“It is the mercies of the Lord, that he has not failed me, because his compassions are not exhausted. Pity us, O Lord, early every month: for we are not brought to an end, because his compassions are not exhausted. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”
(Lamantations 3:22-23)
Great Is Thy Faithfulness

***

FITHWIRE

Former Porn Star Takes Over XXX Church Ministry That Led Her to Christ

Photo by Javier Torres

By Tré Goins-Phillips

Editor

July 19, 2019

Brittni De La Mora used to be a porn star, then she saw a big, unorthodox sign at an adult entertainment convention, declaring, “Jesus loves porn stars,” and things began to change.

It was those four words that ultimately led De La Mora to where she is today: the incoming leader of XXX Church, a parachurch organization dedicated to helping people leave the porn industry and overcome addictions to pornography.

Traveling to porn conventions around the country, De La Mora told Faithwire during a phone interview this week, she became accustomed to seeing protestors, many of whom were eager to condemn her. It wasn’t long before she started believing them, convinced she just wasn’t “good enough for God.”

“What I think the church gets wrong is Jesus calls us to be ‘fishers of men’ and I think that people forget how to use bait,” De La Mora said. “Like the triple X in front of ‘church’ — it scares people. The slogan, ‘Jesus loves porn stars,’ it scares people.”

“If we didn’t have this radical slogan,” she continued, “then we wouldn’t be fishing people in. We would have no bait.”

De La Mora is herself a testament to the success of XXX Church, founded in 2002 by Craig Gross, who stepped down from the ministry this week as he plans to focus more on his latest endeavor, Christian Cannabis, a controversial initiative aimed at fostering dialogue about pot use within the Christian community.

The former porn star entered the adult entertainment industry in 2005. She was introduced to XXX Church at a porn convention two years later. Thanks in large part to the seeds planted by Gross’ ministry, De La Mora became a Christian in 2008.

Not fully understanding what her new faith meant, De La Mora briefly re-entered the porn industry. But soon thereafter left completely, when, on a flight to Las Vegas, she felt prompted to read Revelation 2:20-23, a passage about the sin of sexual immorality and idolatry.

In the New Testament verses, Jesus rebuked believers in Thyatira who had tolerated a woman who claimed to be a prophet but was deceptively leading people “into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.”

“When I read that Scripture,” De La Mora recalled, “it was the fear of the Lord that really just came upon me and I felt this grace as well from the Holy Spirit, saying, ‘Brittni, this is not the life I have for you. The life I have for you is going to overflow with so much joy, so much peace.’”

De La Mora went on to say she felt God telling her he would “bless your life like no man ever could” if she quit the porn industry altogether.

Once she made her decision, De La Mora reached out to XXX Church, whose staff helped her as she began transitioning out of the world of pornography and into a life of ministry.

For years, De La Mora and her husband, Rich, whom she married three years ago, have wanted to work in some capacity for XXX Church. They had no idea, she said, they would one day be handed the keys to the entire organization.

Gross said in a statement of his own that, during a time of prayer earlier this year, he felt God telling him to give XXX Church to the De La Moras, describing what the Lord has done in De La Mora’s life as “nothing short of a beautiful miracle.”

“She knows the Bible inside and out and is an incredible depiction of redemption,” he added. “It doesn’t surprise me in the least that God is calling her here. Three years ago, Brittni married Rich, a pastor she became friends with after she left the industry. Rich comes from a family of ministers; he has a compassionate heart and loves XXX Church.”

Trapped in sin, we often try to run from God. The best thing to do, though, is to run toward him, De La Mora said.

Sexual sin creates a vicious cycle — a timeline plagued by shame and guilt, but that’s not from God. According to De La Mora, it’s “Satan’s tactic to keep you in isolation.”

“Don’t be afraid to run to God,” she implored. “God has his arms open wide to you; he is waiting for you to run to him.”

***

Townhall

Shroud of Turin: New Test Concludes 1988 ‘Medieval Hoax’ Dating Was a Fraud

Myra Kahn Adams

July 21, 2019

Source: Face on the Shroud: How it appears on the cloth, and as a photo “negative” that is a “positive.” ©1978 Barrie M. Schwortz Collection, STERA, Inc.

Important news about the Shroud of Turin, believed by millions to be the authentic burial cloth of Jesus Christ, has been flagrantly under-reported.

Nevertheless, the lack of mainstream media interest does not diminish landmark new research contesting the results of the controversial 1988 radiocarbon test that dated the Shroud between the years 1260 and 1390.

Immediately after those dates were cited three decades ago, and to this day, the Shroud has been tainted, maligned, disparaged and denigrated while wedded to the descriptions “not authentic,” a “forgery” or “medieval hoax.”

Meanwhile, the medieval date range is still continuously questioned and debunked by scientists and experts. The chief complaint is that the three small Shroud test samples were cut from the same outer edge on a piece of the cloth long thought to have been added later in the Middle Ages. This would have been part of a repair or reweave on a corner that had become worn and frayed due to frequent handling when the Shroud was held up for public exhibition. In fact, this theory was proven correct in 2005 by American chemist Raymond N. Rogers.

Thankfully now there is a new chapter in the 1988 dating debate. Raw data and documents from the original test that were “unavailable” (many scientists and researchers would say deliberately “hidden”) were obtained in 2017 by Tristan Casabianca, a French researcher.

In March, after two years of tests and analysis, Casabianca and his team of scientists published their results in the scholarly journal Archaeometry.

This month, in an interview with the French publication L'Homme Nouveau (Google translates into English), Casabianca discusses how he obtained the documents, his team’s methodology, and conclusion. Here is an excerpt:

“In 1989, the results of the shroud dating were published in the prestigious journal Nature: between 1260 and 1390 with 95% certainty. But for thirty years, researchers have asked the laboratories for raw data. These have always refused to provide them. In 2017, I submitted a legal request to the British Museum, which supervised the laboratories. Thus, I had access to hundreds of unpublished pages, which include these raw data. With my team, we conducted their analysis. Our statistical analysis shows that the 1988 carbon 14 dating was unreliable: the tested samples are obviously heterogeneous, [showing many different dates], and there is no guarantee that all these samples, taken from one end of the sheet, are representative of the whole fabric. It is therefore impossible to conclude that the shroud of Turin dates from the Middle Ages.”

Here is why Casabianca’s conclusions are important to someone like me.

Since the 1990s, I have been a proponent of the study of the Shroud of Turin — a 14.5- by-3.5-foot linen cloth, and indeed believe it is the authentic burial shroud of Jesus Christ.

Meanwhile, the Shroud continues to be the most studied and analyzed artifact in the world, with its numerous unexplained properties continuing to baffle modern science. Chief among the mysteries is what “caused” a linear, front to back, anatomically correct, blood-stained image of a tortured, crucified man — with bodily markings that perfectly align with all the Biblical accounts of Christ’s suffering and death — to appear on the cloth.

The Shroud also possesses photographic-negative properties first discovered in 1898, that on the “positive image” clearly show every gruesome, agonizing, torment endured by the “man.”

Additionally, the Shroud displays three-dimensional “distance information” resembling a topographical map but within the cloth’s two-dimensional image of the man.

Furthermore, the image depth measures only two micro-fibers with no variation (such consistency is a feat impossible with human hands). And more unusual, the image does not penetrate the cloth but sits on top.

I could go into vast detail about many more fascinating facts, but the big takeaway is that the more you learn about the Shroud’s mysteries, the more you believe in its authenticity.

Shroud scientists and other experts who have never accepted the 1290 – 1360 date range are applauding Casabianca and his team who are calling for rigorous new testing to end the absurd notion that the Shroud is a medieval hoax.

Not only did those dates defy logic because of circumstantial evidence such as art, artifacts, and coins that mirror the Shroud face as early as AD 692, but the 1988 tests diminished the conclusions of the equally famous 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project known as STURP. As the first and last comprehensive research project authorized by the Vatican, STURP employed 40 esteemed scientists using 1970s-state-of-the-art equipment and given access to the Shroud for 120 hours. Here is the concluding paragraph from STURP's final October 1981 report:

“Thus, the answer to the question of how the image was produced or what produced the image remains, now, as it has in the past, a mystery. We can conclude for now that the Shroud image is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It is not the product of an artist. The bloodstains are composed of hemoglobin and also give a positive test for serum albumin. The image is an ongoing mystery and until further chemical studies are made, perhaps by this group of scientists, or perhaps by some scientists in the future, the problem remains unsolved.”

Barrie Schwortz, a world-renowned Shroud expert who was a STURP photographer and later founded Shroud.com, the most visited Shroud site, told me what happened in 1988:

“As soon as the dating results were leaked to the press, the world of the Shroud came to a complete and sudden halt. Many researchers took this as the final word and disengaged completely. The years of hard work by the STURP team and the many papers they published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature was immediately disregarded and ultimately, forgotten. These were indeed the bleak years of Shroud research.”

But now the Shroud is experiencing a renaissance.

Besides Casabianca’s breakthrough research, there are two new Shroud museums, a site for Shroud evangelization, a famous collection of Shroud photography now available online, much Shroud activity, and generally a renewed interest in the cloth.

I am proud to be a part of this movement by helping lead a team of Shroud experts to raise the $2.5 million needed to showcase the cloth’s mysteries in a unique exhibition at the popular and prestigious Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.

Of course, the Shroud will not be present at the museum because it does not travel. Since 1578, it has been housed in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy — except during the Second World War when it was hidden from Hitler — but the Shroud will be there in spirit!

After the funds are raised, our team will assist the museum in producing the world’s most high-tech, creative exhibit, utilizing state-of-the-art display technology. The Shroud’s unexplained properties will be brought to life, leaving visitors spellbound.

Targeted for early January 2021, the exhibition will be open in time for the presidential inauguration at the U.S. Capitol, only three blocks from the museum.

The Museum of the Bible’s planned exhibit is part of a great Shroud awakening. Why do I believe that this is happening? The answer is the same as I have written before:

For those who insist that the burial Shroud of Jesus is fake, then we must counter with the question, “What if it is real?”

***

CHRISTIAN HEADLINES

China’s Schools Teaching Children to ‘Hate God’ and Distrust Christian Parents, Report Says

By Michael Faust

July 18, 2019

Children in China’s primary schools are now being taught that belief in God is abnormal and that parents who are religious should not be trusted, according to a report out of the country.

The new direction is part of the country’s crackdown on Christianity under the New Regulations of Religious Affairs that took effect in February 2018, according to Bitter Winter, a religious liberty watchdog.

Even before the last was passed, government leaders viewed religion with skepticism. The crackdown intensified with the new law and impacted what is taught in schools, beginning in kindergarten.

“Before starting school, I told my child about God’s creation, and he believed it. But after being taught at school, my child is like a different person. In atheistic China, these pure and innocent children have been taught to hate God,” a Christian mother told Bitter Winter.

Essentially, schools are grooming children to be atheists, teaching them that religion is “Xie jiao,” a Chinese expression that references anything that is heterodox and should not be trusted. Children are “taught to oppose their religious relatives” and that “believing in God is abnormal,” Bitter Winter reported.

The son reportedly told his Christian mom, “My teacher says that Christianity is a Xie jiao. If you believe in it, you will leave home and not take care of me. You might set yourself on fire, too.”

The school textbook, Morality and Society, teaches children to resist Xie jiao religious groups. Bitter Winter included pictures from the book.

“The teacher told us during class that Xie jiao groups are so terrible,” the boy said.

When the boy found a pamphlet about Christianity, he angrily started poking holes in it with a fruit knife.

“Christianity is a Xie jiao,” he said, telling his mother she “mustn’t believe in it.”

Testimonies from other Christian parents support the woman’s report.

In Xinzheng city in the province of Henan, a school held a special meeting to teach children how to oppose religion.

“If your mom goes to church and believes in God, she doesn’t want you as her child anymore,” the teacher told the children, according to Bitter Winter.

Children watched an anti-religion propaganda film that depicted religious people as monsters.

Parents of one child at the Xinzheng city school said their daughter is scared, fearing police will arrest her mom and dad.

In Linzhang county in the province of Hebei, students were told to “supervise” their parents to make sure they don’t practice religion, Bitter Winter reported. A boy then told his father that belief in God was dangerous and abnormal.

“It leads to a dead-end,” the boy told his father. “If you attend gatherings, you will be arrested.”

***

RT

Unacceptable content? YouTube ad policy bans keyword ‘Christian’

Published time: 26 Jul, 2019 01:38 Edited time: 26 Jul, 2019 08:44

© Reuters / Dado Ruvic
When the founder of a Christian veterans group tried to upload a YouTube ad for his organization, he received an odd rejection, informing him the keyword “Christian” was no longer acceptable under the site’s ad targeting policy.

Chad Robichaux, founder of the Mighty Oaks Foundation, a charitable group that helps veterans overcome wartime trauma, took to Twitter with a screenshot detailing his encounter with the tech giant.

So one of the keywords to boost the ad was the word ‘Christian,’ which we use regularly. The ad was denied specifically because of the use of the word ‘Christian.’

“This is the first time we'd seen this,” Robichaux told Faithwire in an interview. Within hours of Robichaux’s post, YouTube attempted to explain the situation in a tweet of its own.

“We know that religious beliefs are personal, so we don’t allow advertisers to target users on the basis of religion,” the Google-owned platform said. “Beyond that, we don’t have policies against advertising that includes religious terms like ‘Christian.’”

The veteran fired back, arguing the company’s statement was demonstrably false and that he had used the same keyword in previous ads without problems “for years.” Moreover, he claims when he tried running the same ad but with the keyword “Muslim” instead, there was no issue.

“We’ve ran ads with the keyword ‘Christian’ for years. This year alone we had 150,000 impressions on that word in our ads,” Robichaux responded, adding “We ran the exact same ad with the keyword ‘Muslim’ & it was approved but ‘Christian’ was not.”

After speaking with Google’s help desk, however, Robichaux was told the policy was new. Google has yet to comment publicly on the matter.

***

CBN NEWS

Israel Attacked 2 Iranian Targets in Iraq Using F-35 Stealth Jets - Report

Emily Jones

July 31, 2019

JERUSALEM, Israel - Israel went on the offensive against Iran in a rare series of two attacks against Iranian forces and ballistic missiles deployed in Iraq.

The London-based Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Tuesday that Israel used its F-35i stealth fighter jets to attack two Iraqi military bases holding Iranian forces and missiles in mid-July.

Asharq Al-Awsat reports that the first attack was on July 19 when an Israeli F-35i jet hit a base in the Saladin province north of Baghdad. The report also notes that Iranian-made ballistic missiles had just been delivered to the base shortly before Israel's attack.

Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah terrorists were killed in the strike, according to Al-Arabiya.

A second attack by Israel on Sunday targeted Iranian advisers and a ballistic missile shipment at Camp Ashraf northeast of Baghdad.

The attacks are significant because they affirm Israel's zero-tolerance policy of Iranian aggression in the Middle East and Israel's willingness to use advanced weaponry to destroy Iranian targets.

The report also mentioned a suspected Israeli strike in Syria last Wednesday, in which nine were killed including six Iranians fighting for the Syrian regime, claiming it was meant to prevent Iran from taking over a strategic hill in the Daraa province in the country's south.

Israeli missiles targeted "military positions and intelligence facilities belonging to Iran and [pro-Iranian] militias" in the southern provinces of Daraa and Quneitra, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at the time.

The Israel Defense Forces did not comment on the report.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly last September that Israel will fight against Iran and its Shiite proxies in the region if they threaten Israel's security.

"I also have a message today for the tyrants of Tehran: Israel knows what you're doing, and Israel knows where you're doing it. Israel will never let a regime that calls for our destruction to develop nuclear weapons. Not now, not in ten years, not ever. And Israel will do whatever it must do to defend itself against Iran's aggression. We will continue to act against you in Syria. We will act against you in Lebanon. We will act against you in Iraq. We will act against you whenever and wherever we must act to defend our state and defend our people," Netanyahu said at the time.

***

SPUTNIK

‘Whoever’s on Israel’s Side, We’re Against Them’, Erdogan Says Amid His War of Words With Netanyahu

July 29, 2019

Earlier this year, Erdogan referred to Netanyahu as “the thief who heads Israel,” with the Israeli Prime Minister swiftly retaliating and slamming the Turkish President as “the dictator who sends tens of thousands of political opponents to prison.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has staged another verbal attack on Israel by saying, “whoever is on the side of Israel, let everyone know that we are against them.”

Speaking at a gathering of Turkey’s ruling AKP Party in Ankara on Sunday, Erdogan said that the Turkish government does not “approve of silence on the state terror that Israel blatantly carries out in Palestine."

The remarks come against the backdrop of ongoing war of words between Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the Turkish President referring in March to Netanyahu, who faces corruption allegations at home, as “the thief who heads Israel”.

Erdogan then described Netanyahu as a “tyrant who slaughters 7-year-old Palestinian kids.”

The Israeli Prime Minister quickly retaliated by accusing Erdogan of committing genocide against Kurds and calling him “the dictator who sends tens of thousands of political opponents to prison, commits genocide against the Kurds, and occupies Northern Cyprus.”

While Netanyahu often slams Turkish policies on Kurds, including the 2018 Ankara-led Operation Olive Branch in the majority-Kurdish Afrin district in northern Syria, Erdogan draw parallels between Israel’s actions and the Nazi persecution of Jews, dubbing Netanyahu the “PM of an apartheid state,” who has “the blood of Palestinians on his hands.”

Referring to a new legislation defining Israel as a Jewish state, Erdogan said last year that “the Hitler spirit, which dragged the world into a major disaster, has risen again among some Israeli officials”. Netanyahu responded by saying that “a man who sends thousands of Turkish soldiers to hold the occupation of northern Cyprus and invades Syria will not preach to us.”

Relations between Israel and Turkey deteriorated after the beginning of the Palestinians’ so-called Great March of Return in the Gaza Strip in March 2018, an event that turned violent and resulted in deadly clashes between Palestinian militants and Israeli police.

The violence culminated on 14 May, 2018, the day of the official opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, which came six months after US President Donald Trump announced the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

(“Behold, I am against thee, Rhos prince of Mesoch and Thobel: and I will gather thee, and all thine host, horses and horsemen, all wearing breast-plates, with a great multitude, shields and helmets and swords: Persians, and Ethiopians, and Libyans; all with helmets and shields. Gomer, and all belonging to him; the house of Thorgama, from the end of the north, and all belonging to him; and many nations with thee.” Ezekiel 38:3-6

Togarmah (Hebrew: תֹּגַרְמָה) is a figure in the "table of nations" in Genesis 10, the list of descendants of Noah that represents the peoples known to the ancient Hebrews. Togarmah is among the descendants of Japheth and is thought to represent some people located in Anatolia.

The Anatolian peninsula or the Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. Wikipedia)

***

RT
No more kisses from Granny? Aussie program to protect kids from ALL unwanted physical contact

Published time: 31 Jul, 2019 14:42

A program being taught at schools in Victoria, Australia, is empowering youngsters to say no to unwanted physical contact – including smooches from grandparents. RT pundits locked horns over whether this goes too far.

Educator Margie Buttriss stirred up controversy after suggesting affectionate grandmothers could be the instigators of unwanted touching.

Sexual abuse is a serious issue but viewing touchy-feely grandmothers as potential predators is “going too far,” Karyn Turk, a TV and radio host, told RT.

“It’s really not teaching kids appropriately how to handle difficult situations.”

Paola Diana, a women’s rights activist, countered, suggesting that the Australian initiative doesn’t go far enough.

“We need to educate parents as well… Many abusers – they don’t even see themselves as abusers. And many victims – they don’t even recognize themselves as victims.”

(“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection.” 2 Timothy 3:1-3)

***

RT (Absolute demonic insanity.)

Actor Mario Lopez CANCELED by PC police for saying 3-year-olds can’t decide their own gender

Published time: 31 Jul, 2019 20:08 Edited time: 1 Aug, 2019 08:40

© Reuters / Tim Shaffer

Mario Lopez is feeling the wrath of the outrage brigade after suggesting that kids as young as three years-old shouldn’t be deciding their own gender. He was instantly pronounced “dead” by those for whom PC culture is a religion.

Lopez made the comments on conservative YouTube host Candace Owens’ show back in June, but it took the usually hyper-vigilant PC police more than a month to notice them. Well, now that they have, it looks like no bell can save Lopez, with social media lit up with criticism of his “transphobia,” for which he was summarily “canceled” in the eyes of many liberal tweeters. The entertainer was forced to apologize on Wednesday, telling NBC his comments were “ignorant and insensitive.”

What did Lopez actually say to cause such outrage?

The actor and host said he was “trying to understand” why some parents support their extremely young children’s pronouncements that they are a different gender and that he was “blown away” by adults letting kids as young as three years-old declare themselves a different sex.

Lopez did not launch into a hate-filled tirade against transgender individuals, but simply said toddlers might be too young to understand the full implication of what they are saying. The actor prefaced the comment by saying he didn’t want to “tell anyone how to parent their kids” but said in his opinion it was just far too early to make such a big decision.

My God, if you're three years old and you’re saying you’re feeling a certain way or you think you’re a boy or a girl or whatever the case may be, I just think it’s dangerous as a parent to make this determination.

Owens, who regularly stokes controversy in the media for a variety of other reasons, agreed, arguing that sometimes three-year-olds believe they are mermaids or princesses and that oftentimes they will be going through a phase that they grow out of. Yet, some modern parents take this as their cue to whisk the child off to a doctor for hormone injections and surgical intervention.

The only arguably controversial thing Lopez did in the interview was to briefly equate a child’s announcement about its gender as something to do with its “sexuality” – which isn’t the same thing, since a person who identifies as transgender isn’t necessarily confused about their sexuality.

There was even a call for Warner Bros. which distributes the Extra entertainment show co-hosted by Lopez to “hold him accountable” for his “gross” actions.

It was a double whammy of condemnation for Lopez, however, because he also criticized the #MeToo era and the #BelieveWomen movement. He said it was “dangerous” to believe every accuser, no questions asked, because it is possible that on occasion a woman might conceivably lie about assault or sexual misconduct – another apparently indefensible position which earned Lopez the title of “misogynist” to go with “transphobe.”

As for Lopez’s comments on transgender kids, they are actually backed up by doctors on both sides of the Atlantic, who recently warned about the potential negative consequences of pumping kids full of hormones and early gender re-assignment surgeries instead of adopting a wait-and-see approach, in case the child changes its mind (which studies have shown is often the case.)

One whistleblower, a National Health Service (NHS) psychologist who’d previously worked at Britain’s only child gender clinic, warned that doctors were worried about being labeled “transphobic” if they looked too deeply into each case to find possible psychological reasons, including past abuse, which might explain a child’s feelings.

If medical experts and whistleblowers are branded transphobic for urging caution around the issue of trans-identified kids, then an actor like Lopez has no hope.

By Danielle Ryan

Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance writer based in Dublin.

***

***

YAHOO! (Excerpted from a longer article.)

Exclusive: FBI document warns conspiracy theories are a new domestic terrorism threat

Jana Winter Contributor

August 1, 2019

The FBI for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat, according to a previously unpublicized document obtained by Yahoo News. (Read the document below.)

The FBI intelligence bulletin from the bureau’s Phoenix field office, dated May 30, 2019, describes “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists,” as a growing threat, and notes that it is the first such report to do so. It lists a number of arrests, including some that haven’t been publicized, related to violent incidents motivated by fringe beliefs.

The document specifically mentions QAnon, a shadowy network that believes in a deep state conspiracy against President Trump, and Pizzagate, the theory that a pedophile ring including Clinton associates was being run out of the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant (which didn’t actually have a basement).

“The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the document states. It also goes on to say the FBI believes conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to increase during the 2020 presidential election cycle.

The FBI said another factor driving the intensity of this threat is “the uncovering of real conspiracies or cover-ups involving illegal, harmful, or unconstitutional activities by government officials or leading political figures.” The FBI does not specify which political leaders or which cover-ups it was referring to.

President Trump is mentioned by name briefly in the latest FBI document, which notes that the origins of QAnon is the conspiratorial belief that “Q,” allegedly a government official, “posts classified information online to reveal a covert effort, led by President Trump, to dismantle a conspiracy involving ‘deep state’ actors and global elites allegedly engaged in an international child sex trafficking ring.”

This recent intelligence bulletin comes as the FBI is facing pressure to explain who it considers an extremist, and how the government prosecutes domestic terrorists. In recent weeks the FBI director has addressed domestic terrorism multiple times but did not publicly mention this new conspiracy theorist threat.

The FBI is already under fire for its approach to domestic extremism. In a contentious hearing last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray faced criticism from Democrats who said the bureau was not focusing enough on white supremacist violence. “The term ‘white supremacist,’ ‘white nationalist’ is not included in your statement to the committee when you talk about threats to America,” Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said. “There is a reference to racism, which I think probably was meant to include that, but nothing more specific.”

***

BBC

Covered up by a secretive Soviet Union at the time, the true number of deaths and illnesses caused by the nuclear accident are only now becoming clear.

By Richard Gray

26 July 2019

Springtime was always the busiest time of year for the women working at the wool processing plant in Chernihiv, northern Ukraine. More than 21,000 tons of wool passed through the factory from farms all across the country during the annual sheep shearing period. The April and May of 1986 were no exception.

The workers pulled 12-hour shifts as they sorted the piles of raw fleece by hand before they were washed and baled. But then the women started getting sick.

Some suffered nosebleeds, others complained of dizziness and nausea. When the authorities were called to investigate, they found radiation levels in the factory of up to 180mSv/hr. Anyone exposed at these levels would exceed the total annual dose considered to be safe in many parts of the world today in less than a minute.

Fifty miles away was the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. On 26 April 1986 reactor number four at the power plant suffered a catastrophic explosion that exposed the core and threw clouds of radioactive material over the surrounding area as a fire burned uncontrollably.

But Chernihiv was regarded to be well outside the exclusion zone that was hastily thrown up around the stricken plant and readings elsewhere in the town had shown it to have comparatively low levels of radiation.

“The area was yellow on the radiation maps which means the town didn’t get hit very hard,” says Kate Brown, a science historian at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “Yet there were 298 women in this factory who were given liquidator status, which was normally reserved for those who had documented exposures during the early days of the clean-up after the accident.”

Brown uncovered the story of the Chernihiv wool workers as part of her research into the impact of the Chernobyl disaster. Her determination to unravel the true cost of the disaster has seen her travel to many parts of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, to interview survivors, trawl through official archives and search old hospital reports.

According to the official, internationally recognised death toll, just 31 people died as an immediate result of Chernobylwhile the UN estimates that only 50 deaths can be directly attributed to the disaster. In 2005, it predicted a further 4,000 might eventually die as a result of the radiation exposure.

Brown's research, however, suggests Chernobyl has cast a far longer shadow.

“When I visited the wool factory in Chernihiv, I met some of the women who were working at the time,” she says. “There were just 10 of these women still there. They told me that they were picking up bales of wool and sorting them on tables. In May 1986, the factory was getting wool that had radiation readings of up to 30Sv/hr. The bales of wool the women were carrying were like hugging an X-ray machine while it was turned on over and over again.”

Thousands of animals were slaughtered in the area around Chernobyl as it was being evacuated. Brown believes fleeces from some of these animals appear to have found their way to the factory in Chernihiv along with other contaminated wool from farms enveloped in the clouds of radioactive material that spread out across northern Ukraine.

When Brown spoke to the 10 “liquidators” at the wool factory, their stories gave a grim picture of what appears to have happened all across the region as ordinary people who had nothing to do with the clean-up of the disaster were exposed to radioactive material.

“They pointed to different parts of their bodies that had aged more than the rest and where they had health problems,” says Brown. “They knew all about which radioactive isotopes had lodged in their organs.” The other 288 women, they told her, had either died or had taken pensions for ill health.

In the weeks and months that followed the Chernobyl disaster, hundreds of thousands of firefighters, engineers, military troops, police, miners, cleaners and medical personnel were sent into the area immediately around the destroyed power plant in an effort to control the fire and core meltdown, and prevent radioactive material from spreading further into the environment.

These people – who became known as “liquidators” due to the official Soviet definition of “participant in liquidation of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident consequences” – were given a special status that meant they would receive benefits such as extra healthcare and payments. Official registries indicate that 600,000 people were granted liquidator status.

But a contentious report published by members of the Russian Academy of Sciences indicates that there could have been as many as 830,000 people in the Chernobyl clean-up teams. They estimated that between 112,000 and 125,000 of these – around 15% – had died by 2005. Many of the figures in the report, however, were disputed by scientists in the West, who questioned their scientific validity.

The Ukrainian authorities, however, kept a registry of their own citizens affected by the Chernobyl accident. In 2015 there were 318,988 Ukrainian clean-up workers on the database, although according to a recent report by the National Research Centre for Radiation Medicine in Ukraine, 651,453 clean-up workers were examined for radiation exposure between 2003 and 2007. A similar register in Belarus recorded 99,693 clean-up workers, while another registry including included 157,086 Russian liquidators.

In Ukraine, death rates among these brave individuals has soared, rising from 3.5 to 17.5 deaths per 1,000 peoplebetween 1988 and 2012. Disability among the liquidators has also soared. In 1988 68% of them were regarded healthy, while 26 years later just 5.5% were still healthy. Most – 63% – were reported to be suffering from cardiovascular and circulatory diseases while 13% had problems with their nervous systems. In Belarus, 40,049 liquidators were registered to have cancers by 2008 along with a further 2,833 from Russia.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, however, says that health studies on liquidators have “failed to show any direct correlation between their radiation exposure” and cancer or other disease.

Another group who bore the brunt of the radiation exposures in the hours and days after the explosion were those living in the nearby town of Pripyat and the surrounding area. It took a day and a half before the evacuation began and led to 49,614 people being evacuated. Later a further 41,986 people were evacuated from another 80 settlements in a 30km (18.7 mile) zone around the power plant, but ultimately some 200,000 people are thought to have been relocated as a result of the accident.

Some of those living closest to the power plant received internal radiation doses in their thyroid glands of up to 3.9Gy – roughly 37,000 times the dose of a chest x-ray – after breathing radioactive material and eating contaminated food. Doctors who have been studying the evacuees report that mortality among the evacuees has gradually increased, reaching a peak in 2008-2012 with 18 deaths per 1,000 people.

But this still represents a small proportion of the people affected by Chernobyl.

Brown has found evidence hidden in hospital records from around the time of the accident that show just how widespread problems were.

“In hospitals throughout the region and as far away as Moscow, people were flooding in with acute symptoms,” she says. “The accounts I have indicate at least 40,000 people were hospitalised in the summer after the accident, many of them women and children.”

Political pressure is widely thought to have led to the true picture of the problem to be suppressed by the Soviet authorities, who were keen not to lose face on the international stage. But following the collapse of the USSR and as people living in the areas that were exposed to radiation begin to present with a wide range of health problems, a far clearer picture of the toll taken by the disaster is emerging.

Viktor Sushko, deputy director general of the National Research Centre for Radiation Medicine (NRCRM) based in Kiev, Ukraine, describes the Chernobyl disaster as the “largest anthropogenic disaster in the history of humankind”. The NRCRM estimate around five million citizens of the former USSR, including three million in Ukraine, have suffered as a result of Chernobyl, while in Belarus around 800,000 people were registered as being affected by radiation following the disaster.

Even now the Ukrainian government is paying benefits to 36,525 women who are considered to be widows of men who suffered as a result of the Chernobyl accident.

As of January 2018, 1.8 million people in Ukraine, including 377,589 children, had the status of victims of the disaster, according to Sushko and his colleagues. There has been a rapid increase in the number of people with disabilities among this population, rising from 40,106 in 1995 to 107,115 in 2018.

Interestingly, Sushko and his team also report that the number of Chernobyl victims in Ukraine has decreased by 657,988 since 2007 – a fall of 26%. Although they don’t explain why, this is likely to be partly due to migration as victims have left the country, reclassification of victim status and, inevitably, some deaths.

Mortality rates in radiation contaminated areas have been growing progressively higher than the rest of the Ukraine. They peaked in 2007 when more than 26 people out of every 1,000 died compared to the national average of 16 for every 1,000.

In total some 150,000sq km (57,915 sq miles) of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are considered to be contaminated and the 4,000sq km (1,544 sq miles) exclusion zone – an area more than twice the size of London – remains virtually uninhabited. But radioactive fallout, carried by winds, scattered over much of the Northern Hemisphere. Within two days of the explosion, high levels of radiation were picked up in Sweden while contamination of plants and grasslands in Britain led to strict restrictions on the sale of lamb and other sheep productsfor years.

Radioactive material was carried over a wide area, mainly towards the west, by the wind in the days that followed the disaster (Credit: Getty Images)

In areas of Western Europe hit by Chernobyl fallout there have also been indications that the rates of neoplasms – abnormal tissue growths that include cancers – have been higher than in areas that escaped contamination.

But Brown believes some of the actions of those attempting to deal with the aftermath of the disaster also led to contamination spreading far further than it otherwise would. In an archive in Moscow she found records that indicated that meat, milk and other produce from contaminated plants and animals were sent all over the country.

“They came up with manuals for the meat, wool and milk industries to classify produce as high, medium and low in terms of radiation,” she says. “Meat with high levels, for example, was shoved into a freezer so they could wait until it fell. Medium and low-level meat was supposed to be mixed with clean meat and turned into sausage. It was labelled as normal and sent all over the country, although they were told not to send it to Moscow.”

Brown, who has written a book about her findings called Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future, also discovered similar stories of blueberries that were over the accepted radiation limit being mixed with cleaner berries so the whole batch would fall under the regulatory limit.

It meant people outside Ukraine would “wake up to a breakfast of Chernobyl blueberries” without even knowing it, she says.

Establishing the links between radiation exposure and long-term health effects, however, is a difficult task. It can take years, even decades before cancers appear and attributing them to a particular cause can be difficult.

One recent study, however, identified problems in the genomes of children who were either exposed during the disaster, or were born to parents who were exposed. It found increased levels of damage and instability in their genomes.

“Genome instability represents a significant risk of cancer,” says Aleksandra Fučić, a genotoxicologist at the Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health in Zagreb, Croatia. The daughter of a Ukrainian woman herself, she has been working with Russian scientists to study the effects of Chernobyl’s radiation on children from the region. “In Chernobyl cases, time is not healing. Time is a latency period for cancer development.”

There have been other impacts too, she says. Suicide rates among people involved in the clean up at Chernobyl are higher than in the general population. Studies have also found that people who reported living in the Chernobyl affected zones in Ukraine had higher rates of alcohol problems and poorer levels of mental health.

Putting a figure on exactly how many deaths around the world may result from the Chernobyl disaster is almost impossible. But despite the grim picture much of the research paints, there are some stories of hope too.

Three engineers who volunteered to drain millions of gallons of water from tanks beneath the burning reactor in the days immediately after the explosion waded through highly radioactive water and debris to reach the release valves. Their heroics are one of the most dramatic moments in HBO’s recent dramatisation of the disaster.

Astonishingly, two of the three men are still alive despite having minimal protection from the radiation during their mission. The third man, Borys Baranov, survived until 2005.

***

The Big Wobble

"It has transformed into an ecological disaster!" Wildfire smoke travelling east from Siberia has reached Alaska, the west coast of Canada, and Seattle

August 1, 2019

Photo NOAA
Wildfire smoke travelling east from Siberia had reached Alaska, the west coast of Canada, and Seattle by July 31, 2019, according to an aerosol index from the Suomi-NPP satellite’s Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) instrument.
The smoke comes from massive forest fires burning across six Russian regions. The country's Federal Forestry Agency on July 29 said more than 10,000 square miles had burned, “an area roughly equal to the size of Crimea,” according to The Moscow Times.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has offered Russia help to battle wildfires that have swept across Siberia, the Kremlin said. Russian President Vladimir Putin declined the offer but called it a step towards improving rocky relations.
Trump called Putin on Wednesday evening, the Kremlin press service said. The Russian president expressed his “sincere gratitude” for Trump's concern and offer of a helping hand.
Gigantic forest fires have regularly raged through the vast expanses of Russia's Siberia, but the magnitude of this year's blazes has reached an exceptional level with fears of a long-term impact on the environment.
As fires sweep across millions of hectares enveloping entire cities in black smoke and noxious fumes, environmentalists warn of a disaster threatening to accelerate the melting of the Arctic.
More than 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) were in the grip of fires on Monday, mainly in the vast regions of Yakutia in the north and Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk in Siberia, authorities said.
The fires, triggered by dry thunderstorms in temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), were spread by strong winds, Russia's federal forestry agency said.
The acrid smoke has affected not only small settlements but also major cities in Western Siberia and the Altai region as well as the Urals such as Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg and disrupted air travel.
"The smoke is horrible.
I am choking and dizzy," pensioner Raisa Brovkina, who was hospitalised in Russia's third-largest city Novosibirsk, told state television.
On Sunday, the smoke reached neighbouring Kazakhstan.
A "concentration of pollutants exceeding the norm" was recorded in several cities, including the capital Nur-Sultan, said the Kazakh meteorological service.
Aside from health fears for the local population, environmentalists warn the fires may accelerate global warming.
"The forest fires in the eastern part of the country have long stopped being a local problem," the Russian branch of Greenpeace said in a statement.
"It has transformed into an ecological disaster with consequences for the entire country."
Some scientists posted satellite images from NASA showing the clouds of smoke reaching Arctic areas.
Greenpeace Russia expert Grigory Kuksin said the soot and ashes accelerate the melting of the Arctic ice and permafrost -- the permanently frozen layer that has begun melting -- releasing gases that reinforce global warming. Kuksin called the impact on the climate "very serious."
"It is comparable to the emissions of major cities," he said.
"The more fires affect the climate, the more conditions are created for new dangerous fires."

***

The Big Wobble

“Absolutely incredible!” Hundreds of locations across Europe smashed all-time hot weather records by an impressive margin: Tour de France stopped by snow!

July 27, 2019

Hundreds of locations across Europe smashed all-time hot weather records by an impressive margin on Thursday with many locations beating records placed the day before on Wednesday.
For the first time in the Netherlands, a temperature above 40 deg C was measured.
Gilze-Rijen, the mercury rose to 40.4 deg C, (105 deg F) breaking the all-time record which was set the day before at 39.8 deg C. (104 deg F)
In my back yard, I measured an unofficial temperature of 41.4 in the shade, see photo above.
According to the Weather Channel, in Germany, at least 139 locations saw all-time highs, representing a large chunk of the nation’s 400-plus observing sites.
In France, at least 70 locations recorded all-time highs on Thursday, as compiled by international weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera.
Yesterday as temperatures in parts of Franc hit 42 deg C, (107 deg F) the iconic Tour De France was postponed due to snow, hailstorm and a mudslide in the French Alps.

The hot air that smashed European weather records this week looks set to move towards Greenland and could cause record melting of the world’s second-largest ice sheet, the United Nations said on Friday.
Clare Nullis, a spokeswoman for the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, said the hot air moving up from North Africa had not merely broken European temperature records on Thursday but surpassed them by 2, 3 or 4 degrees Celsius, which she described as “absolutely incredible”.

***

Strange Sounds

Irrigation tunnel collapses and cuts off 100,000 acres of farmland in Wyoming and Nebraska – State of emergency declared

July 27, 2019

Officials in Nebraska and Wyoming were scrambling Thursday to respond to an irrigation tunnel collapse that cut off water to more than 100,000 acres of farmland in both states.

And that during one of the hottest and driest times of year… A major threat to the region’s economy.

Irrigation tunnel collapses and cuts off 100,000 acres of farmland in Wyoming and Nebraska – Mojor threat for economy in both states. Picture: OFFICE OF WYOMING GOV. MARK GORDON

The collapse prompted governors from both states to declare an emergency, freeing up state resources to help local officials and laying the groundwork to request federal assistance.

The 14-foot-wide tunnel that collapsed is part of the Fort Laramie Irrigation Canal that runs above and below ground, delivering water from a pool created by the Whelan Diversion Dam on the North Platte River to eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska.

The arid region is dominated by irrigated farms that rely on the water to grow corn, sugar beets and alfalfa, but may have to do without for the next month.

“It’s 95 degrees right now and there’s no chance of rain,” said Rob Posten, general manager of the Goshen Irrigation District in Wyoming. “This couldn’t have happened at a worse time.“

Posten said officials still don’t know why the 102-year-old tunnel collapsed or how much it will cost to repair the damage. Engineers are currently working on a temporary fix to shore up the tunnel that will cost an estimated $2 million and could take up to 25 days to complete. Posten said recent inspections of the tunnel found no major concerns. The tunnel is about 100 feet below ground.

The collapse caused water to back up on the Wyoming side and bust through the canal’s walls, said Michael Pearlman, a spokesman for Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon. The breach flooded nearby farmland and prevented any more water from flowing down the canal.

Pearlman said Gordon “recognizes that this is a serious emergency.“

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts promised to use his state’s resources to help farmers who have lost water “at a critical time in the growing season.” The canal provides water to about 55,000 acres of Nebraska farmland.

Posten said his 12-member staff is working 16-hour days to try to fix the damage and brought in a contractor from St. Louis to help.

Although they haven’t confirmed a cause, officials believe the tunnel may have collapsed because of unusually heavy spring rains and snowfall that saturated the soil above it, said Nebraska state Sen. John Stinner, who represents part of the affected area. The waterlogged soil would have placed substantially more weight on the tunnel.

Stinner said farmers in the area are trying to remain positive.

“Everybody’s hoping we can get a break in the weather. Some rain would be helpful,” he said. “It’s a day-by-day thing.“

Nebraska state Sen. Steve Erdman, a farmer who lives in the area, said the breach will cause major economic damage in western Nebraska that could reverberate through the whole state.

Erdman said farmers who are affected will likely see major losses, and the state may have to help cover the canal and tunnel repair costs. Unlike storms that damage crops in one swoop, the sudden loss of water is forcing many to decide whether they want to continue investing in this year’s crop to try to salvage what they can, even though they’re at risk of losing it all.

“It weighs on your psyche,” Erdman said.

Well after losing millions of calves in the floods, now, Nebraska and Wyoming are facing major crop losses, that will not only be bad for those states but also for the global US economy. Be prepared for food shortages and food prices going up like crazy!

[Omaha, Omaha1, AP]

***

BBC

No-deal Brexit now 'assumed' by government, says Gove

July 28, 2019

Michael Gove, the newly appointed chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, is in charge of preparing for a no-deal Brexit

The government is now "working on the assumption" of a no-deal Brexit, Michael Gove has said.

Mr Gove said his team still aimed to come to an agreement with Brussels but, writing in the Sunday Times, he added: "No deal is now a very real prospect."

Mr Johnson has made Mr Gove responsible for planning a no-deal Brexit.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told Mr Gove to chair meetings seven days a week until Brexit is delivered, according to the paper.

Mr Gove said tweaks to Theresa May's withdrawal agreement - which was approved by the EU but resoundingly rejected by Parliament - would not be enough.

"You can't just reheat the dish that's been sent back and expect that will make it more palatable," he wrote.

He added he hoped EU leaders might yet open up to the idea of striking a new deal, "but we must operate on the assumption that they will not".

"While we are optimistic about the future, we are realistic about the need to plan for every eventuality."

Mr Gove highlighted a major flaw of Mrs May's deal as the Irish backstop plan - a measure designed to prevent the introduction of a hard border on the island of Ireland.

So far the backstop has proved a sticking point in the Brexit negotiations.

A no-deal Brexit would mean the UK leaving the EU and cutting ties immediately, with no agreement in place.

The UK would follow World Trade Organization rules if it wanted to trade with the EU and other countries, while also trying to negotiate free-trade deals.

But with Britain outside the EU, there could be physical checkpoints to monitor people and goods crossing in and out of the UK - something ruled out by the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland.

No-deal scenario

Mr Gove is one of several new ministers pressing on with Brexit preparations since joining Mr Johnson's cabinet earlier this week.

Chancellor Sajid Javid has pledged extra funding to help prepare for a no-deal scenario.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Javid said there would be "significant extra funding" for 500 new Border Force officers and "possible" improved infrastructure at British ports.

Mr Javid is expected to pledge more money for projects next week.

Meanwhile there have been reports of more dissatisfaction within the Conservative party, as MPs opposed to a no-deal Brexit continue to consider ways to avoid it.

The Observer alleges former chancellor Philip Hammond held private talks with Labour's Brexit spokesman Sir Keir Starmer before Mr Johnson became prime minister.

The pair met shortly after Mr Hammond resigned from the government, the paper said.

Mr Starmer told the paper that work to build "a strong cross-party alliance" to prevent a no-deal Brexit would "intensify over the summer".

But despite several Tory Mps voicing their opposition to Mr Johnson in his first week in Downing Street, an opinion poll has suggested a recent boost in support for the party.

Since Mr Johnson took office on Wednesday the Conservatives have gained 10 points to stand at 30%, a survey for the Mail on Sunday showed.

(We'll see. Boris Johnson is part of the same “club” as his predecessors.)

***

StudyFinds

Breastfeeding May Lower Stroke Risk For Mothers, Especially Among Minorities

By Ben Renner

July 26, 2019

DALLAS — Breastfeeding is not only beneficial for babies, but it can be beneficial for the longterm health of mothers, too. A study published by the American Heart Association finds that the risk of stroke for post-menopausal women was reduced in those who reported breastfeeding at least one child.

Stroke is the fourth-leading cause of death among women 65 years old and older, but minorities are especially at risk. It’s the third-leading cause of death among Latinx and black women 65 years old and older, but researchers say that risk can be lowered by breastfeeding. The study is one of the first to analyze a possible relationship between breastfeeding and stroke risk in mothers as they age. It’s also one of the first to examine how a relationship might vary by ethnicity.

“Some studies have reported that breastfeeding may reduce the rates of breast cancer, ovarian cancer and risk of developing Type 2 diabetes in mothers. Recent findings point to the benefits of breastfeeding on heart disease and other specific cardiovascular risk factors,” says Dr. Lisette T. Jacobson, lead author of the study and assistant professor in the department of preventive medicine and public health at the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita, in a statement.

Researchers used data from 80,191 participants in the Women’s Health Initiative observational study, a national, ongoing study tracking medical events and health habits of post-menopausal women recruited between 1993 and 1998. The women in this analysis had delivered at least one child. Nearly six in ten (58%) reported breastfeeding their children. Among the breastfeeders, 51% breastfed their children between one and six months. 22% breastfed for seven to 12 months, and 27% for 13 or more months. The average age of the women in the entire cohort was 63.7 years at the time of recruitment. The follow-up period was 12.6 years.

The researchers adjusted for non-modifiable stroke risk factors, like age and family history, and found that stroke risk in all women who breastfed their babies was 23% lower. That percentage was more than doubled (48%) for black women. For Latinx women who breastfed, stroke risk dropped by 32%, compared to a 21% reduction in white women.

The study also found a 19% lower risk in women who had breastfed for up to six months. A longer length of breastfeeding was related to a greater reduction in risk.

“If you are pregnant, please consider breastfeeding as part of your birthing plan and continue to breastfeed for at least six months to receive the optimal benefits for you and your infant,” notes Jacobson.

The study is published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

***

A study by Simon Fraser University researchers shows that the number of children born to a group of Mayan women was associated with the rate at which their bodies’ cells age.

The study led by health sciences professor Pablo Nepomnaschy and postdoctoral researcher Cindy Barha found that women who give birth to more surviving children exhibited longer telomeres. Telomeres are the protective tips found at the end of each DNA strand and are indicative of cellular aging. Longer telomeres are integral to cell replication and are associated with longevity.

July 25, 2019

A study by Simon Fraser University researchers shows that the number of children born to a group of Mayan women was associated with the rate at which their bodies’ cells age.

The study led by health sciences professor Pablo Nepomnaschy and postdoctoral researcher Cindy Barha found that women who give birth to more surviving children exhibited longer telomeres. Telomeres are the protective tips found at the end of each DNA strand and are indicative of cellular aging. Longer telomeres are integral to cell replication and are associated with longevity.

Credit: Simon Fraser University

The study assessed the number of children born to 75 women from two neighbouring indigenous rural Guatemalan communities and their telomere lengths. The participants’ telomere lengths were measured at two time points 13 years apart, through salivary specimens and buccal swabs. This is the first study to examine the direct association between the number of children and telomere shortening in humans over time.

According to Nepomnaschy, the study findings contradicts life history theory which predicts that producing a higher number of offspring accelerates the pace of biological aging. “The slower pace of telomere shortening found in the study participants who have more children however, may be attributed to the dramatic increase in estrogen, a hormone produced during pregnancy,” says Nepomnaschy who also spearheads the Maternal and Child Health Laboratory at the SFU Faculty of Health Sciences. “Estrogen functions as a potent antioxidant that protects cells against telomere shortening.”

The social environment that the study participants live in may also influence the relationship between their reproductive efforts and the pace of aging. “The women we followed over the course of the study were from natural fertility populations where mothers who bear numerous children receive more social support from their relatives and friends,” explains Nepomnaschy. “Greater support could lead to an increase in the amount of metabolic energy that can be allocated to tissue maintenance, thereby slowing down the process of cellular aging.”

However the researchers emphasize that aging is a very complex process about which we still have much to learn.

Link to study: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0146424

Contacts and sources:
Pablo Nepomnaschy, Faculty of Health Sciences
Simon Fraser University

Citation: Number of Children and Telomere Length in Women: A Prospective, Longitudinal Evaluation.
Cindy K. Barha, Courtney W. Hanna, Katrina G. Salvante, Samantha L. Wilson, Wendy P. Robinson, Rachel M. Altman, Pablo A. Nepomnaschy. PLOS ONE, 2016; 11 (1): e0146424 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0146424

***

Until next week...keep on believing.
Almondtree Productions

“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”
(Ephesians 1:4-6)