor in Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is a member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, the MIT Energy Initiative and a founding member of the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology. She has recently been named the new head of the Department of Chemical Engineering (ChemE). She is the first woman and the first person of color appointed to the post. She also served as the Executive Officer (Associate Chair) of the Chemical Engineering Department (2008-2011).

Professor Hammond was elected into the 2013 Class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also the recipient of the 2013 AIChE Charles M. A. Stine Award, which is bestowed annually to a leading researcher in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of materials science and engineering, and the 2014 Alpha Chi Sigma Award for Chemical Engineering Research.

She was also selected to receive the Department of Defense Ovarian Cancer Teal Innovator Award in 2013. She has been listed in the prestigious Highly Cited Researchers 2014 list, published by Thomson Reuters in the Materials Science category. This list contains the world's most influential researchers across 21 scientific disciplines based on highly cited papers in the 2002-2012 period. She is also included in the report: The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds 2014.

Professor Hammond serves as an Associate Editor of the American Chemical Society journal, ACS Nano. She has published over 250 scientific papers and holds over 20 patents based on her research at MIT. She was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Biological and Medical Engineers, and the American Chemical Society Polymer Division. In 2010, she was named the Scientist of the Year by the Harvard Foundation.

Professor Hammond received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from MIT in 1984, and her M.S. from Georgia Tech in 1988 and earned her Ph.D. in 1993 from MIT.

Mary Maxwell - a little humour

With the timing of a professional comedian, this diminutive "little old lady" shines a very funny light on the foibles of aging, to the delight of an audience filled with senior-care experts.

May is dedicated to Youth Services; however, all youth eventually will grow old. Learning about the elderly at a young age can serve everyone well.

A friend of the couple who founded Home Instead Senior Care, Mary Maxwell was asked to give the invocation at the company's 2009 Convention. Initially it seemed like a normal prayer, but it soon took a very funny turn. Her deadpan delivery and lines like ...This is the first time I've ever been old... and it just sort of crept up on me ... had everyone rolling in the aisles.

For more of Mary's unique view on aging, check out her video blog on CaregiverStress.com:
http://www.caregiverstress.com/voice/...

Those in attendance - the regulars... (apologies from Dawn)

*****

A second video on cancer form and function (which we did not show on Wednesday, but it adds a great deal of information that some of you may find very interesting!)

Plan to join us on a Wednesday to continue to learn and to have fun!

A radical new approach to treating the fearful disease is showing promise

Dr. Frank Longo isn’t the kind of guy who chokes up easily. The pre-eminent neurologist is better known for his professional stoicism and scholarly approach to the devastation he sees weekly in his Alzheimer’s patients–the people who come into his office at the Stanford University School of Medicine, their memory just a little bit worse than the last time he saw them. But today, even though he’s trying to keep it together, his throat tightens.

He’s in a small exam room outside Kansas City, Kans., watching a young man do something people do every day. He’s swallowing a pill with a big gulp of water. But it’s not just any pill–it’s a new drug that Longo hopes will prove to be an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s–and when the man swallows, tears pool in the deep furrows around Longo’s eyes.

As chairman of the department of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford, Longo knows how destructive Alzheimer’s can be. He specializes in memory disorders and regularly sees patients whose brains are slowly scrambling. In recent years he’s grown frustrated. Alzheimer’s was first discovered in 1906, which means doctors have had a century to peel away the disease’s molecular layers and search for a cure. But despite their best efforts, they still have no real treatments. Since 2000, more than 200 Alzheimer’s drugs have been tested, and none proves to be a silver bullet. Only a handful of drugs can, in the best-case–but rare–scenario, relieve some of the worst problems of memory loss and confusion.

“My biggest frustration is that we’ve cured Alzheimer’s in mice many times. Why can’t we move that success to people?” Longo says. (He’s referring to numerous promising compounds that have eliminated the amyloid plaques associated with Alzheimer’s in animals.) If the ongoing human trials continue to progress the way he hopes, Longo’s drug, called LM11A-31, could be a critical part of finally making that happen. But that’s still a big if.

To further develop the drug for patients, Longo created a company, PharmatrophiX, which conducted the first phase of clinical trials required for all pharmaceuticals; the drug was deemed safe and caused minimal negative side effects. Now, it’s in phase II, when the drug will be tested in people with the disease, to see if it ameliorates their symptoms. If the trial goes the way Longo and other leading Alzheimer’s experts expect, LM11A-31 will then be on its way to being approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The stakes couldn’t be higher–not just for Longo but also for the world’s aging population. In the U.S., one-third of Americans over 85 are already affected by Alzheimer’s. Globally, nearly 50 million people are living with dementia, most of which is caused by Alzheimer’s, and absent effective drugs or other interventions, that number is expected to double every 20 years. With no treatments, caring for them falls to loved ones and assisted-living facilities. The cost of that care is skyrocketing; in three years, the global annual burden could reach over $1 trillion.

Longo’s drug is noteworthy because of the promise it showed in those mouse studies and because it’s been shown to be safe in humans. But what really sets it apart is that it attacks Alzheimer’s in an altogether different way than the drugs that preceded it.

“The field is taking a step back and re-examining where we are with regard to what we know, what we don’t know and what might be some of the best avenues going forward to look for treatments,” says Dr. Ronald Petersen, director of the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, who is not involved in the LM11A-31 research.

For decades, scientists have pursued a cure with a nearly single-minded focus on how to treat the disease: by trying to get rid of the hallmark feature of Alzheimer’s, which is sticky, insidious protein plaques of amyloid that they have fought so well in mice. If they could get rid of that in humans too, the thinking went, they could get rid of the disease–or at least lessen its severity. But LM11A-31 doesn’t directly attack amyloid at all.

“We’re agnostic about what is actually causing Alzheimer’s,” Longo says, referring to those protein plaques. “Most people are working at the edges of the problem, but we’re going right after the core of it.” LM11A-31 isn’t designed to chase after every last clump of amyloid and wipe it away. The core, in this case, is simply to keep brain cells strong, protected against neurological onslaughts, whether they’re the effects of amyloid or other factors involved in Alzheimer’s. It’s a much less orthodox approach, but–as Longo’s emotion suggests–if it works, it could be a game changer.

Aging, of course, is inevitable, but aging well is not. No one would argue that finding ways to help people remain healthy, functional and productive for as long as they can isn’t a good idea. That’s why, as life spans continue to inch upward, more health experts are focusing not just on extending the number of our years but on making sure they are of the highest quality possible. Keeping the brain robust and free of damaging conditions like Alzheimer’s is an essential part of that health span. Which is why brain experts are flipping their perspective and studying not just how our physical and mental abilities falter as we age but also how they keep going year after year.

“The answer to extending healthy life spans lies not in how we break down at age 70 but in how we keep functioning at age 50,” says Brian Kennedy, president and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. Understanding how to do that could not just protect the brain from Alzheimer’s but also serve as a longevity insurance policy to keep it humming along at close to full capacity for as long as possible.

Under a microscope in his lab at Stanford, Longo shows off before-and-after slides of some brain neurons from mice. On the before slide, the normally orderly and uniform cells are in disarray. They’re dying, slowly being choked off from their supply of nutrients by amyloid plaques that start to accumulate like molecular garbage in certain corners of the Alzheimer’s-afflicted brain. In the after slide, the cells look normal. The difference, Longo says, is LM11A-31.

For brain cells, their molecular connections to other neurons are their lifeline–it’s like their version of Twitter, as they constantly ping other neurons with status updates. But when the cells are assaulted by something like amyloid, these communications are threatened. And in response, those cells tend to make a quick exit–toward death.

To treat the degradation, scientists logically focused first on finding ways to soak up the excess amyloid in the brain, hopefully before the protein can form its tacky plaques and destroy neurons. They developed, among other drugs, antibodies to find and bind to amyloid and break it down. But these compounds, though they worked in animals, failed to make much difference in memory and cognitive function in people.

That prompted experts to consider that maybe the problem wasn’t the drugs but when the drugs were given. Perhaps there was too much amyloid, and too much damage in people with advanced disease, for the drugs to have any measurable effect. For that reason, some companies aren’t giving up on their failed drugs and have begun testing them, with promising results, among people with early-stage disease, when there’s less damage from amyloid. Genentech, for its part, is testing its anti-amyloid drug in Colombian families who have a high genetic risk of getting Alzheimer’s; the company hopes that giving the drug to asymptomatic people highly likely to get the disease can slow their cognitive decline.

But that requires knowing when the amyloid makes its first appearance. And there’s another problem: about 30% of people over 70 have amyloid in their brains but no signs of dementia. In other words, everyone with Alzheimer’s has amyloid, but not everyone with amyloid has developed Alzheimer’s. Which people need help from anti-amyloid drugs, and which people don’t?

Which ones can wait before taking the drugs? Until recently, the only way to definitively diagnose Alzheimer’s was in a postmortem, when the brain could be studied for signs of the amyloid plaques. Now, thanks to new imaging agents that light up amyloid on scans, researchers can track the earliest appearance of these proteins and see if they grow, which could signal Alzheimer’s.

There’s similar momentum building around possible treatments against another major Alzheimer’s protein, tau. If amyloid is the locomotive of the disease, driving the damage to neurons, then tau is the caboose, generally appearing in the late stages, when memory, organized thinking and language start to fail. By the time tau breaks down to form tangles, the brain has already started to degenerate, meaning it’s shrinking in size as neurons are dying and certain parts, specifically the hippocampus, the hub for memory, start to atrophy. That’s why memory problems and cognitive functions start to go.

“We think that tau may incite the whole process of neurodegeneration,” says Dr. William Jagust, a professor of public health and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley. “That’s important if you think of Alzheimer’s as moving through standardized group stages. The first stage is [depositing] of amyloid. In the second stage, something probably happens with tau. Somewhere in there we begin to see neurodegeneration.”

To interrupt this process, you need good drugs that can intervene at any or all of the stages. Even though doctors can now see amyloid deposits in the brain, for example, they don’t have anything that can remove the plaques. Same goes for anti-tau drugs. “If we have a drug for treating amyloid, then that obviously changes the whole story,” says Jagust. But we don’t–at least not yet.

That’s where LM11A-31, or C31, as Longo’s team calls it, may come in. Together with the anti-amyloid and anti-tau therapies, it could be a potent counterpunch to any neurological problems, from memory loss to confusion and loss of language.

Longo has a diagram of 14 signals passed among brain nerves that are triggered by amyloid and can ultimately lead neurons to deteriorate. So far, he’s found that C31 can halt at least 10 of those. “We lucked out in a way,” he says, since just targeting the receptor P75 that sits on brain nerve cells, as his drug does, can interrupt a cascade of unhealthy signals that instruct brain nerves to falter.

That might allow doctors to prevent some of the damage caused by amyloid before it occurs. “Growth factors might come into play to regenerate, restore and preserve connections between nerves,” says Petersen. Theoretically, he says, if someone at high risk of developing Alzheimer’s shows signs of amyloid on their brain scans, “you could squirt them with [nerve-growth factors] to try to prevent or ameliorate the things that are doing harm to nerve cells. So can we prevent Alzheimer’s with nerve-growth factors? That’s not an unreasonable hypothesis.”

C31 even shows signs that it might help people whose brains are already damaged by amyloid. “The general assumption was that the damage to brain neurons was irreversible,” says Longo, “and that it would be nearly impossible to get them back. What our studies show is that in mice, there is a significant amount of damage that is reversible. That’s really unusual,” he says.

The impact of that feat, if it’s repeated in humans, would be huge. “If approved, these could be the first drugs that will change the course of the disease” rather than just treat its symptoms, says James Hendrix, director of global science initiatives at the Alzheimer’s Association. But the reality is that it’s not clear yet whether the changes seen from drugs like C31 restored any lost memory.

Brain experts are eagerly awaiting Longo’s next series of studies for the answer to that question. So far, not everyone is convinced that it’s even possible to rescue already compromised nerve cells. “To bring back neurons that have been destroyed by plaques and tangles–to me that still seems almost like science fiction,” says Hendrix. “I have a hard time getting to that point.”

Still, there’s no denying the potential of compounds like C31 and the need to think about new ways to attack the disease. Researchers at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center recently reported intriguing evidence that people with higher levels of an important nerve-growth factor called BDNF tended to keep more of their cognitive functions even when amyloid built up. In fact, people who had more BDNF activity saw a 50% slower rate of cognitive decline over the study’s six years than those with lower activity.

So far, researchers think that having higher levels of factors like BDNF might give people cognitive reserve–the ability to counteract any damage that’s occurring and minimize its effects. (There is no drug that boosts BDNF levels, however–at least not yet.)

Longo’s C31 is the first drug to be tested in people that capitalizes on this idea of topping off levels of nerve-growth factors, and it’s gaining more supporters. “The old approach was to try to modify what went wrong in Alzheimer’s,” which in this case is the buildup of amyloid, says Dr. Aron Buchman, a professor of neurological sciences at Rush who was part of the BDNF study. “This new approach says, Let’s find factors, proteins or behaviors that may protect people against the ravages of the pathologies that are likely accumulating in nearly all people as we get older.”

Some experts are convinced that if people live long enough, some form of dementia, most likely Alzheimer’s, is inevitable. It’s just a matter of time. But figuring out which people can benefit from which types of treatments–and when–is still an open question. The hypothesis that dementia is inevitable is unpalatable to doctors like Longo. But it’s a reality that even the government is starting to appreciate.

In 2011, Congress created a National Alzheimer’s Plan to coordinate and accelerate the development, testing and approval of new drugs to treat the disease. And the Alzheimer’s Association will soon issue a consensus statement on how to move promising drug candidates like C31 and any BDNF-based compounds to human testing as quickly as possible without putting people at risk of unexpected or unwanted side effects.

Part of the puzzle will include figuring out whether older people should be screened for signs of the disease and when that monitoring should begin. “The idea of applying scans to everyone on their 65th birthday is not going to fly,” says Jagust, noting that amyloid PET scans cost several thousand dollars each. But coming up with some type of risk score, as doctors now do for heart disease, might happen in the near future for Alzheimer’s.

It would fold in age, family history, physical activity and other factors. It’s clear now that Alzheimer’s begins decades before symptoms start and that the best treatments will likely begin early, before there is too much damage to reverse.

“Odds are, if you follow anyone in their 70s or 80s for two, three or five years before they pass away and look at their brain under the microscope, you will find two, three or even four of the elements of Alzheimer’s,” Petersen says. That’s why he’s thinking beyond just looking for signs of amyloid and is encouraging his patients to participate in trials testing nonamyloid strategies as well.

“In an ideal world, you want to take a 78-year-old and say, I think in your brain amyloid is contributing to 20% of your cognitive problems, so I’ll give you an anti-amyloid therapy. You also have tau proteins contributing to about 35% of your problems, and so on. You’d want to design a therapeutic regimen based on the different components and their contributions to that patient’s disease,” he says.

C31 may become the first drug in this new Alzheimer’s cocktail; the results of the first studies among 72 healthy people who don’t have any signs of the disease are promising. The next step is to see if it can make any difference in their memory and thinking.

That’s the ultimate test for any Alzheimer’s treatment, and if the history of drug research for the disease is any indication, it won’t be easy. But those aren’t the odds Longo is betting on. He is hopeful. Still frustrated, but hopeful.

This article appears in the February 22, 2016 issue of TIME.

ADULTS NEED TO LEARN FROM KIDS

an 8-minute video

The fires in Western Canada – Fort McMurray, Alberta

Source - http://www.calgaryherald.com/News/11899818/story.html

In her 28 years of teaching, Lisa Hilsenteger dutifully practised fire drills and mock school lockdowns.

But there was no rehearsal for commandeering a bus full of her young students through a burning city.

“There’s nothing more terrifying than to be in a crisis and not have your children with you,” said Hilsenteger, now out of harm’s way in Athabasca.

As a wildfire encroached on Fort McMurray Tuesday afternoon, Hilsenteger, the principal of Father Turcotte Elementary School, greeted busloads of children arriving from three evacuated Catholic schools in the city. Most families picked their children up from their school, or from Father Turcotte, but when downtown Fort McMurray was evacuated at 4 p.m., 15 children remained.

She tacked a note to the school’s front door with her name and cellphone number, telling parents she and some staff were taking the children to Timberlea High School. Usually a 10-minute drive, the trip through the gridlocked traffic took 90 minutes.

Some relieved parents met their children there. Twelve children’s parents did not. Then the mayor ordered the mandatory evacuation of the city.

By then, the bus was attracting stragglers along with staff. A family of four whose vehicle had run out of gas got on board. With no other way out, two women with suitcases and two restaurant workers also boarded.

With a handful of granola bars and oranges, a flat of bottled water, and bus driver Wendy Johnson at the wheel, the bus travelled north, as emergency officials instructed.

By now, worried parents were dialing Hilsenteger’s number, wondering how to meet up with their children. After putting their kids on the phone so parents could hear they were OK, Hilsenteger told parents to drive north and look for the school bus snarled in traffic. Six smiling children were picked up by their parents or family friends.

With Suncor’s Noralta lodge north of Fort McMurray now full, the bus kept going to a work camp at Syncrude. The 50-kilometre drive took 6½ hours.

“We had all these children. (Some) of my children were very special needs. They never complained. They never cried. They never asked for food. They never asked for water,” Hilsenteger said, crying.
After eating dinner at the camp and settling into rooms for some sleep, Hilsenteger was uneasy. The camp had been shut and wasn’t fully stocked to accommodate potentially thousands of people streaming in. Brown water was coming out of the taps. There were no blankets or pillows.

“We knew that we could be there for days. We thought, ‘How are they going to sustain us without food or water?’ ”

It was 2 a.m. when the exhausted adults decided to wake the children and put them back on the bus. They headed south. Hilsenteger’s goal was to get to the other side of Fort McMurray. She had no plan where they would go next.

By now, traffic was moving. Staff celebrated when they saw the hospital and schools still standing, she said. Johnson patiently navigated the yellow bus through the blackness.

After dropping off eight more people to meet family and friends south of Fort McMurray at the Nexen plant, four children were still on board, their parents unreachable. They moved on.
“We knew even if we ran out of diesel, we were safe. We had a bus to sleep on. We had water,” Hilsenteger said.

One of the children was picked up in Wandering River by a family friend who showed her identification and produced a phone number.

“At this point I’m starting to hesitate. Who am I giving this student to?” said Hilsenteger, who began to question how strictly school policies apply during extreme circumstances. “You feel like you’re breaking the rule.”

Three children remained, all siblings.

It was 10:30 a.m. by the time she rolled up to her father’s house in Athabasca with a school bus full of unlikely guests.

Johnson had driven for 15 hours without complaint. Not one child asked, “Are we there yet?”

One basketball-clutching student’s main concern was catching up with the outcomes of several NBA games. The father of the three is a bus driver who had been stuck in the traffic jam.

The family had a tearful reunion in Athabasca by 3 p.m. Wednesday, the principal said, where the children told the mom and dad about all the fire and smoke they had seen.

Hilsenteger’s colleagues are calling her a hero.

“You feel blessed some times when you get in a tragedy like this … and you see the sparks that come out,” Fort McMurray Catholic Schools superintendent George McGuigan said.
All students in the district are with their families, he said.

Reunited with her husband and son, and unsure if their house is still standing, Hilsenteger is replaying in her mind all the hasty decisions she made. She feels fortunate everything worked out.

“We know they have an incredible amount of trust in us each day,” she said of parents. “This was just beyond that.”

Father Turcotte School principal Lisa Hilsenteger fled Fort McMurray with a school bus full of children, staff, and other stragglers on May 3, 2016. (Edmonton Journal)

A school bus evacuating children from a school in the subdivision of Abasand waits at a stoplight in Fort McMurray, Alberta, on Tuesday, May 3, 2016. (Robert Murray, Edmonton Journal)

Showing the horrific fire in Fort McMurray and the dangerous job of the firefighters drying to douse this flame

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LAC LA BICHE, ALTA.—On the outskirts of Lac La Biche is a runway home to an air arsenal unlike any other.

Source - https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/05/06/aerial-firefighters-face-additional-challenges.html

Mike Godwin is part of a crew of aerial firefighters who are helping battle the Fort McMurray inferno. "This certainly isn't a normal flying job," he says. (Michael Robinson / Toronto Star) |

The pilots who take off from here are specialists, trained in the precise art of dropping hundreds of litres of water and powerful flame retardant on roaring wildfires below.

The Star spoke with pilot and fleet manager Mike Godwin of the amphibian squadron to learn about the complicated operation of fighting a fire from the sky.

Q: What do you fly?

A: The group I am fleet manager of flies an amphibious aircraft called the Fire Boss 802. These single-pilot air tankers are referred to as skimmers, which are able to land on lakes and “skim” or collect water. This refills the tanks, allowing us to dump water without having to return to the air tanker base to land.

Q: What are some observations you have made that may explain the Fort McMurray fire’s size and aggressive behaviour?

A: Due to drought conditions, the lakes we have used before have dried up to the point where they are too shallow to land on now. This means we need to travel to different bodies of water to refill, which may be farther away.

Q: What does the shape of the fire mean? Is it more of a line rather than a burning sphere?

A: This fire is in the shape of an irregular line. At its head is the flame front, which is moving quite fast and is aggressive. Light tinder materials on the ground, like grass and needles, help fuel the fire and these items burn aggressively.

One of the problems this can create is hot spots where embers transfer ahead of the fire, sometimes up to half a mile in advance, which the main fire then catches up to.

It is like if you were throwing a flaming tree branch ahead of you in the woods.

Think of it like embers from a campfire burning holes in your tent, except these embers are starting to burn holes in the woods.

Q: What are you dumping on the fire?

A: In the Fire Boss, we can deliver retardant but the real tool we use is water. We pick up water in the lake and add foam, for the same reason you use soap with papier mâché. It breaks the surface tension of the water and allows it to generate deeper.

Q: Does this mean rain can be a formidable force in taking this fire down?

A: Rain will certainly help. Even if clouds come by, it can hamper fire behaviour because of the humidity.

When the rain comes, the grass and vegetation will become green and less grey than what it looks like now. When it is dry, it is good fire fuel.

Wet firewood doesn’t burn. Dry firewood does.

Q: Does it get pretty busy up there with so many aircraft working together at once?

A: We are always communicating back and forth to tell the tankers where to drop. It’s about airspace management. And we don’t only talk to tankers but also helicopters and commercial aircraft in order to prevent collisions.

We are literally a flying control tower.

Q: Sounds like you have a pretty intense job on your hands.

A: I’m actually sore when we come back because I’ve been tensed up the entire time. This certainly isn’t a normal flying job.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

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THE ROTARY ANTHEM

Rotary Anthem from Rotary International on Vimeo.

THE ROTARY FOUR-WAY TEST

To close the meeting...

ROTARY FOUR-WAY TEST

of the things we think, say, or do...

Rotarian and President-elect Paul Amoury leads us.

And the final bell with our own John Fuller...

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Weekly Meeting of Rotary E-Club of the Caribbean, 7020

Thursday 12 May 2016

May 13, 2016 - Weekly Meeting