The team used two techniques to block VCAM1: One of them genetically deleted the protein from the mice’s brains. Another injected an antibody that binds to it to stop anything else attaching. Both methods prevented signs of brain aging in young mice infused with old plasma and reversed existing markers in elderly mice brains. The researchers then gave the mice learning and memory tests. In one, which involves remembering which of several holes is safe to drop through, treated elderly mice performed as well as youngsters once fully trained. “The aged mice looked like they were young again in terms of their ability to learn and remember,” Dubal says. “It’s remarkable.”
Car homogenization has become something of an Internet meme. It turns out that all new cars more or less look alike. I had begun to notice this over the years and I thought I was just imagining things. But people playing with Photoshop have found that you can mix and match car grills and make a BMW look just like a Kia and a Hyundai look just like a Honda. It’s all one car.
Truly, this cries out for explanation. So I was happy to see a video made by CNET that gives five reasons: mandates for big fronts to protect pedestrians, mandates that require low tops for fuel economy, a big rear to balance out the big fronts, tiny windows resulting from safety regulations that end up actually making the car less safe, and high belt lines due to the other regs. In other words, single-minded concern for testable “safety” and the environment has wrecked the entire car aesthetic.
And that’s only the beginning. Car and Driver puts this as plainly as can be: “In our hyperregulated modern world, the government dictates nearly every aspect of car design, from the size and color of the exterior lighting elements to how sharp the creases stamped into sheetmetal can be.”
You are welcome to read an engineer’s account of what it is like to design an American car. Nothing you think, much less dream, really matters. The regulations drive the whole process. He explains that the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards with hundreds of regulations – really a massive central plan – dictate every detail and have utterly ruined the look and feel of American cars.
There is no way out, so long as the regulatory state is in charge.
Gee, someone should write a book about this sort of thing.
Yes, the bureaucrats are pretending that it’s a required part of returning to the moon when, as Bob Zubrin has pointed out it’s a toll booth at best, and a likely roadblock, and there has been no public debate about its necessity.