Calorie restriction and longevity

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weight scales.jpgAll the rage these days in longevity circles is calorie restriction, so this Julian Dibbell/New Yorker article reports on Dibbell’s two-month test on the the ultra-extreme Calorie Restriction Diet — an 1,800 calorie daily diet:

Iíve been starving for the past two months, actually, and thatís precisely what the party is about: My dinner guestsófive successful urban professionals who for years have subsisted on a caloric intake the average sub-Saharan African would find austereóhave been at it much, much longer, and Iíve invited them here to show me how itís done. They are master practitioners of Calorie Restriction, a diet whose central, radical premise is that the less you eat, the longer youíll live. Having taken this diet for a nine-week test drive, Iím hoping now for an up-close glimpse of what it means to go all the way. I want to find out what it looks, feels, and tastes like to commit to the ultimate in dietary trade-offs: a lifetime lived as close to the brink of starvation as your body can stand, in exchange for the promise of a life span longer than any human has ever known.
Seat belts, vaccines, clean tap water, and other modern miracles have dramatically boosted average life expectancies, to be sureóreducing annually the percentage of people who die before reaching the maximum life spanóbut CR alone demonstrably raises the maximum itself. In lab studies going back to the thirties, mice on severely limited diets have consistently lived as much as 50 percent longer than the oldest of their well-fed peersóthe rodent equivalent of a human life stretched past the age of 160. And it isnít just a mouse thing: Yeast cells, spiders, vinegar worms, rhesus monkeysóby now a veritable menagerie of species has been shown to benefit from CRís life-extending effects.

The WSJ chimes in with this article ($), which focuses on a group of scientists who are attempting to mimic calorie restriction’s antiaging effects with medicines. At the same time, this NY Times article reports on a Wisconsin-based research project that indicates that rhesus monkeys on a calorie restricted diet are much healthier than their counterparts that are eating a normal diet. Meanwhile, this NY Times article reports on a researcher’s work that indicates that the 65% or so of Americans who are overweight or obese got that way, in part, because they didnít realize how much they were eating.
After all this, please excuse me while I go get a gelato. ;^)

Markets are the darndest things

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MudPig.JPGOver the past two decades, feral hogs have been a hugely destructive force in rural Texas as they relentlessly tear up productive farm and ranch land. Moreover, with few predators, the hogs have multiplied exponentionally to the point where they are now commonly seen in suburban areas around Texas’ large cities. So, what’s the solution to controlling these feisty beasts?
According to this NY Times article, it’s markets — namely demand for feral hog meat in restaurants — that offers the most promising solution yet:

[Feral hog meat] has also become lucrative as Europeans and an increasing number of Americans clamor for wild boar. Mr. Richardson [a hunter of hogs] said he made $28,000 last year selling live feral hogs.
ìI think itís a great health-conscious niche market,î said Dick Koehler, one of Mr. Richardsonís customers and the vice president of Frontier Meats, based in Fort Worth. ìIt has real potential for growth.î
Mr. Koehler said that about 60 percent of the processed hog meat from his plant ended up on the tables of fancy restaurants in Europe, but that its popularity was growing in the United States. Each year, his company ships more and more hog meat to American restaurants and specialty supermarkets to feed the demands for organic food, Mr. Koehler said.

A certain nephew of mine is going to be very interested in this news.

The insolvency of big-time college athletics

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ohio_stadium2.jpgMy son Cody and I enjoyed a splendid Texas autumn afternoon on Saturday while attending the University of Houston’s football game against Central Florida. But only about 13,000 other folks showed up for the highly-entertaining game in an enjoyable on-campus environment, and that’s sadly an all-too-common experience for UH.
UH is a member of Conference USA, which was formed a decade or so ago by about a dozen universities that were not offered membership in one of the Bowl Championship Series conferences. As a result of its creation by necessity rather than design, few of the C-USA members have natural rivalries with other members and virtually all of the members struggle to attract fans to their games. UH’s situation is particularly difficult because UH competes in a market that offers NFL football and two effectively local universities (A&M and Texas) that compete in a BCS conference (the Big 12) with many traditional rivals. And that does not even include the competition represented by Texas’ hugely popular high school football scene.
With that backdrop, this Vic Matheson post over at the Sports Economist is the most cogent analysis that I’ve seen in some time of the underlying instability of the present structure of big-time college football. Using Florida International University’s recent foray into major college football as an example, Matheson concludes as follows:

Big-time college athletics is an lure that many schools find difficult to resist. The reality is, however, that even revenue sports such as football and menís basketball are money losers for most programs. Certainly FIU must be rethinking their decision to step onto the football field.

Despite a storied history in intercollegiate athletics and excellent on-campus facilities, the University of Houston is facing the same problems as Florida International in attempting to finance a big-time intercollegiate athletic program without the infrastructure of a BCS conference affiliation. Moreover, virtually every other non-BCS conference university — and even a number of the universities in BCS conferences — are experiencing the same dilemma. Although a model exists for the reorganization of big-time college football and basketball into a true adjunct to the academic experience rather than minor league professional enterprises, my sense is that the current instability in the structure of college football will more likely trigger the development of three or four super conferences comprised of member institutions that are willing to pay the price — both financially and morally — to compete at the highest levels of minor league professional football and basketball.
Although such a development may be the natural evolution of big-time intercollegiate football and basketball, I can’t help but think that something valuable — such as the old Southwest Conference and UH’s intense rivalries with UT and A&M — is lost from the fabric of the most university communities as intercollegiate football and basketball mimic professional sports franchises.

2006 Weekly local football review

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http://mtcgi.kir.com/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=%222006+Weekly+local+football+review%22&Submit1=SearchTitans 28 Texans 22

The Texans (2-5) returned to earth with a thud after last week’s unlikely victory over the Jaguars as Titans and former Longhorn hero Vince Young threw and rushed for a TD in a game that the Texans could have easily won if QB David Carr had shown up to play. In a curious relapse to his play for most of the past four seasons, Carr reverted to his deer-in-the-headlights look as he coughed up a couple of fumbles (one for a Titans’ TD) and an easy interception, so Coach Kubiak replaced him early in the 2nd half after the second of his fumbles. Carr’s performance on the field was bad, but my sense is that his demeanor on the sideline is even more telling regarding whether the Texans should continue hitching their wagon to him as the franchise QB.

Carr essentially looked aloof and somewhat clueless on the sideline after each incident of his poor performance. There is certainly nothing wrong with not getting overly down on oneself for making demoralizing mistakes that hurt your team and Carr certainly said all the right things after the game. But appearing not to give a damn about those mistakes during the game on the sidelines — or worse, acting as if the mistakes were not primarily his fault — is a good way to lose your teammates’ respect fast. In arguably the most important development of this game, the Texans seemed to respond to backup QB Sage Rosenfels much better than Carr, which — as John Lopez notes — is an ominous sign for Carr’s future in Houston. The Texans really needed to win this game because they don’t have much of a chance in their next two, at the Giants and at the Jaguars. Look for the Texans to be 2-7 when they have their next realistic chance for a win in Week 11 at home against the Bills.

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That lovable Elk

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elkington3.jpgHouston’s Steve Elkington is not only an outstanding professional golfer, but he is witty and outspoken. So, it was no real surprise that this Age article contains the following observation by the acerbic Elk from this week’s Chrysler Championship at Florida’s venerable Innisbrook Golf Club:

“This is just a good course, one of the better ones we play,” said the battle-hardened veteran, who trailed American leader Brian Gay by three strokes at demanding Innisbrook.
“Some of the crap we play on is ridiculous. As big as the tour is, you’d think we could play some better courses.”

H’mm. I wonder if “some of the crap” he is referring to is this one?

Joe Niekro, R.I.P.

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jniekro.jpgFormer Stros pitcher Joe Niekro died yesterday at the age of 61 in Tampa, Florida, reportedly of a brain aneurysm. Niekro pitching in 22 Major league seasons from 1967 through 1988 with seven teams, including the Stros, the Cubs, the Padres, the Tigers, the Braves, the Yankees and the Twins. Neil Hohlfeld’s Chronicle article on Niekro’s death is here, the NY Times obituary is here and don’t miss former teammate Larry Dierker’s heartfelt reflections on Niekro here.
Niekro and his Hall of Fame brother Phil were two of the best knuckleball pitchers of that era and still hold the Major League record for total wins by brothers with 539 (Joe accounted for 221 of those, 144 with the Stros). Although both Niekros relied on the knuckleball as their out pitch, Joe actually threw a variety of pitches in addition to the knuckler while Phil threw the knuckleball exclusively.
For his career, Niekro ended up being a below-average National League pitcher — he had a -42 career runs saved against average (RSAA, explained here). However, the Stros were fortunate to have Niekro playing for the club during 11 of his best seasons. Niekro pitched for the Stros from 1975-85, and he was a workhorse on the Stros pitching staffs (along with Nolan Ryan and J.R. Richard) of the first Stros teams that were serious playoff contenders in the 1979-81 seasons.

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More trouble across the border

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Mexican Drug Wars.jpgFollowing up from this post from a year ago regarding the increased drug-related violence along the Texas-Mexico border, this NY Times article reports on a particularly gruesome uptick in the violence — beheadings of rival gang members:

An underworld war between drug gangs is raging in Mexico, medieval in its barbarity, its foot soldiers operating with little fear of interference from the police, its scope and brutality unprecedented, even in a country accustomed to high levels of drug violence.
In recent months the violence has included a total of two dozen beheadings, a raid on a local police station by men with grenades and a bazooka, and daytime kidnappings of top law enforcement officials. At least 123 law enforcement officials, among them 2 judges and 3 prosecutors, have been gunned down or tortured to death. Five police officers were among those beheaded.
In all, the violence has claimed more than 1,700 civilian lives this year, and federal officials say the killings are on course to top the estimated 1,800 underworld killings last year. Those death tolls compare with 1,304 in 2004 and 1,080 in 2001, these officials say.

By the way, a fence will not stop this particular problem from spilling over the border.

Scarcity rents and oil prices

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oilmantissm.jpgClear Thinkers favorite James Hamilton is thinking about oil prices again, and that’s always a good thing. This time, Professor Hamilton examines the impact that scarcity rents are having on oil prices as the markets increasingly adjust for the risk of resource exhaustion:

My own view is that, for most of the past century, Dave [Cohen’]s inference is exactly correct — the resource exhaustion was judged to be sufficiently far off as to be ignored. However, unlike those whom Dave terms the Cornucopians, I do not infer that the next decade will necessarily be like the previous century. Certainly declining production from U.S. oil reservoirs set in long ago. And if one asks, why are we counting on seemingly geopolitically unreliable sources such as Iraq, Nigeria, Angola, Venezuela, and Russia for future supplies, and transferring vast sums of wealth to countries that are covertly or openly hostile to our interests, the answer appears to me to be, because we have no choice. Resource scarcity in this sense has already been with us for some time, and sooner or later the geological realities that governed U.S. oil production are also going to rule the day for the rest of the world’s oil producing countries. My expectation has accordingly been that, although scarcity rents for oil were irrelevant for most of my father’s lifetime, they would start to become manifest some time within mine. And I have been very interested in the question of when.

Read the entire post, and then try to resist calling your commodities broker. ;^)

Marble Slab and the ice cream wars

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marble_slab_creamery.jpgHouston-based Marble Slab Creamery, a premium ice-cream franchisor, is featured along with a couple of competitors in this NY Times article that describes their battle as the fight to become ice cream’s equivalent of Starbucks — “a ubiquitous chain offering a high-priced, high-quality version of a relatively mundane product.”
Marble Slab opened its first store in Houston in 1983 and now has 371 franchises in the United States, Canada and the United Arab Emirates, and another 220 under development. The company estimates this yearís sales will from $75 to $90 million, with sales at established stores increasing by 3 percent. Its main competitor is Phoenix-based Cold Stone Creamery, which has expanded to 1,400 units over the past five years, but which has suffered sales erosion both of the past two years.
By the way, Marble Slab’s ice cream is better than Cold Stone’s, too.

The Godfather of Microcredit

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muhammad_yunus.jpgDon’t miss this Connie Bruck/New Yorker article on Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladesh banker and economist who was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for his development of microcredit, which is simply the extension of small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans (a recent WSJ ($) op-ed by Yunus is here). Interestingly, an unexpected force is competing with microcredit:

[Microcredit promoters] say that the biggest obstacle to commercialization of the sector is philanthropic capital. They say that it distorts the marketónot only by filling channels that might otherwise draw commercial investors but also by keeping unsustainable programs alive.

On the other hand, philanthropy is also a key source of capital for microcredit:

The idea of reaching billions of the poor by achieving ìscaleîóa word invoked ceaselessly in the microfinance communityóhas enticed foundations, rich individuals, even investors into channelling millions into microfinance. The $1.2-billion Michael and Susan Dell Foundationóestablished by the founder of one of the worldís largest computer manufacturersóhas begun making grants to microfinance institutions in India, a country of 1.1 billion people, most of whom have no access to financial services. In October, 2005, Google established a philanthropic entity called Google.org, with seed money of about a billion dollars, to fight disease, global warming, and poverty; microfinance is expected to be a key component of its poverty portfolio. And last April the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would devote an undisclosed amount of money to expanding financial services for the poor in developing countries. Dr. Rajiv Shah, who oversees the new Gates program, said of microfinance, ìThis can reach hundreds of millions of people, and do so in a way that helps them move out of poverty and that sustains over time.î

Hat tip to Tyler Cowen for the link to the New Yorker article.