Lifeboat Foundation

Intentional homicides are estimates of unlawful homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over land resources, intergang violence over turf or control, and predatory violence and killing by armed groups. Intentional homicide does not include all intentional killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several hundred members and is thus usually excluded.

• Brazil crime rate & statistics for 2016 was 29.53, a 4.03% increase from 2015.
• Brazil crime rate & statistics for 2015 was 28.38, a 1.53% increase from 2014.
• Brazil crime rate & statistics for 2014 was 27.96, a 4.47% increase from 2013.
• Brazil crime rate & statistics for 2013 was 26.76, a 1.16% increase from 2012.

An explosion at a Russian weapons testing site in August released radioactive isotopes that almost certainly came from a nuclear reactor, experts say.

Homicide kills far more people than armed conflict, says new UNODC study

VIENNA/NEW YORK, 8 July (UN Information Service) – Some 464,000 people across the world were killed in homicides in 2017, surpassing by far the 89,000 killed in armed conflicts in the same period, according to the Global Study on Homicide 2019 published today by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

“The Global Study on Homicide seeks to shed light on gender-related killings, lethal gang violence and other challenges, to support prevention and interventions to bring down homicide rates,” said UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov. “Countries have committed to targets under the Sustainable Development Goals to reduce all forms of violence and related death rates by 2030. This report offers important examples of effective community-based interventions that have helped to bring about improvements in areas afflicted by violence, gangs and organized crime.”

Forensic personnel load the corpse of a man into a van, after he was executed at a shopping mall in Acapulco, Mexico, on April 24, 2018. A new report recorded more than 33,000 homicides in 2018, making it the country’s deadliest on record. Francisco Robles/AFP/Getty Images hide caption.

Cellular senescence, a permanent state of replicative arrest in otherwise proliferating cells, is a hallmark of ageing and has been linked to ageing-related diseases like cancer. Senescent cells have been shown to accumulate in tissues of aged organisms which in turn can lead to chronic inflammation. Many genes have been associated with cell senescence, yet a comprehensive understanding of cell senescence pathways is still lacking. To this end, we created CellAge (http://genomics.senescence.info/cells), a manually curated database of 279 human genes associated with cellular senescence, and performed various integrative and functional analyses. We observed that genes promoting cell senescence tend to be overexpressed with age in human tissues and are also significantly overrepresented in anti-longevity and tumour-suppressor gene databases. By contrast, genes inhibiting cell senescence overlapped with pro-longevity genes and oncogenes. Furthermore, an evolutionary analysis revealed a strong conservation of senescence-associated genes in mammals, but not in invertebrates. Using the CellAge genes as seed nodes, we also built protein-protein interaction and co-expression networks. Clusters in the networks were enriched for cell cycle and immunological processes. Network topological parameters also revealed novel potential senescence-associated regulators. We then used siRNAs and observed that of 26 candidates tested, 19 induced markers of senescence. Overall, our work provides a new resource for researchers to study cell senescence and our systems biology analyses provide new insights and novel genes regarding cell senescence.

• http://genomics.senescence.info/cells/

Not only has Su Metcalfe’s treatment succeeded in early trials, it involves zero drugs and no side effects—and it could begin human trials as soon as 2020.

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What the nervous system of the roundworm tells us about freezing brains and reanimating human minds.

Haidar el Ali’s reforestation project has planted 152 million mangrove buds in southern Senegal over the past decade!

BBC News Africa

Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter had claimed that J&J and its pharmaceutical subsidiary Janssen aggressively marketed to doctors and downplayed the risks of opioids as early as the 1990s. The state said J&J’s sales practices created an oversupply of the addictive painkillers and “a public nuisance” that upended lives and would cost the state $12.7 billion to $17.5 billion. The state was seeking more than $17 billion from the company.

J&J, which marketed the opioid painkillers Duragesic and Nucynta, has denied any wrongdoing. Lawyers for the company disputed the legal basis Oklahoma used to sue J&J, relying on a “public nuisance” claim. They said the state has previously limited the act to disputes involving property or public spaces.

Investors were expecting J&J to be fined between $500 million and $5 billion, according to Evercore ISI analyst Elizabeth Anderson.