Daily Business Report: Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023
Infographic: The Longest Lasting Cars, in Miles
Visual Capitalist
Japanese automakers like Toyota are known to produce some of the longest lasting cars in the world, but does the data support this claim? When properly maintained, well-built cars can last an impressive amount of miles.
Consider this 2006 Honda Civic, which hit one million miles on its original engine and transmission. Amusingly, the car’s odometer maxes out at 999,999 miles.
While that case may be an extreme outlier, most modern cars are expected to last 200,000 miles before experiencing some significant failure. That’s roughly double the lifespan of cars from the 1960s and 1970s, which typically lasted about 100,000 miles.
In this infographic, we used data from iSeeCars to determine which cars are the most likely to reach— or even surpass—the 200,000 mile benchmark.
To come up with their rankings, iSeeCars analyzed over 2 million used cars between January and October 2022. The rankings are based on the mileage that the top 1 percent of cars within each model obtained. Models with less than 10 years of production, such as the Tesla Model 3, were excluded.
Top Photo: In the sedan category, the Toyota Avalon came in with the highest potential lifespan of 245,710 miles. Below: The Toyota Sequoia was tops in SUVs at 296,509 miles;and the Toyota Tundra was tops in pickup trucks at 256,022 miles.
San Diego could OK far more high-rise homes
and backyard apartments under new proposal
A new San Diego proposal aims to jump-start production of high-rise housing and backyard apartments by loosening rules that govern where such homes can be built.
Rules that allow taller apartment buildings and more backyard units when a property is near mass transit would be softened to require the transit line be within 1 mile — rather than the current standard of half a mile.
The proposal also has incentives that encourage developers to build more lower-priced rental housing in prosperous neighborhoods where there are high-paying jobs and educational opportunities.
Mary Jane Jagodzinski selected for a new
position at Community Housing Works
Community HousingWorks (CHW), active in California’s affordable housing sector for nearly 35 years, is aiming to develop and secure additional financing resources to address the affordable housing development crisis through the creation of a new leadership position: vice president of strategic initiatives, which is being filled by CHW veteran Mary Jane Jagodzinski.
Jagodzinski will lead the creation and implementation of new real estate financial tools and structures across the organization to further CHW’s mission of providing environmentally and socially responsible housing opportunities to a spectrum of residents in California and Texas.
Jagodzinski was senior vice president of housing and real estate development before being selected for the new position.
CHW has begun a search for her previous job.
Researchers develop new tool to predict how
Parkinson’s disease patients will fare over a year
Testing whether a new drug impacts the progression of Parkinson’s disease takes years, in part because the disease often advances so slowly. Many Parkinson’s patients don’t have any worsening of their symptoms over the course of a typical clinical trial, even without treatment.
Now, Scripps Research scientists have developed a tool that analyzes Parkinson’s disease patients’ genetic and clinical data to predict who is most likely to rapidly progress. The approach, described in npj Parkinson’s Disease, will let clinical researchers select the most at-risk patients and design shorter, more powerful trials to assess Parkinson’s drugs, they say.
“If clinicians are able to enroll in trials only those patients predicted to progress, they can get much faster results and move this field along more quickly,” says senior author Ali Torkamani, professor and director of Genomics and Genome Informatics at the Scripps Research Translational Institute.
Scientists propose new theory for how continents form
By Steve Koppes
Three main processes are known to generate the thick, stable, ancient rock that forms the roots of a continent, according to geologists.
Diving of one tectonic plate beneath the other (which geologists call “subduction”) accounts for two of the three known processes that can create the buoyant rock destined to become attached to continental landmasses. The other process is linked to streams of hot upwelling rock called mantle plumes that rise from deep within the Earth.
Now, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography have found evidence that a fourth process called “ridge-jump tectonics” can also grow these continental roots.
The researchers based their analysis on rocks dredged from a geologically active area of the Pacific Ocean floor about 95 miles (153 km) west of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula by the now-retired Scripps research vessel Melville in 2012 by scientists from Scripps and two Mexican universities, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada (CICESE).
Viasat and Microsoft partner to help
bridge the global digital divide
Viasat and Microsoft are joining forces to help close the digital divide in underserved parts of Africa, Latin America, and the United States.
Together, the companies aim to help deliver internet access to 10 million people worldwide, including 5 million across Africa. Viasat is the first satellite internet provider to partner with Microsoft on the far-reaching project, known as the Airband Initiative.
Together, they will deepen Airband’s work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States, as well as prioritize expanding the program to Egypt, Senegal and Angola to deliver much-needed internet connections, often for the first time.
“We’re proud to partner with Microsoft as it represents another important step in bringing affordable internet service to millions of people across Africa, Latin America and the U.S., as both companies continue to break down barriers to bridge the digital divide and make significant progress toward digital equity and inclusion,” said Evan Dixon, Viasat’s president of global fixed broadband services. 0
Rejuvenate Bio appoints Deborah Ascheim
as chief medical officer
Rejuvenate Bio announced the appointment of Deborah Ascheim, M.D., as chief medical officer. In this inaugural role, she will oversee clinical development and regulatory activities and lead the strategy, design and execution of clinical trials to advance a pipeline of gene therapy programs for chronic age-related diseases.
Ascheim brings more than 30 years of experience to Rejuvenate Bio as a physician, clinical investigator and director of national and international clinical trials focused on the clinical development of novel, disruptive therapeutic innovations including gene therapies.
Prior to joining Rejuvenate, Ascheim was chief medical officer at StrideBio.
Peter Orth joins CDC Commercial Inc.
Peter Orth has joined the boutique brokerage firm CDC Commercial Inc. Orth joins the firm after spending several decades at CBRE and Colliers International.
He is a retail specialist and has completed more than $600 million in transactions in his career.
At CDC, Orth will be joining his son Matt Orth who has been a commercial broker for 14 years.
The father and son team will be joining the brokerage’s founder Don Zech and his son Nick Zech.
Combined, the teams have over 100 years of experience.
CDC Commercial Inc was founded in 1996 and celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2021.
Ken Young named CEO of Drink Monday
Drink Monday, the San Diego-based non-alcoholic beverage brand, announces the appointment of Ken Young as their new chief executive officer, effective Feb. 1, 2023. He joins a strong executive leadership team built to embrace the burgeoning no-and-low alcohol category which recently surpassed $11 billion in market value according to IWSR.
Abintus Bio names Lior Nissim as head of synthetic biology
Abintus Bio Inc., a biotechnology company pioneering first-in-class, in vivo genetic medicines that engineer cells directly inside the body, announced that Lior Nissim has joined the company as head of synthetic biology. In this role, Nissim will be responsible for leading Abintus’ synthetic biology program to enable the advancement of products with tunable, cell-type specific therapeutic gene expression. Nissim is an internationally recognized pioneer in the field of synthetic biology and has developed several novel biological engineering platforms for biomedical applications, combining multidisciplinary training in biology, biophysics, and synthetic biology.
Cal State San Marcos receives grant for transfer students
Cal State San Marcos has received a grant of $350,000 to provide support for seven California State University campuses that will collaborate to develop a plan to remove barriers to the success of transfer students. The grant is being funded by College Futures Foundation in partnership with the James Irvine Foundation. It starts on Jan. 1, 2023 and runs through June 30, 2024.
Blacksmith Medicines merges with Forge Therapeutics
Blacksmith Medicines Inc. and Forge Therapeutics announce that the companies have signed a definitive merger agreement to leverage their combined chemistry platforms, creating a leading biopharma dedicated to discovering and developing medicines targeting a large class of proteins called metalloenzymes, with initial focus on oncology and infection. The Blacksmith platform has been validated through multiple pharmaceutical partnerships, including deals with Roche, Eli Lilly, and Basilea, which have the potential to earn over $800 million in milestone payments plus royalties.
New program to help address
diversity gap in health care industry
UC San Diego Health has received $2.2 million in grant funding from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI) to develop a new student enrichment program that seeks to encourage high school students in underrepresented communities to pursue health care careers. Titled the “UC San Diego Health Career Experience,” the new program will provide education and hands-on training for students interested in nursing and allied health professions, including medical assistants, physical therapy assistants, radiologic technicians and certified nurse assistants.
