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Human Behavior

NIH study finds loss of ‘youth’ protein may drive aging in the eye – National Institutes of Health (.gov)

News Release

Monday, July 18, 2022

Loss of the protein pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF), which protects retinal support cells, may drive age-related changes in the retina, according to a new study in mice from the National Eye Institute (NEI). The retina is the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye, and aging-associated diseases of the retina, like age-related macular degeneration (AMD), can lead to blindness. This new finding could lead to therapies to prevent AMD and other aging conditions of the retina. The study was published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. NEI is part of the National Institutes of Health.

People have called PEDF the youth protein, because it is abundant in young retinas, but it declines during aging, said Patricia Becerra, Ph.D., chief of NEIs Section of Protein Structure and Function and senior author of the study. This study showed for the first time that just removing PEDF leads to a host of gene changes that mimic aging in the retina.

The retina is composed of layers of cells that function together to detect and process light signals, which the brain uses to generate vision. The retinas light-sensing photoreceptors sit above the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), a layer of support cells. The RPE nourishes photoreceptors and recycles pieces of the photoreceptor cells called outer segments, which get used up and their tips shed each time photoreceptors detect light. If the RPE cannot provide recycled components of older outer segment tips back to photoreceptors, these cells lose their ability to make new segments, and eventually become unable to sense light. And without nutrients supplied by the RPE, photoreceptors die. In people with AMD or certain types of retinal dystrophies, senescence (aging) or death of RPE cells in the retina leads to vision loss.

Previous work from Becerras lab and others has shown that PEDF protects retinal cells, preventing both damage to the cells and abnormal growth of blood vessels in the retina. RPE cells produce and secrete the PEDF protein. The protein then binds to its receptor, PEDF-R, which is also expressed by RPE cells. Binding by PEDF stimulates PEDF-R to break down lipid molecules, key components of the cell membranes that enclose photoreceptor outer segments and other cellular compartments. This breakdown step is a key part of the outer segment recycling process. And while researchers have known that PEDF levels drop in the retina during the aging process, it was not clear whether this loss of PEDF was causing, or merely correlated with, age-related changes in the retina.

To examine the retinal role of PEDF, Becerra and colleagues studied a mouse model that lacks the PEDF gene (Serpin1). The researchers examined the cellular structure of the retina in the mouse model, finding that the RPE cell nuclei were enlarged, which may indicate changes in how the cells DNA is packed. The RPE cells also had turned on four genes associated with aging and cellular senescence, and levels of the PEDF receptor were significantly below normal. Finally, unprocessed lipids and other photoreceptor outer segment components had accumulated in the RPE layer of the retina. Similar changes in gene expression and defects in RPE metabolism are found in the aging retina.

*One of the most striking things was this reduction in the PEDF receptor on the surface of the RPE cells in the mouse lacking the PEDF protein, said the studys lead author, Ivan Rebustini, Ph.D., a staff scientist in Becerras lab. It seems theres some sort of feedback-loop involving PEDF that maintains the levels of PEDF-R and lipid metabolism in the RPE.

While at first glance, the retinas of these PEDF-negative mice appear normal, these new findings suggest that PEDF is playing a protective role that helps the retina weather trauma and aging-related wear and tear.

We always wondered if loss of PEDF was driven by aging, or was driving aging, said Becerra. This study, especially with the clear link to altered lipid metabolism and gene expression, indicates the loss of PEDF is a driver of aging-related changes in the retina.

The study was supported by the NEI intramural program.

This press release describes a basic research finding. Basic research increases our understanding of human behavior and biology, which is foundational to advancing new and better ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat disease. Science is an unpredictable and incremental process each research advance builds on past discoveries, often in unexpected ways. Most clinical advances would not be possible without the knowledge of fundamental basic research. To learn more about basic research, visit https://www.nih.gov/news-events/basic-research-digital-media-kit.

NEI leads the federal governments research on the visual system and eye diseases. NEI supports basic and clinical science programs to develop sight-saving treatments and address special needs of people with vision loss. For more information, visit https://www.nei.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

NIHTurning Discovery Into Health

Rebustini IT, Crawford SE, Becerra SP. PEDF deletion induces senescence and defects in phagocytosis in the RPE. July 13 2022. Int J Mol Sci.https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23147745

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NIH study finds loss of 'youth' protein may drive aging in the eye - National Institutes of Health (.gov)

Human Behavior

Addressing Racism-Related Stress and Trauma in Psychotherapy – Mad in America

A new article published in the journal Psychotherapy explores a psychotherapeutic approach entitled Keeping Radical Healing in Mind a strength-based, culturally relevant, and racially responsive approach to treatment for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).

Led by Hector Adames at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the authors utilize a clinical case example and model how providers can implement antiracist and liberatory approaches to psychotherapy by using the Psychology of Radical Healing (PRH) a new theoretical framework that considers the cultural and systemic mental health concerns of BIPOC from a collectivist standpoint.

When therapists are applying the PRH to their clinical work by keeping radical healing in mind, they are helping their clients do more than merely cope with racism-related stress, Adames and his co-authors write. They provide their clients with the tools to heal and thrive in the face of systemic racism. Specifically, therapists could help their clients internalize, develop, and nurture radical healing as a multisystemic approach grounded in the five anchors of the PRH framework.

Abundant evidence shows how racism and race-related stress adversely impact the health and well-being of BIPOC, including anxiety symptoms, reduction in personal self-worth and life satisfaction, hopelessness and stress, and physical ailments such as obesity and vascular disease. Given this knowledge, the need for therapists to address the role of racism on the health of BIPOC has become increasingly discussed within the profession.

Racism can be defined as the system of structuring opportunity based on the belief that one race is superior to another. It is designed to exhaust and harm the well-being of Communities of Color. It can manifest through institutional racism, cultural racism, interpersonal racism, as well as internalized racism, which can be defined as the individual inculcation of the racist stereotypes, values, images, and ideologies perpetuated by the White dominant society about ones racial group, leading to feelings of self-doubt, disgust, and disrespect for ones race and/or oneself.

Healing, a central goal within psychotherapy, requires deconstructing how professional training and ideas of healing have been grounded in a Eurocentric understanding of human behavior. There has been ample evidence showing how psychology and psychiatry have systemically upheld racism, which has only recently been acknowledged. Both fields have been criticized for locating problems within individuals (i.e., pathology) that often stem from broader systems of oppression and social determinants.

BIPOC scholars and therapists have long advocated for the need to develop psychotherapeutic approaches designed to address the impact of racism on peoples lives and have foregrounded methods developed by and for BIPOC communities. Examples include the Treating Racist-Incident Based Trauma approach, the Ethnopolitical Approach, Intersectionality in Psychotherapy, and Community Healing and Resistance Through Storytelling.

Building upon these works, The Psychology of Radical Healing (PRH) integrates liberation psychology, Ethnopolitical Psychology, Black Psychology, and Intersectionality Theory as foundational theories for the framework. The founders of PRH, psychologists Bryana French, Jioni Lewis, and Della Mosley, discuss how this framework fosters a sense of hope and possibilities for the future. They write:

Being able to sit in a dialectic and exist in both spaces of resisting oppression and moving toward freedom. Staying in either extremethe despair of oppression or the imagination of possibilitiescould be detrimental. On one end of the spectrum, one could get lost in an overwhelming sense of disempowerment. On the other end, only focusing on dreaming for a better future removes oneself from current reality. We believe it is essential that radical healing includes both acknowledgment of and active resistance from oppression and a vision of possibilities for freedom and wellness. Moreover, the act of being in that dialectic is, in and of itself, a process of healing.

The PRH is grounded in five anchors, including (a) Critical Consciousness, described as a persons capability to critically reflect and act upon their sociopolitical conditions; (b) Cultural Authenticity and Self-Knowledge, which honors cultural wisdom and self-definition; (c) Radical Hope and Envisioning Possibilities to improve the collective human existence; (d) Collectivism and belonging to ones culture for validation, joy, and healing; and (e) Strength and Resistance to create joy-filled lives despite awareness of racism and oppression.

Much research has been done on the empirical support for psychotherapy and the actions of effective therapists, including providing an acceptable and flexible etiology of the clients distress, developing a treatment plan, not avoiding complex and challenging content in therapy, being aware of the clients demographics and context, and the importance of the therapeutic alliance.

While these foundational concepts are essential, most psychotherapy research fails to explicitly center on healing from the wounds of racial oppression, which can be linked back to the earlier point of Eurocentric underpinnings of the profession and conceptualization of what and who psychotherapy was made for. The authors write:

For instance, although most theories of psychotherapy and counseling pay attention to how peoples internal subjectivities impact their functioning (e.g., assessment of functioning in social, educational, and occupational spheres of life), they often fail to contextualize how the external world and its structures impact people intrapsychically.

Keeping Radical Healing in Mind requires a therapeutic stance of curiosity, unassuming openness, and responsiveness to the interlocking ways BIPOC clients are oppressed a more effective practice than simply matching therapists and clients by shared racial/ethnic identity. It goes beyond multicultural competence. The authors provide an image of how this cycle is used, and it can be analogous to a compass helping a BIPOC client navigate living in White supremacy culture by resisting self-blame for racism and forms of oppression directed at them and their ethnic-racial group. It also supports the client in internalizing, developing, and nurturing the five anchors of PRH.

The authors provide a clinical exchange from a two-year working alliance with a client, Brenda, demonstrating how providers can keep radical healing in mind.

Brenda is a 32-year-old cisgender, heterosexual, African American woman. She lives with her mother and has a 6-year-old son. Her reason for seeking treatment was primarily due to increased anxiety that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her symptoms included feeling on edge, difficulties with concentration, loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping, and gastrointestinal issues.

The authors provide an overview of various exchanges between the therapist and Brenda, including how she has been experiencing the news and her sons questions about police brutality. A valid concern of Brendas, as research shows that repeated exposure to online traumatic events such as police killings of Black people are related to youth experiencing depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Keeping Radical Healing in Mind models how client and therapist become curious together and co-develop a shared account of the presenting problem. To foster critical consciousness, the therapist validates and connects (a) what Brenda is discussing in session to what is taking place in society and (b) how oppression can be a source of distress for both her and her son.

This conceptualization connects the ways in which Brendas concerns stem from racism-related stress and allows the therapist to observe the psychological toll of racism on Brenda to provide emotional support by recognizing how her lived experience and the sociopolitical environment impact her life. In addition, by being attuned to Brendas indirect description of her collectivistic worldview through her statement, I am not the only one who has to worry about their childs safety, the therapist has an opportunity to become curious about ways for Brenda to collectively heal.

In their clinical exchange, it was healing for Brenda to be reminded of how her mother raised her and maintained a sense of hope in the face of oppression. This gave way to helping Brenda develop Cultural Authenticity and Self-Knowledge. Thus, Radical Hope and Envisioning Possibilities were also an essential component of Brendas healing because she could begin to imagine future possibilities for her Black son to live in a more socially just world and live a joy-filled life, and in doing so, participate in community healing. Ultimately, the exchange provided in the article focused primarily on helping Brenda internalize, develop, and nurture five anchors of the approach.

In summarizing her case, the authors write:

Essentially, therapists must constantly challenge themselves to consider structural issues as they manifest themselves in clients lives and provide space to name, explore, and resist self-blame for these concerns.

In closing, the authors highlight how PRH is viewed as cyclical, ongoing, and co-constructed between therapists and their BIPOC clients. Therefore, it is essential that therapists themselves develop critical consciousness and critically reflect and act upon their sociopolitical conditions before assisting their clients in increasing their critical consciousness.

This approach requires clinicians to know the history and have an understanding of the clients culture, develop a deep understanding of what their ascribed race means to them and what it represents in a White supremacist culture, and lastly, recognize how power and oppression operate in society as well as within clinical settings.

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Adames, H. Y., Chavez-Dueas, N. Y., Lewis, J. A., Neville, H. A., French, B. H., Chen, G. A., & Mosley, D. V. (2022, March 10). Radical healing in psychotherapy: Addressing the wounds of racism-related stress and trauma. Psychotherapy. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pst0000435 (Link)

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Addressing Racism-Related Stress and Trauma in Psychotherapy - Mad in America

Human Behavior

Poway woman with cerebral palsy finds relaxation with equine therapy – The San Diego Union-Tribune

Nancy Miller has spastic cerebral palsy and uses a walker, but when she gets atop her favorite horse, Jack, her muscles relax.

Miller, who lives at Villa de Vida in Poway, has been attending the Helen Woodward Animal Centers Therapeutic Riding program for a few years, although she has been riding since she was a kid.

Im a horse lady, Miller, 69, said. I love it. Its relaxing. Its fun.

Miller rides once a week at the Helena Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Santa Fe. The program works with riders with special needs through equine-assisted activities. It serves students aged 4 and older to enhance physical, cognitive, social-emotional and motor skills, officials said.

Horseback riding can lend independence and mobility to a person with disabilities who may be otherwise restricted.

The primary goal of Equine Assisted Learning is to teach and support life skills through guided horse interactions. This experiential approach integrates human-horse interaction that is guided by an equine specialist in mental health and learning, said Courtney Mellor, Therapeutic Riding Program manager at Helen Woodward Animal Center.

As horses use mostly non-verbal communication and are in tune with human behavior, they can help participants to better understand and learn how our non-verbal communication might be influencing or impacting others in their lives, she said. Through interactions with the horses, participants learn a heightened sense of self-awareness which is important in order to reveal patterns of behavior while also giving the opportunity to think in a new way.

Miller said her doctors have suggested horse therapy since she was young.

I think its a good thing for me because of my cerebral palsy, Miller said.

I just love being on the horse, communicating with the horse and being relaxed, she said. My story with horses is that I just love them.

For more information on the program, visit https://animalcenter.org/programs-services/therapeutic-riding.

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Poway woman with cerebral palsy finds relaxation with equine therapy - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Human Behavior

Tim Bakken The Conversation – The Conversation

Tim Bakken is Professor of Law at the US Military Academy, West Point. He has practiced law in New York City, including as a homicide prosecutor in Brooklyn. He has been a visiting professor at Ural State Law University in Yekaterinburg, Russia, and he started the department of law at the National Military Academy of Afghanistan (Kabul). He has been a visiting scholar or researcher at Columbia Law School, the Australian National University College of Law, the University of Sydney Law School, and the University of Cambridge. His views are his own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. He can be reached at (845) 938-5544 or tim.bakken@westpoint.edu.

Publications

Books

Bakken, T. The Plea of Innocence: Restoring Truth to the American Legal System (New York University Press, 2022).

Bakken, T. The Cost of Loyalty: Dishonesty, Hubris, and Failure in the U.S. Military (Bloomsbury, 2020).

Bakken, T. & Ramsey, W. Criminal Justice and the 2004 Elections (pamphlet) (Thomson/Wadsworth, 2005).

Bakken, T., Stock, M., & Welton, M. Guide to Criminal Law in New York (Second Edition) (Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004).

Bakken, T., Bickers, J., & Goldstein, R. Guide to Criminal Procedure in New York (Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004).

Bakken, T. Guide to Criminal Law in New York (Wadsworth, 2001).

Articles

Bakken, T. The Defendants Plea of Innocent in Sexual Abuse Cases, in Wrongful Allegations of Sexualand Child Abuse, 271, Oxford University Press (Ros Burnett, ed.) (chapter) (2016).

Bakken, T. "Legal Takeovers of Nations: The Value and Risks of Foreign Direct Investment in a Global Marketplace, 40 University of Dayton Law Review 259 (2016).

Bakken, T., Dodd-Franks Extension of Criminal Corporate Liability through the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Enabling Whistleblowers and Monitoring Conflict Minerals, 36 Pace Law Review 1 (2015).

Bakken, T. India's Constitutional Restraint: Less Expression in a Large Democracy, 5 Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review 155 (2014).

Bakken, T. Constitutional Rights and Political Power of Corporations after Citizens United: the Decline of Citizens and the Rise of Foreign Corporations and Super PACs, 12 Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal 119 (2014).

Bakken, T. A Womans Right to Combat: Equal Protection in the Military, 20 William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law 271 (2014).

Bakken, T. "Dodd-Frank's Caveat Emptor: New Criminal Liability for Individuals and Corporations," 48 Wake Forest Law Review 1173 (2013).

Bakken, T. The Prosecution of Newspapers, Reporters, and Sources for Disclosing Classified Information: The Governments Softening of the First Amendment, 45 University of Toledo Law Review 1 (2013).

Bakken, T. Models of Justice to Protect Innocent Persons, 56 New York Law School Law Review 867 (2012).

Bakken, T. & Steel, L. Exonerating the Innocent: Pre-trial Innocence Procedures, 56 New York Law School Law Review 855 (2012).

Bakken, T.Nations use of Force outside Self-defense, 8 Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy 451 (2010).

Bakken, T. Truth and Innocence Procedures to Free Innocent Persons: Beyond the Adversarial System, 41 University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 547 (2008).

Bakken, T. Averting Catastrophe: Combating Irans Nuclear Threat, 29 (2) Harvard International Review 84 (2007).

Bakken, T. The Prosecution of War Crimes: Military Commissions and the Procedural and Substantive Protections Beyond International Law, 30 Fordham International Law Journal 533 (2007).

Bakken, T. What Does Lawrence v. Texas Mean for the Future of Dont Ask Dont Tell, 14 Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy 1218 (symposium) (2007).

Bakken, T. The Contours of Judicial Deference to Military Personnel Policies, 14 Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy (symposium) 1231 (2007).

Bakken, T. The Preemption of Nuclear Weapons, 87 (6) Military Review 30 (2007).

Bakken, T. The Absence of Spiritual Awakening and Understanding in Religious Conversion, 59 The Journal of Religious Thought 101 (2006-07).

Casey-Acevedo, K., Bakken, T., & Karle, A. Children Visiting Mothers in Prison: The Effects on Mothers Behavior and Disciplinary Adjustment, 37 (3) The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology 418 (2004).

Casey-Acevedo, K. & Bakken, T. Women Adjusting to Prison: Disciplinary Behavior and the Characteristics of Adjustment, 17 (4) Journal of Health and Social Policy Review 37 (2003).

Bakken, T. The Effects of Hate Crime Legislation: Unproven Benefits and Unintended Consequences, 5 International Journal of Discrimination and the Law (4) 231 (2002).

Casey-Acevedo, K. & Bakken, T. Visiting Women in Prison: Who Visits and Who Cares?, 43(3) Journal of Offender Rehabilitation 67 (2002).

Bransford, C. & Bakken, T. The Evolution of Mental Health Care Policy and the Implications for Social Work, 1 Social Work and Mental Health 1 (2002).

Bransford, C. & Bakken, T. Reflections of Authority in Psychotherapy: From Freud to Post-Modernism, 9 Psychoanalytic Social Work 57 (2002).

Bakken, T. & Bransford, C. The Role of Human Agency in the Creation of Normative Influences within Individuals and Groups, 5 Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 89 (2002).

Casey-Acevedo, K., Bakken, T., & Welton, M. Women as Offenders, 4 Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment, 1722 (D. Levinson, ed.) (Sage) (2002).

Bakken, T. A Foundation for Practical and Successful Career Intervention, 25 The Journal (Institute of Guidance Counsellors), 63 (2001).

Casey-Acevedo, K. & Bakken, T. The Effects of Visitation on Women in Prison, 25 International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice (1) (2001).

Casey-Acevedo, K. & Bakken, T. The Effect of Time on the Disciplinary Adjustment of Women in Prison, 45 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 489 (2001).

Bransford, C. & Bakken, T. Organization Theory and the Utilization of Authority in Social Work, 9(1) Social Work and Social Sciences Review 5 (2001).

Bakken, T., Becker, E., & Welton, M. Institutional Acceptance and Legal Equality, 27 Journal of Intergroup Relations 16 (2001).

Bakken, T. The Efficacy of Reinforcement Schedules and Knowledge of Results in Effecting Behavioral Change, 6(2) Current Research in Social Psychology 22 (2001).

Bakken, T. The Incorporation of Values into the Counseling Relationship, 23 American Journal of Pastoral Counseling 1 (2000).

Bakken, T. Liberty and Equality through Freedom of Expression: The Human Rights Questions Behind Hate Crime Laws, 4(2) International Journal of Human Rights 1 (2000).

Bakken, T. Constitutional and Social Equality: Legacies and Limits of Law, Politics, and Culture, 7:1 Indian Journal of Gender Studies 71 (2000).

Bakken, T. The Use of Criminal Law to Punish Individual Motivations: Determining the Limits of Freedom of Conscience, Sentencing & Society Conference/University of Strathclyde (on-line: out of print and available from author) (2000).

Bakken, T. & Kortering, L. The Constitutional and Statutory Obligations of Schools to Prevent Special Education Students from Dropping Out, 20 Remedial and Special Education 6 (1999).

Bakken, T. A Rationale for Maximizing Freedom of Expression at Colleges and Universities, 4 Journal of Civil Liberties 102 (1999).

Bakken, T. Liberty, Obscenity, and Majoritarian Institutions: Who Determines the Value of Expression? 16 Glendale Law Review 1 (1998).

Klepper, W. M. & Bakken, T. Hate Speech: A Call to Principles, 35 National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Journal 38 (1997).

Bakken, T. The Continued Failure of Modern Law to Create Fairness and Efficiency: The Presentence Investigation Report, 40 New York Law School Law Review 363 (1996).

Bakken, T. The Grand Jury (synopsis) American Justice 352 (J. M. Bessette, ed.) (Salem) (1996).

Bakken, T. The Infiltration of a Motorcycle Gang and the Codification of Its Social Norms and Psychological Processes, VI Popular Culture Review 29 (1996).

Bakken, T. Law Enforcement, Survey of Social Science: Government and Politics Series 1059 (synopsis) (F. N. Magill & J. M. Bessette, eds.) (Salem) (1995).

Bakken, T. The Quest of Law Enforcement for the Principled Interpretation of State Constitutions, 5(2) State Constitutional Commentaries and Notes 1 (1995).

Bakken, T. The Utility of Using Case Studies to Confront Ethical Dilemmas, Teaching and Interactive Methods 399 (H. E. Klein, ed.) (World Association for Case Method Research and Application) (1995).

Bakken, T. The Responsibility of Schools and Colleges to Monitor Pornography to Prevent Sexual Harassment, 45 Labor Law Journal 762 (1994).

Bakken, T. Cultivating Civilization: The Age of the English Coffeehouse, 58 Social Education 345 (1994).

Bakken, T. International Law and Human Rights for Defendants in Criminal Trials, 25 Indian Journal of International Law 411 (1985).

Bakken, T. Religious Conversion and Social Evolution Clarified, 16 Small Group Behavior 157 (1985).

Bakken, T. Dispute Resolution under the Trading with the Enemy Act: A Cooperative Approach between Corporations and the United States, 7 Commercial Law Gazette (29) 3 & (30) 6 (1984).

Bakken, T. Recognizing the Dilemma of Psychological Religious Converts, 27 Counseling and Values 99 (1983).

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Tim Bakken The Conversation - The Conversation

Anatomy

Jesse Williams’ Favorite Iconic Line From Grey’s Anatomy – Looper

During an interview with Entertainment Tonight, the actor was asked which "Grey's Anatomy" quote is his favorite, and his answer did not disappoint. Shockingly enough, Jesse Williams' first instinct was to reference a scene his character's not even in. However, it's one of the show's most bittersweet moments.

"Cristina Yang's line to Meredith: He is not the sun, you are. It's a hell of a line."Williams said, referencing the iconic scene when Meredith and Cristina dance it out one final time before the latter leaves to run a medical center in Switzerland.

The exchange was the perfect way for the twisted sisters to say goodbye. The line also reminds Meredith to prioritize her needs in her marriage now that she won't have Cristina around. Though plenty of romantic relationships have come and gone since the show premiered, the friendship between Meredith and Cristina is one of the series' best dynamics.

They were the one pairing fans could always rely on, so it was hard to see Cristina leave Grey Sloan Memorial at the end of Season 10, even though the move felt natural for her character. Thankfully, Cristina witnessed a few of Jackson's most memorable moments before embarking on the next stage in her career.

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Jesse Williams' Favorite Iconic Line From Grey's Anatomy - Looper

Anatomy

As Grey’s Anatomy Adds To Season 19 Cast, Skylar Astin Shared One Of His Favorite Things About Being In Season 18 – CinemaBlend

Skylar Astin was a fun addition to Greys Anatomys cast in Season 18, but since things didnt exactly end up working out for his character Todd and Camilla Luddingtons Jo, Astins days in Grey Sloan Memorial are likely over. As the medical drama continues to add to its cast ahead of Season 19, the Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist actor had some kind words for his on-screen love interest, as he shared one of his favorite things about his time on Greys Anatomy.

Grey's Anatomy is down a bunch of characters after the Season 18 finale, as the surgical residents were orphaned after the program was shut down. Add to that Webber going on sabbatical, Bailey quitting on the spot, and Teddy and Owen going on the lam, and Grey Sloan is looking at a serious staffing problem. Not all of the Season 18 departures had to do with the hospital, however. Skylar Astins Todd suffered a pretty cringeworthy breakup, and after having said goodbye (or see you later?) to the character, he gushed on Instagram Live about co-star Camilla Luddington being one of his favorite things about his experience. Here's how he lovingly put it:

Brings an amazing attitude, has a great sense of humor, never takes things too seriously, but also knows when its time to take things seriously. Shes just good people. Knows everyones name on set, generous, thoughtful, kind, great scene partner. Always the person thats like, What do you need from me? Just a dream. One of my favorite things about working on Greys Anatomy was working with Camilla.

Word got back to the actress about Skylar Astins kind words, and Camilla Luddingtons response proved the feeling was mutual. Check out her response (as well as the clip of Astins live post) below:

It's a shame things didn't work out for those two characters, because the actors really did have great on-screen chemistry. When we left things, the situation between Jo and Link (Chris Carmack) seemed to be getting back to normal, so I'm sure Season 19 is going to toy with fans over whether that means they'll return to being BFFs, or if there's something more than friendly still lurking.

The long-running ABC series has already started filling some seemingly vacated positions ahead of its 19th season. The latest addition is Niko Terho, who has been tapped as Greys Anatomys newest series regular in the role of first-year surgical resident Lucas Adams, Deadline reports. He previously starred in the Freeform movie The Thing About Harry opposite Jake Borelli, who plays Levi Schmitt on Greys.

Niko Terhos character is described as the charming black sheep of his family. Likable to a fault, he has a great mind, but doesnt have the grades to match. Hes determined to prove himself as a surgeon, just like many in his family that have come before him, but he will have to stop relying on his people skills and put in the work.

This latest casting news follows the hiring of Alexis Floyd, who portrayed Anna Delveys best friend Neff Davis on Shonda Rhimes Inventing Anna on Netflix. On Greys Anatomy, shell play Simone Griffin, a surgical resident who has a painful and personal history with the hospital.

I look forward to seeing what other new faces will be walking the hospitals halls, as well as any information regarding the actors whose characters walked out of Grey Sloan at the end of last season. While Kevin McKidd was tapped as a lead for the ITV drama Six Four, and Jaicy Elliot is starring in a Hallmark movie, those roles are in addition to Greys, and not replacements.

As we wait for that Season 19 premiere on Thursday, October 6, you can catch up or rewatch all 18 seasons of Greys Anatomy with a Netflix subscription. Be sure to see what other premieres are coming soon on our 2022 TV Schedule.

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As Grey's Anatomy Adds To Season 19 Cast, Skylar Astin Shared One Of His Favorite Things About Being In Season 18 - CinemaBlend

Anatomy

How Leonardo figured out the beauty of anatomy – The Guardian

Leonardo da Vincis notes on human anatomy remained largely forgotten until the mid-18th century when the Scottish anatomist William Hunter learned of them in the royal collection. A new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland, called Anatomy: A Matter of Death and Life, brings some of these drawings together with a variety of objects and artwork from the Scottish Enlightenment to illuminate the frequently tense relationship between the furthering of anatomical knowledge, and the need of early anatomists to procure dead bodies. Leonardo got around the problem by working with elite patrons and by assisting an academic professor of anatomy; later Dutch and Scottish anatomists often had to pull bodies from gibbets and graveyards. Modern medicine, the art of postponing death, is built on a foundation of this grave robbery, but had its origins in a more collaborative, consensual attitude typified by Leonardo. Its an approach that has now returned: the exhibition closes with a moving series of videos from Edinburghs current professor of anatomy, a medical student and a member of the public, each explaining the vital role of bequests by people who leave their body to medical science.

Some of this history is unavoidably grisly: the exhibition resurrects the story of Burke and Hare, two Irishmen of Edinburgh who obtained bodies for the anatomist Robert Knox through the simple expedient of murdering them. Burkes fate was to be anatomised: on my way to tutorials in Edinburghs medical school I used to pass his skeleton, and it was a surprise to see it across the road in the museum. Burkes signed confession has been loaned from the New York Academy of Medicine, and some detective work has unearthed details of the lives of his victims. There is Johan Zoffanys painting of William Hunter lecturing, and from Amsterdam, Cornelis Troosts three-metre The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Willem Rell more ghoulish (and more accurate) than Rembrandts The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, painted almost 100 years earlier. One particularly striking exhibit is an early 19th-century petition, signed by 248 medical students, asking for bodies to be made available to them through legal means.

In the winter of 1507-1508, Leonardo was in Florence, where he conducted a postmortem on a man who, shortly before dying, had claimed to be more than 100 years old; there are suggestions that he knew he was to be anatomised after death. Leonardo identified the cause of death as a narrowing of the coronary arteries, and made the first clinical description of cirrhosis of the liver. By late 1510 he was in Pavia, a university city south of Milan, working with that citys professor of anatomy on notes for a grand anatomical treatise. Pavia is cold in winter, ideal for the preservation of human remains, and many of his anatomical sketches derive from work completed through the winter of 1510-1511.

His collaborator in Pavia, MarcAntonio della Torre, died in 1511 of plague, which is perhaps why Leonardo set this work aside. Or it may have been other personal and professional pressures by the end of 1511 he was living in a villa east of Milan where he continued to make sketches not of human anatomy, but dogs, birds and the ways blood flows through the heart of an ox. In 1513 he was in Rome, trying to further his anatomical work in the hospital of Santo Spirito when a German mirror maker, who disapproved of human dissection, put a stop to it by reporting him to the pope.

In 1516 Leonardo took up an invitation to move to France under the patronage of Francois I, and made his home at Amboise. He took his anatomical notes with him and died there in 1519 without completing the treatise. How they came to be in Edinburgh is a story full of gaps: first, they fell into the hands of his companion Francesco Melzi (described by Leonardos first biographer Vasari as a handsome boy and much loved by him), then after Melzis death in 1570 they were sold to Pompeo Leoni, a sculptor who, on being commissioned by the king of Spain, carried them to Madrid. No one knows how they came to be in England in 1630 among the collection of Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel. By 1690 they had been sold or gifted to the royal collection of William and Mary, where they have remained ever since.

Leonardos drawings borrow from the conventions of architecture in visualising anatomical structures from various perspectives. We can get a glimpse of the great treatise he had in mind by examining that of the Flemish anatomist Vesalius, whose book On the Fabric of the Human Body (1543) was the first major anatomical work to overturn classical scholarship. Vesalius was a supreme dissector but unlike Leonardo didnt make his own drawings, and his book is more concerned with form than with function. Leonardos approach was entirely different: he was never content with a representation of appearance in death without exploring how it might be animated by the dynamism of life the scrawled notes, in his usual mirror writing, that surround these images probe relentlessly at the question: But how does it work? He knew, too, that lifes mechanisms were beyond the reach of his keen eyesight: Nature is full of countless causes that never enter experience, he wrote an observation that remains true even today, when it is possible to visualise the mechanisms of life down to the molecular level.

The idea of thinking through drawing is there even in English we speak of figuring things out. This exhibition shows us Leonardo puzzling over the disconnect between the reality he saw, and what earlier anatomists told him he should see. With the accompanying notes we can appreciate how the heart, for him, was not a muscular pump, but an organ to suffuse the blood with noble spirits. The mesentery, a pleated skirt of fatty tissue in the abdomen (sinewy and lardaceous is how he memorably puts it) is the ligament that suspends the small intestine: my own university textbooks struggled to explain its structure, but Leonardo managed it. His drawings of the trachea envisage the way it changes shape during natural breathing, while the engineering principles of weight-bearing are made manifest in his oblique perspectives on the foot.

Most of us move through tunnels of perception, seeing largely what we expect to see, but Leonardo worked hard against lazy expectation and his notebooks brim with unprecedented insights into nature, all drawn from first principles. Its a great pity his drawings werent publicised until the 1700s, but the exhibition illuminates how anatomists of the Enlightenment made up for lost time. Its exhilarating to be taken on a 500-year journey through humanitys evolving understanding of the body, from Renaissance Florence through to modern anatomical science in Edinburgh. Leonardo died before realising his treatise but these sketches live on, and every mark on them is a line of thought and attention, an interrogation of beauty. Leonardo da Vincis life and work were animated by breadth of vision, intellectual curiosity, the adoption of alternative perspectives, and a fascination with elucidating the elegance of life from the wreckage of death the same could be said of this exhibition.

Gavin Francis is a GP in Edinburgh. His books Adventures in Human Being and Shapeshifters touch on the anatomical work of Leonardo da Vinci; his latest book is Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence (Wellcome)

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How Leonardo figured out the beauty of anatomy - The Guardian

Anatomy

Anatomy of a big investigative story in LA: 5 years later, a reporter and his editors remain violently at odds – Poynter

It is a familiar tale in the news business. A hard-charging investigative reporter bangs on doors, works relentlessly and resourcefully, and turns in a draft, excited to see his scoop in print.

The reporters editors say the story needs more work. That doesnt go over well. Shouted accusations ensue in meetings over the coming weeks and months.

Such acrimonious sausage-making most often stays in-house. Now, an instance has burst into the open with the publication this week of Paul Pringles Bad City: Peril and Power in the City of Angels. (An excerpt ran last week in The Hollywood Reporter)

The book chronicles Pringles work at the Los Angeles Times uncovering wrongdoing at the University of Southern California specifically the story of a medical school dean found in a hotel room in the company of a young woman who had overdosed on meth.

In media circles, the more explosive part of Pringles book is an accusation that his editors tried to kill the story, then weakened it by deleting some of his best material, before it was ultimately published three months later.

Not so, says Marc Duvoisin, then the managing editor of the Los Angeles Times and now editor-in-chief of the San Antonio Express-News. It was simply a matter of standards, he wrote in a Facebook post.

The USC story was not killed; it was sent back for more reporting, which improved it immeasurably, and it was published on the front page. The reporters who worked on the story were never blocked; they were edited. They did not fight against dark newsroom corruption; they were held to high standards and resented it.

Beyond question, the story had a big impact. The USC dean, Dr. Carmen Puliafito, lost his job and his career. The expos also paved the way to an even more damaging investigation a year later of an OB-GYN med school faculty member who had sexually abused students he treated. That professor lost his job too, as ultimately did the president of USC. The latter story, by Pringle and two other reporters, won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.

Two other editors slammed by Pringle, investigations editor Matthew Doig and editor-in-chief Davan Maharaj, have also offered rebuttals. Doig, now an investigations editor at USA Today, posted his detailed rejoinder on Medium. In a private Facebook post, Maharaj weighed in with a copy of Pringles draft and posted it alongside the final edited story as it ran.

Those receipts dont look good for Pringles case. Parts of his draft are sketchy and much is anonymously sourced. Among the improvements in the final version, the young woman who overdosed is identified, pictured and quoted by name. Four other reporters worked on the piece and, together with Pringle, much more detail and context was added.

As I read Pringles account, he was anxious (as many a reporter might be) that someone else would pick up on key details, break the story and undercut his work as it languished in turnaround.

The calendar bedeviled us, Pringle writes on page 178 of Bad City, as the edit, or this perversion of an edit, devolved into daily combat as we tried to inch the story to publication.

If any real damage resulted from the delay, though, I couldnt make that out from his account.

Pringle accused the editors, both at the time and in the book, of corruptly deferring to the powers that be at USC.

The editing process, as you might imagine, Duvoisin writes in his post, became uniquely contentious as a result. Clashes erupted over what constitutes adequate confirmation of damaging allegations and what doesnt; over how much to rely on anonymous sources and how to verify what they say.

Theres more. Pringle suggests that the three editors were fired soon after because of their bungling of the story (he had lodged a complaint about them with human resources). That appears to mostly be a hunch. I would bet instead that the higher-ups at Tronc, which then owned the Times, simply wanted to install a new publisher who then hired a new editor with an odd turnaround plan that never worked at all.

A second front has opened in the war over the story. The New York Times in a highly positive book review and the Los Angeles Times in both a review and a news story simply accept Pringles version of events. (The news story includes denials from Duvoisin and Maharaj.)

Duvoisin told me in an interview that he is particularly irked that his requests for correction or retraction to both papers have gone unanswered.

Its very hard to get in front of what seems like a steamroller, he said. To be on the other side of a media monolith is quite sobering.

At first, he was advised to let the matter go, Duvoisin said, and inclined to do that so as not to give it oxygen. Seeing top-of-the-line news outlets trash his reputation without checking what could easily be checked changed his mind, he said. Its really hard to find your voice, though, when youre under attack.

Duvoisin got a lawyer last December when Pringle offered a chance to comment while the book was in the final editing stages. The offer was vague, Duvoisin said, and he declined. He did not trust Pringle and was put off by pre-publication ads on Amazon blaring that Bad City would show corruption reaching all the way to the top of the masthead.

He and his lawyer sought a meeting to make their case to publisher Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishing, Duvoisin said, but were rebuffed.

I expect other chapters to unfold as the dispute continues responses from the book publisher or the two newspapers, perhaps, or new moves from Duvoisin and the other editors.

My own experience in decades of editing has been that book publishers, once committed, tend to blow off challenges, even good ones, to whats in print. Their only real remedy is the atom bomb of calling copies back from book stores and shredding them.

The New York Times has been known to be slow and grudging with corrections. Duvoisin said he got his complaint in front of the organizations standards committee and hopes it is getting consideration.

In a quick partial read, I could see that Bad City is engagingly told and convincing not necessarily inviting a reaction of, Hey, wait a minute

The situation brings to mind a juncture in classics of the genre like All the Presidents Men or the best-picture movie Spotlight, where the intense reporters are told by editors they dont have it yet. They are unhappy as they head back for more arduous reporting but not as unhappy as Pringle remains.

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Anatomy of a big investigative story in LA: 5 years later, a reporter and his editors remain violently at odds - Poynter

Anatomy

5 Things We Learned From The Musical Anatomy Of A Superhero: Film And TV Composer Comic-Con Panel – /Film

It might not seem like it to the uninitiated, but composers would maintain that they're just as much storytellers as any writer, director, or actor on a television series or movie. The only difference is that their medium of choice is purely auditory and, unless their name happens to be Hans Zimmer, their tireless efforts may not seem as readily apparent. Thankfully, a handful of some of the most talented and distinctive composers in the business gathered together at this year's San Diego Comic-Con for the eighth installment of The Musical Anatomy Of A Superhero: Film And TV Composer Panel, hard on the heels of their current super-secret upcoming projects that, well, they mostly weren't able to talk about yet.

But that's not to say that this panel was lacking in fascinating insights imparted upon us eager attendees, mind you. Moderated by none other than prolific musical artist Michael Giacchino, the panel featured the likes of Amie Doherty ("Battle at Big Rock," "She-Hulk"), Christophe Beck ("The Hangover" trilogy, the "Ant-Man" movies, "WandaVision," "Shazam! Fury of the Gods"), Christopher Lennertz ("Supernatural," "Agent Carter,""The Boys"), Nami Melumad ("Thor: Love and Thunder," "Star Trek: Prodigy," "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds"), and Natalie Holt ("Loki," "Obi-Wan Kenobi").

During the course of the hour-long panel, the composers answered several wide-ranging questions about the nitty-grittyspecifics of their own unique compositional processes, repeatedly collaborating with specific filmmakers, hiding Easter eggs in their scores, and much, much more.

Marvel and Sony's "Spider-Man" trilogy has quickly become one of the most well-liked and successful movies in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, with last year's "Spider-Man:No Way Home" taking this particular franchise to even greater heights. The added value of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield reprising their roles as their respective versions of Peter Parker essentially the industry's most obvious open secret for months upon months played like gangbusters among eager audiences worldwide.

One of the more nostalgia-driven pleasures of their extended cameos stemmed from MichaelGiacchino's decision to incorporate Danny Elfman and James Horner's memorable themes from Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" trilogy and MarcWebb's "The Amazing Spider-Man" movies, respectively. As you can imagine, it wasn't as easy as simply plugging in those motifs during certain moments and calling it a day.When asked about the decision-making process of how and when to push our buttons with those themes, Giacchino immediately pointed to the story.

Of all the reasons that Prime Video's superhero satire "The Boys" has exploded in popularity in recent years,Christopher Lennertz's composing has perhaps flown under the radar the most. Crafting a great score for a movie is one thing, but doing so for multiple seasons on a series provides a singular opportunity for composers not to mentiona unique challenge, as well. Original plans and intentions for certain motifs may end up changing in unanticipated ways over the course of a series ... though, sometimes, it's for the best.

That certainly was the case withLennertz's work on "The Boys." Back in season 1, he crafted a specific theme for protagonist Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid) during a pivotal and highly emotionally-charged moment of crisis a meltdown, basically. Lo and behold, when season 2 came around and the much more unhinged character of Homelander (Antony Starr) experienced a similar moment where he, too, went "off the rails," that theme found itself reused once more. According toLennertz, though it came somewhat as a surprise, it proved to be an eye-opening moment.

It goes to show that even for composers who have worked for years and years in the industry, it's not always a bad thing to zig when they expected to zag.

Few characters in the MCU could ever hope to compare to the over-the-top theatrics that fans have come to love and expect from the sometimes-villain, sometimes-antihero Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Even in "death," Loki has managed to live up to his "God of Mischief" title and maintain more than his fair share of grandiosity that director KennethBranagh brought to the original "Thor" in 2011. After all, what else would you call it when our main Loki variant ended up falling in love with the female version of, well, himself during the events of "Loki"?

When it came time to bring over thatoperatic heft into the streaming series, composerNatalie Holt looked to perhaps the very definition of epic: Wagner's classic composition of Ride of the Valkyries. She explained the process of arriving at such an inspiration:

It's no secret that Michael Giacchino and MattReeves have formed something of a tightknit dynamic over the years: from "Cloverfield" to "Let Me In" to the "Planet of the Apes" movies to, of course, "The Batman." Many would claim that their most recent work represents their high-water mark together, resulting in one of the most unforgettable main themes in recent memory.

Naturally, it didn't take long for the topic of conversation to shift towards why Giacchino's favorite part of the composing process involves that back-and-forth, give-and-take "symbiotic relationship" at the heart of his work with Reeves:

It's almost a clich to note that film is inherently a collaborative medium, but few have proven the truth of that saying more than Giacchino and Reeves.

The nature of making movies and television means that the more noticeable a certain aspect feels, the more praise (or criticism!) that element will receive. Remember, it's rarely the bestedited film that wins the Academy Award every year in that category, but the mostedited film. It's easy to see how that would apply to music as well, with the loudest and most bombastic scores (why, hello again, Mr. Zimmer) receiving all the credit. To Natalie Holt, there's room for both extremes to exist. When Giacchino posed the question of what laypeople should try to listen for in a particular score, Holt's response was particularly fascinating.

To her credit, there's ample evidence of both of these seemingly incompatible approaches coexisting in Holt's own work. Her "Loki" compositions rely on quieter mood pieces and epic, all-expansive motifs while her contributions to "Obi-Wan Kenobi" operate on very much the same wavelength. As much as film or television scores can get graded on how noticeable they are or not, composers like Holt continue to show that subtlety and maximalist tendencies and everything in between all have a place.

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5 Things We Learned From The Musical Anatomy Of A Superhero: Film And TV Composer Comic-Con Panel - /Film

Anatomy

Anatomy Of The CeFi Implosion – Forbes

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I have been and still am a big fan of DeFi (decentralized finance) and for that matter CeFi (centralized finance) but the recent implosion highlights the issues for all financial services. Celsius and Lehman went down for the same reason, too much risk. This sounds innocuous but you can rewrite this sentence: Celsius and Lehman went down for the same reason, too much greed.

In a boom the greedy win, the insanely greedy win biggest. And with the biggest winners it is insanity that sets them on their pedestal of fame and wealth. Then a boom turns to a bust and brings about a shattering fall. The insanely greedy are the first to go in a crash.

The fundament of banking is to borrow money offering low risk to the lender and some payment for their deposit as an incentive and then lend that money out at a higher risk to capture a profit. The higher the risk up to a point, the greater the profit, but there is a tipping point where greater risk equals diminished profit and then a point where more risk creates losses.

You can see this at work analogically in the Kelly Optimization, a way of maximizing returns from a winning game process it could be backing horse, it could be funding unsecured credit cards.

The Kelly Optimisation - a way to maximise returns

There is an optimal point in a range of risk, where profit is maximized. Kelly expresses this outcome in terms of position sizes but it is true also for simple risk. As I say about buying certain high risk stocks, There is no real risk, you are certain to lose all your money. Normally above a certain level of elevated risk you simply cannot win.

So in a boom, which is not normality, the insanely greedy will do incredibly well because every gamble, however risky, wins. So they double up their bets, they leverage them, they leverage the profits from the leverage, some will turn to fraud to raise their expose to the maximum. A giant tower of risk is created. Then when the bubble stops, they begin to lose then start to lose heavily, then the tower comes crashing down, smashing into other palaces of the insanely greedy causing a cascade.

CeFi and DeFi was and is built on depositors funds, but not the ones you might think. Exchanges park their customer funds in these platforms (remember not your keys, not your crypto?) and use them to earn free money and balance their books on the huge short positions they often carry.

These shorts get settled over time either at a profit or from a stop drive. (Would you like a stop loss with that leverage? Oops somehow the market spiked and now your crypto is ours.) An exchange can deposit USDc from its depositors balances and borrow a coin its short of, to cover redemption or any other operation it fancies. Exchange depositors money has been flowing around DeFi, CeFi and on to operations like 3AC that went bust days ago, and its ended up in all sorts of nooks and crannies and as we now know with Celsius $1 billion-plus deficit, its not coming back.

The broker/bucket shop takes your crypto, puts it at risk for yield and the DeFi/CeFi system churns it on. It is how capitalism works. The thing to remember is capitalism is a boom and bust cycle and crypto is now in the bust cycle.

When the prices go up, many brokers get short, so they borrow tokens on DeFi/CeFi to cover the hole and by doing so push up annual percentage yields (APYs), and money flows in to capture that APY. The opposite is true, when prices fall exchanges get long and repay and deposit and APYs fall.

There is however, a critical difference between decentralized finance and centralized finance. While the inflexibility of DeFi protects it from the boom bubble cycle and constrains it in a bubble, CeFi is exposed by the flexibility of the human element in a crash but unrestrained in a boom. Humans expose CeFi to gamblers ruin and that is what we have seen. (Gamblers ruin is when someone over-bets and loses it all and thereby is unable to continue to play the game even if long term it is a winning game.)

APYs collapsed on DeFi platforms like Aave AAVE and Compound (COMP), because the APY is mainly driven by APY algos. To fix that collapsing APY and keep it unsustainably high, code would need to be forked and its false nature exposed in the code. That might take weeks of coding or risk some huge bug vulnerability and people would be exposing it in hours. So as the APY falls the management is left staring glumly as market forces take their toll. Volumes fall, money is pulled, TVL nosedives and everyone can see that. However, that is the way it is, that is reality. Code keeps management from temptation, a temptation that leads management so often in finance to catastrophic failure.

In CeFi, management can willingly suspend its disbelief and pretend its APYs are sustainable and hope the tide turns. Its a strategy of doom but its common. I must disclose I pulled my funds from Celsius months ago because when BlockFi dropped its rates, Celsius didnt. Meanwhile DeFi rates were plummeting, so I saw this as a huge red flag.

Then there is another bigger weakness in CeFi and it is again people-based.

CeFi management works to keep APYs up, its not the job of an algo on a take it or leave it basis, so the humans go looking for ways to get yield for its deposits and in the boom, methods however wild and weird are everywhere and lucrative. They can even hand out equity investors funds to grab market share. In a bust opportunities dry up, redemptions rise and you are left with illiquid assets and a legacy of busted investments. This is an old story in funds of all shapes and the demise of many a classic hedge fund.

So when the insanely greedy show up at the door of a yield-hungry CeFi enterprise still shimmering with the afterglow of superstardom, offering to borrow at high yields, the CeFi outfit bites the borrowers arm off on covenant-light terms.

Meanwhile a DeFi contract still needs its inflexible robotic terms met and cant be charmed, bullied or negotiated with. If business is done the protocol is well covered, unlike the CeFi company that has lent and is now praying.

The soon to be ex-crypto-superstar doesnt repay. Boom the CeFi outfit is bust and those that lent them money go pop next and in turn those they owed money to go foop!

If the market crashes, CeFi has to call up the borrower and request margin they might not have and might not deliver, then CeFi has to do deals to get out of the mess, and if they cant its all over.

DeFi simply liquidates over-collateralized positions.

DeFi can default but only at a code level, a DeFi has to fork its code to pull a fast one. People can breeze into disaster, smart contracts are inhumanely ridged and only extreme transparent actions can bend them. That is DeFis strength which make DeFi robust in crashes. This robustness can be seen in the low APYs of Aave and Compound which makes no one happy in the short term but in the long term is key to survival and prosperity.

The crypto crash is defining the strengths and weaknesses of decentralization and its polar opposite, centralization. Centralization is almost always safe, ingloriously opaque but subject to catastrophic failure; decentralization is always risky, gloriously transparent but resistant to catastrophic failure.

So in a boom you want to ride the comforts of centralization and in a bust you want to be a denizen of decentralization.

Neither is going away and like in risk, position size and most other spectrums, there is an optimal mix.

Another crypto leg down will certainly test both.

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Anatomy Of The CeFi Implosion - Forbes