Twenty Medical Breakthroughs That May Be Just Around The Corner

What are some potential and promising near future medical breakthroughs?

Here are twenty of them (sometime more than one in a single bullet point):

* Universal flu vaccines (see also here):

Scientists have designed a new generation of universal flu vaccines to protect against future global pandemics that could kill millions. Researchers researchers have devised two universal vaccines; a USA-specific vaccine with coverage of 95% of known US influenza strains; and a universal vaccine with coverage of 88% of known flu strains globally.

* Other broad spectrum vaccines may leverage an increased understanding of B cells in lymph nodes which are part of the body's natural immune system.

* Ordinary seasonal flu shots for pregnant women can reduce the risk of a stillbirth by 51%.

* A "vaccine" that would cause opioid addicts to cease to respond to opioids or even to particular sub-classes of opioids. This could revolutionize substance abuse treatment for the leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States.  One of these "vaccines" is mixed with a true vaccine component that reduces HIV infection risk by one-third. See also here. There are also non-vaccine oriented drug treatments for opioid addiction (some of which are getting better) and drug treatments for alcoholism.

Scientists are searching for a different kind of shot to prevent such tragedies: a vaccine to counter addiction to heroin and other opioids, such as the prescription painkiller fentanyl and similar knockoff drugs. In some ways, the vaccines work like traditional vaccines for infectious diseases such as measles, priming the immune system to attack foreign molecules. But instead of targeting viruses, the vaccines zero in on addictive chemicals, training the immune system to usher the drugs out of the body before they can reach the brain. . . . 

The term opioid refers to a host of painkillers derived from the opium poppy as well as synthetic versions of its active compounds. Heroin is processed from morphine, which is extracted from the plant. Prescription medications such as Vicodin, Percocet, OxyContin and fentanyl are made from synthetic morphine, altered to produce different effects. 

Currently, three medications, sold under various brand names, are available to help people with heroin or opioid addiction get clean and stay drug-free: methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone. The treatments work, Volkow says, but not perfectly. Some addicted patients, such as Schnur, experience unwanted side effects from the daily or monthly treatments and stop using them. Others lack access to treatments due to high costs and strict federal limits on dispensing the drugs. 

“Unfortunately, only a small percentage — about 25 percent — of people who could benefit from treatment actually get these medications,” Volkow says. . . . 

In the late 1990s, scientists resumed antidrug vaccine efforts, focusing on vaccines for everything from cocaine to nicotine to heroin (SN: 2/10/07, p. 90). Vaccines for nicotine and cocaine were tested in people, but worked for only a small percentage. 

Now, to help combat the growing opioid addiction crisis, two vaccines for heroin users are advancing toward human trials and other antiopioid vaccines are in the pipeline, including one for fentanyl, now a popular street drug. . . . 

In rats, the three-pronged vaccine generated high numbers of antibodies against the drug and its metabolites, blocking heroin’s action on the brain. Once vaccinated, the formerly addicted rats were unable to get high, even when injected with extremely high doses of the drug, Janda’s group reported in 2013 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The result was decreased drug-seeking behavior in the vaccinated rats. By contrast, control rats, and those vaccinated only against morphine, continued to seek higher doses of the drug. 

The vaccine showed similar effectiveness in nonhuman primates, Janda reported in May at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in Atlanta. In addition, the vaccine is specific to heroin metabolites, not other opiates. A vaccine that’s too broad could potentially make patients immune to the effects of all prescription opioids, leaving them vulnerable if they become injured and need pain relief. 

Janda’s team recently tested another antiopioid vaccine in animals, one that arms the body against fentanyl. When given to mice, the vaccine trained the animals’ immune systems to generate antibodies that bind to fentanyl and prevent it from traveling to the brain from the bloodstream. The results, published March 7 in Angewandte Chemie, showed that in mice, the antibodies neutralized high levels of the drug — more than 30 times a normal dose — for months after a series of three shots. By blocking the effects of the drug and its high, the vaccine could potentially curb drug-seeking behavior. 

Another group is going after heroin and its strong tie to high HIV infection rates worldwide. Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are developing a dual-purpose vaccine, called H2, to treat heroin addiction while preventing HIV infection. 

Biochemist Gary Matyas and his group at Walter Reed first designed a vaccine to stimulate antibodies against heroin. Similar to Janda’s antiheroin vaccine, haptens are bound to a protein carrier, spurring the immune system to create high levels of antibody to bind heroin and its metabolites in the blood and prevent it from crossing the blood-brain barrier. Users will then experience no euphoria or addictive reactions. 

The researchers plan to combine the heroin vaccine with an HIV vaccine, a combination that’s much trickier to develop. Scientists have long been frustrated by the ability of the AIDS virus to mutate and evade the immune system. The virus constantly changes the makeup of the proteins on its surface so that antibodies have difficulty recognizing and attacking it. But researchers have found that targeting a region called V2 on the surface of the virus decreased the risk of HIV infection. 

The vaccine, tested in volunteers in Thailand by the country’s Ministry of Public Health and Walter Reed scientists, protected about a third of participants against HIV infection, according to a 2009 report. 

* An experimental drug would reduce the harm caused by traumatic brain injuries by controlling the amount of inflammation in the brain that they cause. It will enter clinical trials in a few years.

* A drug to prevent migraine headaches has been developed.

Neurologists believe they have identified a hypersensitive nerve system that triggers the pain and are in the final stages of testing medicines that soothe its overly active cells. These are the first ever drugs specifically designed to prevent the crippling headaches before they start, and they could be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration next year [Ed. i.e. in 2016]. If they deliver on the promise they have shown in studies conducted so far, which have involved around 1,300 patients, millions of headaches may never happen. . . .

In two placebo-controlled trials with a total of 380 people who had severe migraines up to 14 days per month, a single dose of a CGRP drug decreased headache days by more than 60 percent (63 percent in one study and 66 percent in the other). In addition, in the first study, 16 percent of the patients remained totally migraine-free 12 weeks into the 24-week trial. Larger clinical trials to confirm those findings are currently under way. So far the CGRP drugs work better at prevention than any of the borrowed heart or epilepsy drugs and have far fewer side effects. They are given to patients in a single monthly injection.

 * Three new drugs effective against drug resistant pathogens are derived from traditional remedies that actually work. A traditional medicinal clay is effective against multiple drug resistant pathogens. So does a thousand year old Anglo-Saxon "potion" which is 90% effective against MSRA for unknown reasons: "The recipe calls for two species of Allium (garlic and onion or leek), wine and oxgall (bile from a cow’s stomach). It describes a very specific method of making the topical solution including the use of a brass vessel to brew it in, a straining to purify it and an instruction to leave the mixture for nine days before use." So do compounds found in pro-biotic meads that were popular with the Vikings a thousand years ago.

[A] collection of microorganisms—so-called “lactic acid bacteria,” or LABs— . . . live inside the honeybee’s crop, a special stomach devoted to nectar collection. These bacteria are a living factory of medicine, exuding a suite of suite of antimicrobial compounds that target and kill pathogens. In 2014, Olofsson published a study showing that honey inoculated with thirteen LABs could treat chronic, antibiotic-resistant wounds in horses. In the lab, the same microbial cocktail eliminates deadly human pathogens, including the notoriously drug-resistant MSRA.

* Treatment of toxoplasma gondii parasitic infections (which are usually considered harmless and found in 30% of adults worldwide and 9% of American control group test subjects) could cure as many as one in five individuals with intermittent explosive disorder who have such infections at an elevated rate.

Individuals with a psychiatric disorder involving recurrent bouts of extreme, impulsive anger--road rage, for example--are more than twice as likely to have been exposed to a common parasite than healthy individuals with no psychiatric diagnosis.

In a study involving 358 adult subjects, a team led by researchers from the University of Chicago found that toxoplasmosis, a relatively harmless parasitic infection carried by an estimated 30 percent of all humans, is associated with intermittent explosive disorder and increased aggression. 

The findings are published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry on March 23, 2016. 

"Our work suggests that latent infection with the toxoplasma gondii parasite may change brain chemistry in a fashion that increases the risk of aggressive behavior," said senior study author Emil Coccaro, MD, Ellen. C. Manning Professor and Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Chicago.

* An anti-cancer drug may postpone the onset of Alzheimer's disease.

The drug, which is an approved anti-cancer treatment, has been shown to delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease, both in a test tube and in nematode worms. It has previously been suggested that statin-like drugs -- which are safe and can be taken widely by those at risk of developing disease -- might be a prospect, but this is the first time that a potential 'neurostatin' has been reported. 

When the drug was given to nematode worms genetically programmed to develop Alzheimer's disease, it had no effect once symptoms had already appeared. But when the drug was given to the worms before any symptoms became apparent, no evidence of the condition appeared, raising the possibility that this drug, or other molecules like it, could be used to reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. The results are reported in the journal Science Advances. 

By analysing the way the drug, called bexarotene, works at the molecular level, the international team of researchers, from the University of Cambridge, Lund University and the University of Groningen, found that it stops the first step in the molecular cascade that leads to the death of brain cells.

* A gene in adult humans is protective against hardening of the arteries which is a major cause of cardiovascular death in older people. Drugs that target that biochemical pathway utilized by the gene could dramatically reduce this form of heart disease.

The gene, Oct4, plays a key role in the development of all living organisms, but scientists have, until now, thought it was permanently inactivated after embryonic development. Some controversial studies have suggested it might have another function later in life, but the UVA researchers are the first to provide conclusive evidence of that: Owens and his colleagues have determined the gene plays a critical protective role during the formation of atherosclerotic plaques inside blood vessels. The rupturing of these plaques is the underlying cause of many heart attacks and strokes. 

The researchers found that Oct4 controls the movement of smooth muscle cells into protective fibrous "caps" inside the plaques -- caps that make the plaques less likely to rupture. The researchers also have provided evidence that the gene promotes many changes in gene expression that are beneficial in stabilizing the plaques. This is exciting, because studies suggest that it may be possible to develop drugs or other therapeutic agents that target the Oct4 pathway as a means to reduce the incidence of heart attacks or stroke. "Our findings have major implications regarding possible novel therapeutic approaches for promoting stabilization of atherosclerotic plaques," said Olga A. Cherepanova, PhD, a senior research scientist in Owens' lab.

* Removing a defective grain of rice sized organ called the carotid body in people can cure people with high blood pressure, a potentially deadly condition. The first stage of clinical trials for this treatment were completed in 2013 or 2014.

* A new class of drugs that targets a certain kind of enzyme in the body called "salt-inducible kinases" may be able to treat a broad spectrum of autoimmune diseases like Crohn's disease, arthritis, and psoriasis.

"Our laboratory studies further expand and validate the potential therapeutic implications of the use of salt-inducible kinase inhibitors for the treatment of immune-mediated inflammatory diseases," said Maria Stella Lombardi, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the University of Geneva in Switzerland. "The development of novel potent, selective, and drug-like inhibitors of the these pathways will allow us in the near future to test them in animal models of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases."

* A new drug derived from a traditional medicinal plant may halt the progression of M.S. and might even have applications to other autoimmune diseases.

An international research team has demonstrated that a new plant-derived drug can block the progression of multiple sclerosis (MS). University of Queensland researcher Dr Christian Gruber said the breakthrough could be a step forward in preventing and treating MS and other autoimmune diseases. 

"This is a really exciting discovery because it may offer a whole new quality of life for people with this debilitating disease," he said. 

The new drug is expected to be taken by mouth, in contrast to some current MS treatments where patients need to have frequent injections. . . . Dr Gruber said the new drug -- named T20K -- was extracted from a traditional medicinal plant, the Oldenlandia affinis.  

The drug treatment had been successful in an animal model, and patent applications filed in several countries. "Phase one clinical trials could begin as early as 2018," Dr Gruber said.

* Treatment with a pregnancy hormone can also reduce the likelihood of a recurrence of M.S.

In addition to a standard MS drug, 164 women with MS received either a placebo or estriol, an estrogen made by the placenta that peaks toward the end of pregnancy. After two years, women who received estriol had an average of 0.25 relapses a year, while women who received the placebo had 0.37 relapses a year, UCLA neurologist Rhonda Voskuhl and colleagues write online November 24 in Lancet Neurology.

* A new form of radiation treatment for prostate cancer fails seven to fourteen times less often than existing treatments. 

A five-year study shows that Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT) to treat prostate cancer offers a higher cure rate than more traditional approaches, according to researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The study -- the first trial to publish five-year results from SBRT treatment for prostate cancer -- found a 98.6 percent cure rate with SBRT, a noninvasive form of radiation treatment that involves high-dose radiation beams entering the body through various angles and intersecting at the desired target. It is a state-of-the-art technology that allows for a concentrated dose to reach the tumor while limiting the radiation dose to surrounding healthy tissue. 

"The high cure rate is striking when compared to the reported five-year cure rates from other approaches like surgery or conventional radiation, which range between 80 to 90 percent, while the side effects of this treatment are comparable to other types of treatment," said Dr. Raquibul Hannan, Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology and lead author for the study. "What we now have is a more potent and effective form of completely noninvasive treatment for prostate cancer, conveniently completed in five treatments."

Colorado Ballot Issue Polling

In a post a couple of weeks ago, I noted various ballot issue endorsements, but refrained from my own full fledged analysis. This time I review some recent ballot issue polling.

Via Floyd Circuli's blog.

In evaluating the odds that these measures will pass by election day, four weeks from today, it is important to note that historically, measures with less than 50% support in the polls usually fail because undecided voters decisively break in favor of voting no on almost all issues.

Losers

There is no real chance that Colorado voters will adopt a single payer health care system by passing Amendment 69 (even though Obamacare provides for the possibility relatively gracefully). Voters polled already oppose it by a 24 percentage point margin and that will only get worse when undecided voters break against it.

It is also unlikely that Colorado voters will allow undeclared voters to routinely vote in partisan primary elections. This six point lead in the polls will vanish as the 22% of voters who are undivided break strongly in favor of voting no.

Winners

On the other hand, the assisted suicide initiated law (Proposition 106) has very solid support despite a concerted effort by the Roman Catholic church and other religious groups to stop it, as does a significant minimum wage increase (Amendment 70), an initiated law to mandate an open Presidential primary in 2020 (Proposition 107), and a massive increase in cigarette taxes (Amendment 72) (despite massive spending by the tobacco industry to oppose it).

Close Call

The only close call for which polling is available is Amendment 71 (Raise the Bar) which is backed by the oil and gas industry to make it harder to pass anti-fracking measures in the future, although many good government advocates have called for a slightly less draconian version of the measure.

Measures With No Polling

There is no polling on the measures referred by the Colorado General Assembly with bipartisan support to abolish the criminal conviction exception to the prohibition on slavery and involuntary servitude in the state constitution (Amendment T) and the proposed exception for certain kinds of possessory, non-ownership interests in government owned property worth $6,000 or less (Amendment U) that tend to be more expensive to collect than the revenue that they generate (examples include people who lease land from the federal government for cattle grazing, skiing or river rafting.)

Amendment T will almost surely pass.  Who wants to vote in favor of slavery? Amendment U is a toss up. There is very little campaigning on either side, voters are often suspicious of tax related measures, and voters are less deferential to measures proposed with bipartisan legislative support than you would expect.

There is also no polling of which I am aware on a host of tax and bond issues on the ballot this year, by variously local government and the regional SCFD that finances cultural programs. Most local fiscal measures (all of which are referred, something required by TABOR) pass historically, but these measures are rarely a sure thing. In metro Denver, a sense of prosperity may help, while an affordable housing crunch may hurt. These measures do better in Presidential election years than in off year elections, but they are still hard to predict.

There is also no polling on a referendum in the City and County of Denver proposing certainly kinds of private marijuana consumption clubs in Denver. But, it has wide support in the City Council, Denver has generally been quite pro-marijuana, and there is little or no organized opposition, so it will probably pass.

Swift, Certain and Mild Incarceration Works Better Than Harsh Sentences

A punishment doesn't have to be particularly stiff to change behavior if it can be applied swiftly and consistently.

[Washington] state had traditionally imposed jail sentences of 30, 60, 90 or 120 days for supervised offenders who violated the conditions of their probation or parole (e.g., had a positive drug test). The policy was fiscally costly and also resulted in inconsistent responses to the same violation. According to Professor Zachary Hamilton at the Washington State Institute for Criminal Justice, “If the local jail didn’t have room to take someone for 30 or 60 or 90 days, offenders got away with things they shouldn’t have. If the jail was empty, offenders might serve 30 or 60 or 90 days for a minor violation.” Not only was this policy unfair, but it also gave offenders no consistent incentive to change problematic behavior. 

Seeking a less expensive, more effective system, the state fundamentally reoriented its strategy. Punishments for violations were made much less severe, most commonly a “flash incarceration” of up to three days. Unlike the prior penalties, such short jail stays could be administered swiftly and certainly throughout the state. . . . 

In a 12-month study of over 9,000 supervised offenders, Hamilton and his colleagues found that supervision using swift, certain but modest punishments produced a significant decrease in the likelihood of offenders being convicted of a new crime. And not only were new convictions less common, but they were also less serious, enabling the swift and certain approach to produce a stunning 84 percent drop in the odds of a supervised offender being sent to prison. Because of the savings this produced, swift and certain supervision was less expensive to operate than the traditional model, allowing expansion of mental-health and addiction-treatment services for those offenders who needed them.

From here.

This is a model that states like Colorado would do well to emulate.

Will Trump Inoculate Our Political Culture?

Twenty-day days before the election, with votes already being cast in some states as I write this post, it seems very likely that voters will choose Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump as our next President, probably by a fairly comfortable margin in the end.

It is been a frightening time, because Trumpism is abandons core tenets of our scarce consensus political culture and if a majority of the public no longer cares about some of our foundational concepts of democracy and civil liberties, we are in trouble.

But, arguably, to keep the fires burning of all who would defend those values, they must face some serious threats now and then or our society and culture will become complacent and unable to resist such threats.

Indeed, we are lucky to live in an age where history less than a century remote reminds us what can go wrong if we are not vigilant in protecting these values. One of the reasons that the Weimar Republic in Germany was vulnerable to totalitarian takeover was that it was trying to use a new and largely untested political system in which the people had not had time to develop democratic values, and did not have a relatively health economy to support a political system that is fundamentally built on a certain degree of hope and trust that flourish better in good times, at the outset.

If our political culture does not learn those lessons from the near miss of the constitutional crisis that a Trump Presidency almost surely would have given rise to, we have wasted a tragedy indeed.

What Is Wrong With Denver DA Mitch Morrissey?

Moses-EL spent 28 years in state prison for a 1987 rape in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood that he has said he didn’t commit. The only evidence against him was that the victim said his identity came to her in a dream – after she had named three other men as her possible attackers. The first man she named, LC Jackson, since has confessed to the assault. 

Partly because of an error made by district attorneys, Denver police threw all the DNA evidence in the case in a dumpster. 

A Denver district judge vacated Moses-EL’s conviction last December. Despite a lack of evidence against Moses-EL – and Jackson’s sworn confession in court – DA Mitch Morrissey’s office said last winter it will re-prosecute the case.

From the Colorado Independent.

The trial is set to begin November  7, 2016, two months before his term ends and a day before he becomes a lame duck.

It is hard to see how this prosecution produces a conviction that can hold up.

Morrissey's departure won't be a moment too soon.

In Other Colorado Criminal Justice Injustice News

A former Sterling Correctional Facility inmate suffering multiple physical disabilities repeatedly asked to be transferred away from an inmate who threatened him and choked him with his own cane, but instead guards put him in the same cell with the man. 

Soon after Anthony Cipriano was placed in a cell with Kirk Popken, the man Cipriano feared, Popken attacked him from behind, fracturing his skull and nearly killing him.

On Friday, Boulder attorney Alison Ruttenberg filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of Cipriano naming two correctional officers, identified only as “Sgt. Nelson and Officer Brown,” as defendants. 

Cipriano, who is currently on parole in Southern Colorado, is seeking damages and attorneys fees, claiming that his Constitutional rights to be free of cruel and unusual punishment were violated.

From here.

The victim's physical disabilities are also largely attributable to events during previous periods of incarceration for the same offense.

The lawsuit says that a prison health care worker also took away Cipriano’s wheelchair in retaliation after Cipriano called her “fat,” requiring him to walk with excruciating pain because a piece of metal was lodged in his right foot, the lawsuit says. 

Cipriano was sentenced to four years in prison in 2011 for a conviction of stalking and violating a protection order. He broke his hip in the Douglas County jail and was required to wear adult diapers following an infection in his pelvis because he had no bowel control, the lawsuit says. He also suffered from the foot infection.

The case number in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado for Cipriano v. Nelson is 1:16-cv-02510. It was filed on October 7, 2016

7200 Posts

This is post number 7,200 at Wash Park Prophet.  Dispatches from Turtle Island, meanwhile, recently crossed the 1,000 post mark.

Chicago's Ties To American South Much More Recent Than Great Migration

An article in Chicago Magazine suggests that the Windy City's ties to the South generally, and to Mississippi, in particular, are much more recent and pervasive than generally understood.

In 1986, Nicholas Lemann wrote a lengthy, two-part series for The Atlanticon crime and poverty in Chicago. One of the things he encountered was just how Southern Chicago is: 

Although the migration ended in the early seventies – again, because jobs had become scarce in Chicago – there is still considerable movement back and forth, and the South is very much in the minds of black Chicagoans. Most of the very successful local blacks who are held up as role models are southern-born: Jesse Jackson (South Carolina), John H. Johnson, the owner of Ebony (Arkansas), Oprah Winfrey, the TV host who appeared in The Color Purple (Mississippi), Walter Payton, of the Chicago Bears (Mississippi), the Reverend Johnnie Colemon, the pastor of the biggest church in Chicago (Mississippi).

[snip]

Black Mississippians go to Chicago too. Recently, at a student assembly of a black Catholic grade school in Canton [Mississippi], I asked the children how many had been to Chicago, and nearly every hand went up. Often they went for long visits with relatives in the summers. (How many want to live in Chicago when they grow up? I asked. No hands. Why not? An immediate chorus: “Too dangerous.") At one of Chicago’s worst high schools – Orr, on the West Side – I asked a class how many were born in Chicago. Almost everyone was. But almost everyone’s mother had been born in Mississippi. Many of the mothers of a class of eighth graders at Beethoven School, an elementary school whose students all live in the Robert Taylor Homes, were from Mississippi.

Part of Lemann’s thesis, not that he ignores the effects of segregation and concentrated poverty, is that the divide between city and backcountry was also brought north: “Every aspect of the underclass culture in the ghettos is directly traceable to roots in the South – and not the South of slavery but the South of a generation ago. In fact, there seems to be a strong correlation between underclass status in the North and a family background in the nascent underclass of the sharecropper South.” Lemann also found the opposite—a correlation between middle-class status in the nascent middle-class of urban Canton and mobility in the North.

It isn't the first time I've seen parts of the United States described as virtual colonies of a place of origin of its migrants, but it is the first time I've seen this particular connection made to Chicago.

Sweet Sunday

I never have the patience to watch the Presidential debates live. Instead, I'm offering you an art installation by Nathan Sawaya made of legos that was put up on the south lawn of the White House on October 3.

Happy Sunday!

Graduation Rates In Four Year Programs In Colorado

The latest available data on the six year graduation rate for full time four year first degree bachelor's degree program students at Colorado institutions is as follows:

1. United States Air Force Academy (Federal) 86%
2. Colorado College (Non-Profit) 86%
3. U. of Denver (Non-Profit) 76%
4. Colorado School of Mines (State) 76%
5. U. of Colorado at Boulder (State) 70%
6. Colorado State U. at Fort Collins (State) 67% 
7. Regis U. (Non-Profit) 60% 
8. Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design (For Profit) 48%
9. Johnson and Wales U. at Denver (Non-Profit) 47%
10. U. of Colorado at Colorado Springs (State) 47%
11. U. of Northern Colorado (State) 46% 
12. Colorado Christian U. (Non-Profit) 40%
13. U. of Colorado at Denver (State) 40% 
14. Nazarene Bible College at Colorado Spring (Non-Profit) 40%
15. Fort Lewis College (State) 38%
16. Western State Colorado U. (State) 37%
17. Naropa U. (Non-Profit) 33%
18. Colorado Mesa U. (State) 32%
19. Colorado State U. at Pueblo (State) 32% 
20. College America at Colorado Springs, Denver and Fort Collins (Non-Profit) 31%
21. Art Institute of Colorado (For Profit) 29%
22. National American U. at Centennial, Colorado Springs and Denver (For Profit) 29%
23. Colorado Technical U. at Colorado Springs (For Profit) 27%
24. Metropolitan State U. (State) 25%
25. Adams State U. (State) 24% 
26. U. of Phoenix at Colorado Springs, Lone Tree and Westminster (For Profit) 18%
27. Colorado Technical U. at Aurora (For Profit) 14% 
28. DeVry U. at Colorado Springs, Denver and Westminster (For Profit) 12%
29. Denver School of Nursing (For Profit) 11%
30. Colorado Heights U. (Non-Profit) 11%

Notable Conclusion

Students who are below a 22 on the ACT composite, a 1073 on the new SAT composite, a 1610 on the older SAT composite, are not in the top 35% of his high school class (in a high school that is representative of the general population), or have below a B+ GPA, have a significantly impaired, low chance of graduating with a four year degree.  This cutoff is not very sensitive to the selectivity or to the type of institution attended, although certain programs (e.g. some STEM programs such as math, physics and engineering) may have a higher effective minimum threshold for a student to have a reasonable chance of graduating.

The threshold for any ordinary college program corresponds to an IQ of about 110 on a 15-point standard deviation scale or 111 on a 16-point standard deviation scale which is about the 75th percentile of the general population (a higher percentage because the general population includes high school dropouts who aren't included in SAT and ACT percentiles). Under 15-point standard deviation WAIS IQ scaling standard, an IQ of 100 is average for the population as a whole, an IQ of 105 is average for a high school graduate, and an IQ of 115 is average for a college graduate. So, an effective cutoff IQ of about 110 for a reasonable likelihood of graduating from college, fits with the concept that one must be discernibly better than average high school student to be likely to graduate from a college or university with a four year degree.

Caveats

Non-Academic Factors

Now, obviously, reality is complicated. Someone with a good work habits and good interpersonal skills who probably overachieves on his or her grade point average and class rank relative to his test scores may be able to graduate with test scores below this cutoff.  On the other hand, someone with bad work habits and poor social skills with test scores above this cutoff may be likely to fail to graduate. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if measured of work habits quality were more predictive of college success than test scores.

Accuracy of Academic Factors

Similarly, if there was good reason to think that the student's test scores or grades were not accurate for some reason that would matter. Somebody who takes the ACT while sick with the flu, for example, may underperform relative to their true ability. And, the high school grades of someone who was experiencing disruptive issues in their personal life while in high school, may similarly not reflect their abilities. And, trying to learn in a language other than your native language could also pose issues that would confound typical measures of academic ability. Any system controlling access to higher education should have some safety valves for these kinds of issues.

Gradual Variation In Graduation Likelihood

More fundamentally, at any given level of academic ability, the likelihood of not graduating in six years is almost never either 0% or 100%. It is perhaps 4% at the highest level of academic ability and gradually increases as one moves down the academic ability scale. I can't even tell you what the percentage would be exactly at the cutoff, although it would almost certainly be significantly below 50% and wouldn't be 100% either. There is a substantial literature on college retention rates, but much of it is pretty dubious, relying on economic models rather than hard data. The central facts driving this inquiry are as follows:

Among individuals aged twenty-three in 1970, 23 percent of high school graduates had completed a BA degree, while about 51 percent had enrolled in college for some period since high school graduation. For the same age group in 1999, the share of high school graduates who had enrolled in college at some point rose substantially, to 67 percent, while the share receiving a BA degree rose only slightly, to 24 percent of the cohort. Thus, for college participants measured in their early twenties, completion rates fell by more than 25 percent over this interval. Completion rates measured at older ages are closer to stagnant, implying an overall increase in the time to degree.

A related issue is that the growth in degrees awarded between 1984 and 2009 was heavily concentrated in majors that provide the lowest post-graduation salaries.

One summary of the literature explains that:

The American literature includes Bound and Turner (2011), who survey the economics literature on college enrolment and completion with a focus on the limited US growth in college enrolment and áat college completion rates over time. The empirical analysis includes issues such as student preparedness, student funding, parental background, college resources and the costs and gains of college education. Bowen et al. (2009) study completion in US public colleges. One of the results of their empirical analysis is that high school grades are much better for predicting college completion than the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) scores. Another strand of the American literature deals with the ability of the SAT test to predict college admission (e.g. Manski and Wise 1983) and freshman grades (e.g. Rothstein 2004). In combination with high school grades, US colleges and universities use the SAT score for determining admission. For example, the University of California constructs an admission index consisting of a weighted average of SAT scores and high school grades. If a student from a public secondary school in California has a score above a certain threshold on this index, this student is automatically admitted to the University of California system. In addition to pre-college grades learning about academic performance during college plays a role according to Stinebrickner and Stinebrickner (2014) who assess that 45 per cent of dropout in the first two years of college can be attributed to what students learn about their academic performance. The problem of attrition in the US higher educational system figures prominently in the educational and sociological literature, where the seminal contribution is Tinto (1993).

Thus, about half of students drop out of college because they are not getting good grades in the classes that they are taking.

Economists know that a student's personal chance of graduating greatly impacts the return that a student can get on an investment in higher education: 

The return to trying to get a degree is far lower than the return to successfully getting a degree. Why? Because marginal students routinely fail to graduate. 

But, a close examination of the "single best paper on this theme" demonstrates that the economists are making little more than crude guesses about how the probability of graduating relates to one's academic ability with no detailed data upon which to base their suppositions. It estimates the marginal probability as follows:

[T]o map SAT scored into failure risk, we use observed data on institution-level failure rates by SAT score to estimate a linear map that takes the percentile of the test scores g(νSAT ) into a probability of failure as follows: π = 1 −λgrad g(νSAT ); where λgrad=0.9. We specify g(·) such that the top percentile of SAT scores will fail with probability (1-λgrad), while the first percentile will fail with probability λgrad.

Thus, in this crude linear model in the 2013 study with no direct empirical support, someone with a perfect SAT score fails 10% of the time, while someone with a zero SAT score fails to graduate 90% of the time. 

The only actual data relied upon by the model shows that college enrollment is very high for students with 1600 point scale SAT scores of 1100 or more, slacks a little in the SAT score range of 900-1100, and is significantly lower for students with an SAT score of below 900. But, this is based upon an ability to be admitted to college and uniformed perceptions about probabilities of success that marginal students have, rather than the actual probability of success of marginal students.

This outcome does relate to another conclusion of the model that may be valid, however. The returns to an investment in higher education in their model when the probability of failure is 50% (whenever that may be) are dramatically greater than if the probability of failure is 66% which in turn is dramatically greater than if the probability of failure is 82%. In contrast, returns in their model improve only modestly between a 50% chance of success and a 34% chance of success, and improve even more modestly for higher chances of success. The extent to which trying to graduate from college is a good idea drops out dramatically and non-linearly between a 50% chance of failure and an 82% chance of failure at which the return is almost nil.  So, if one can identify the level of academic ability that corresponds to a 70%-80% chance of failure, one need not worry too much that denying a student in that rank admission to college will tend to be a good decision for the student making the decision ex ante and for the public deciding if the investment in this student is worth it.

A more direct measurement of the benefits of college admission to academically marginal students based upon a "natural experiment" in Florida in a 2014 study, however, finds the economic benefits of college admission for such students are very substantial. The author of that study sums up the implications of the empirical question as follows:

Why has supply not kept pace with demand? 

One possible explanation is that the returns for students on the margin of college attendance are much lower than the average returns to college. This is consistent with the large body of evidence suggesting that many US primary and secondary schools do a poor job of preparing their students for college, as well as with evidence from structural models of schooling choice suggesting that relaxing financial constraints on postsecondary attendance would have little effect on educational attainment. 

Alternatively, it may be the case that the returns to college for students on the margin of attendance are high but that these students are constrained in some way. Possible constraints include short-term credit constraints, constraints based on limited access to or costly acquisition of information on the costs and benefits of college and the admissions process, and constraints on the supply of places in appropriate postsecondary institutions. 

Distinguishing between these lines of reasoning is of critical importance for higher education policy. If many students are capable of making high return human capital investments but cannot because they are constrained in some way, then policies aimed at relaxing these constraints will be enough to increase the supply of college graduates. If low marginal returns are the dominant story, then policies aimed at improving primary and secondary education so that students emerge better prepared for college are more appropriate. The key question is whether students who are only marginally prepared for college are able to realize economic returns large enough to justify the investment of time and money, and, if so, which constraints need to be relaxed so that more such students actually do make these investments.

This study then ultimately concludes that:

Students with grades just above a threshold for admissions eligibility at a large public university in Florida are much more likely to attend any university than below-threshold students. The marginal admission yields earnings gains of 22% between 8 and 14 years after high school completion. These gains outstrip the costs of college attendance, and they are largest for male students and free lunch recipients.

The study involved:

a large sample of Florida high school students with a regression discontinuity design around a state-level GPA (grade point average) cutoff for admission to the Florida State University System (SUS) to estimate the returns to 4-year college admission for students at the margin of admission to any SUS campus. I focus my analysis on Florida International University (FIU), a SUS campus that was especially generous in the way it computed the GPAs used for admissions during the period in question and that thus functioned as the SUS campus of last resort for many students. I find that students just above the admissions threshold at FIU are 23.4 percentage points more likely to be admitted to FIU and 11.9 percentage points more likely to attend any SUS campus than students just below the admissions threshold. On average, students induced to attend college by “threshold-crossing” attend a SUS campus for an additional 3.8 years, and they graduate at rates similar to those in the broader student population. Threshold-crossing produces a $372 gain in quarterly earnings between 8 and 14 years after high school completion, corresponding to a $1,593 increase in quarterly earnings per marginal admission. This is equal to 22% of expected earnings just below the threshold. Driving earnings gains are large effects for male students ($4,191 per marginal admission) and free-lunch recipients ($2,695 per marginal admission). Gains for female students and students who do not receive free lunch are close to zero. . . .

The closest precedent in the literature on the earnings effects of education is Hoekstra (2009). Hoekstra uses a test score admissions cutoff to estimate the returns to attending a flagship state university. His analysis differs from what is presented here in that students who are not admitted to the flagship university most likely attend other colleges, although Hoekstra cannot verify such attendance directly with the available data, and students near the admissions cutoff in his analysis have stronger academic backgrounds than students near the admissions cutoff in the present article. The average combined SAT score for students near the cutoff in the Hoekstra study was roughly 1000 on the pre-1995 SAT, which corresponds to a score of 1100 on the current test. The average score for students near the cutoff in the present analysis is 839, a score that would place a student in the 21st percentile of college-bound seniors in 2011. 

While 22% gains are lower than the gains experienced by the average college graduate relative to the average person who does not graduate from college (who experience 97% earning gains), they are still significant enough to be worth it to the marginal college applicant.

The gender gap is also particularly notable because one of the economic reasons that many women identify for attending college is to find a college educated spouse, yet women who are on the margin of being admitted to college or not do not appear to receive any economic benefit from doing so (although this may be an artifact of the fact that the study used post-admissions "earnings" rather than household income is used to evaluate the returns to college admission in the study).

There is even a calculator to estimate a student's chance of graduating, although how it was validated is unclear.

In the same vein, a study of college expansion in Russia finds, in a nutshell, that the greatest benefit arises where it provides access to the smartest groups of people who didn't have access to higher education before, such as cities that previously had no colleges or universities nearby, while providing much less benefit in places that already had multiple higher educational options.

Still, if you wanted to set a cutoff as a matter of policy in an intelligent manner, you would like to have this kind of data so that you could compare how many people among those denied admission would be statistically likely to graduate and how many people granted admission will be statistically likely to not graduate in six years. Better yet, you'd like to study what factors distinguish people admitted with marginal admissions criteria who do graduate from those who do not, to better refine the model. Even beyond that, one would like to study how those marginal admitted students who did graduate compared to other graduates after graduation on measures of economic success.

How Much Should We Care About These Caveats?

If a policy maker was a dictator who could impose the cutoff on every single four year college program in the country, the risk of being too strict and denying any path to higher education to the rare exceptional individual who could have graduated and thrived despite seemingly weak admissions criteria would be a great concern. But, given the fact that no one policy maker has a monopoly of admissions criteria at institutions that might admit a marginal student, and that an alternate route to a four year degree via two years of success at a community college followed by a transfer to a four year college exists, this concern shouldn't be grounds for policy making paralysis.

But, IQ and any measure related to it, predicts academic ability better than just about anything else that IQ predicts. So, it wouldn't be surprising if below a certain IQ (to the extent the measurement is accurate), a student is just not going to be able to handle college level work. It doesn't do anyone any good for a student with a 100 IQ who is in the bottom half of a representative graduating class with a B- or C+ GPA and test scores to match to embark upon trying to earn a four year college degree and failing. Yet, every year, hundreds of thousands of students with strong encouragement from their parents and teachers and guidance counselors try to do just that.

Commentary

Generally, graduation rates are closely tied to selectivity in admissions. But, even the very most selective institution (e.g. Yale University with a 96% graduation rate) fail to graduate some of their incoming freshmen.

I was surprised to learn that Johnson and Wales University and College America, both of which have the "feel" of for profit institutions are non-profits. Meanwhile, one for profit institution which has the "feel" of a non-profit institution, the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, is an outlier with a respectable for a "for profit" 48% graduation rate.

Seven out of ten of the institutions with the lowest graduates rates are for profit. New federal regulations for federal financial aid, however, are likely to put most of these institutions out of business or dramatically restrict their scale in the next few years. Given their predominantly very poor performance (and the poor performing institutions often have very high numbers of students with very high percentages receiving government grants and government guaranteed loans), this is good policy for both students and the taxpayer alike.

Two basically open admissions four year state institutions, Metropolitan State University in Denver, and Adams State University, as well as one basically open admissions non-profit institution, Colorado Heights University (formerly Tokyo-Loretto Heights) in Denver (which had very lenient admissions requirements - basically a GED or a high school diploma and a 2.0 GPA), share the distinction of having graduation rates below 30%.

Note that full-time first bachelor's degree students are not typical at some of these institutions.  For example, they make up only 8% of students at Nazarene Bible College. Graduation rate is not necessary a good tool for evaluating how well bachelor's degree programs serve part-time and otherwise non-traditional students.  

One reason that I refrained from evaluating two year programs here is that such a large share of students in those programs are part-time, are non-traditional students, and/or are primarily seeking certificates short of a degree or vocational programs rather than relatively comparable to each other bachelor's degrees. But, the problems are arguably even more acute there. Only about 25% of community college students in Colorado receive a degree (typically a two year program) or certificate (often a less than two year program) in three years, despite the lower achievement threshold involved than a bachelor's degree, and at the Community College of Denver the graduation rate is half that. Most community college students need remedial work before advancing to college level work, and their ultimate prospects of getting a degree are particularly low. Also, the community college as a stepping stone to a four year degree approach has real problems in practice.

Graduation rates are a matter of policy when it comes to government operated institutions of higher education which receive significant per student funding subsidies. Is our money well spent on students who don't graduate? Are students better off if they don't graduate (when they often have student loans that can't be discharged in bankruptcy but not degree to improve their earning power)?

Is it relevant that a large share of all non-graduating freshmen drop out within the first year, limiting the wasted time and money for all involved?

Yet, a disproportionate share of poor, working class and middle middle class students who do earn degrees attend schools with low graduation rates (and often lower tuition than other options and room and board at home instead of on campus).

The Apparent Academic Ability Graduation Cutoff 

Graduation rates seem to imply that the rigor of studies at less selective institutions isn't that much lower than at more selective institutions, because otherwise degree inflation would allow more students at less selective institutions to graduate.  There may still be some differences in rigor, of course, but they don't seem overwhelming.

Would it be feasible to set minimum academic standard statewide, designed to exclude students with little chance of graduating, in order to be eligible for state subsidized tuition?

At a school where X% of students graduate, the typical test scores of students who are in the top X% of the entering class in test scores is at roughly the 65th to the 70th percentile.  Put another way, the percentage of non-graduates at an institution is pretty similar to the percentage of admitted students who score below the 65th to 70th percentiles on standardized tests (an ACT composite ca. 22-24, a New SAT composite of about 1073-1113, or an old SAT composite of about 1610-1670). This should correspond to a class rank in the top 30%-35% of the class.  In terms of grades, that is roughly a B+ in GPA. 

This cutoff, for example, is comparable predictive at Metropolitan State University of Denver (with a 25% graduation rate), at Colorado Mesa University (with a 32% graduation rate), at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (with a 47% graduation rate), and at the University of Denver (with a 76% graduation rate). It also isn't grossly inconsistent with the 86% graduation rate of Colorado College where the 25th percentile ACT score of the admitted students is 27, the mean is 29, and the 75th percentile is 32, although some interpolation is required to estimate the 14th percentile test scores of incoming students there. 

The threshold was much higher at the Colorado School of Mines, however, probably because of its more rigorous STEM curriculum. Also, it is pretty clear that at least 3%-5% of students will fail to graduate in six years no matter how will academically prepared and screened they are for reasons that are generally completely unrelated to any lack of academic ability or study skills or interpersonal skills, such as a serious illness or injury, death, family financial woes, elder care demands, deciding to have children, or pursuing a promising non-academic opportunity (e.g. founding a national company with some partners). But, the remainder of the non-graduation rate seems to be strongly correlated with academic ability.

This tends to contradict a recent study exploiting a "natural experiment" that suggested that individual student graduation rates are significantly improved at higher quality colleges. Specifically, it can reduce a student's odds of graduating on time by 40%. But, it is consistent with the findings of a 1970 study of Wisconsin college students who graduated or did not graduate by 1964, which found that:

A stepwise multiple regression analysis shows that type of college attended explains a small but significant proportion of variance in college graduation beyond what can be accounted for by measured intelligence, rank in high school class, socioeconomic background, and level of occupational aspiration in high school. Other findings are that different types of colleges have different effects for students of different socioeconomic status and intelligence levels and that the selection process into different types of schools has some effect on the overall educational selection process.

Student characteristics in that study explained 25% of the variance in dropout rates, while institution type explained just under 10% of the variance. Of the student characteristics, high school class rank was the best predictor, followed by socioeconomic status, followed by intelligence, although obviously, these variables are not entirely independent of each other.

One of the better sets of data with marginal graduation probabilities involves a comparison of likelihood of graduating from Northern Iowa Area Community College between students with some college level work exposures in high school and those without this exposure. It compared the performance of students at the lowest quartile (with an average high school GPA of 2.29, the middle quartile with an average high school GPA of 2.74 and the highest quartile with an average high school GPA of 3.21). For those without exposure to college level work, graduation rates were as follows, while those exposed (about a fifth of the sample) had the rates in parenthesis: 

Lowest Quartile:  Male 4.18% (6.57%); Female 17.17% (25.04%)

Middle Quartile:  Male 19.04% (27.49%); Female 44.51%  (56.38%)

Highest Quartile: Male 41.25% (53.08%); Female 68.58% (77.86%)

Nothing in the other literature had suggested that the gender disparity in graduation rates was so stark, although this might be a product of the Northern Iowa economy in which the economic prospects for less educated men in the farming economy might be greater than the economic prospects for less educated women.

Another study focused on the benefits of remedial courses, if any, finds that there are benefits (a bit less than a 10% reduction in the odds of dropping out relative to other students with the same academic qualifications who don't take remedial classes) but also sets forth some useful baseline information:

[S]tudents placed into remediation had lower ACT scores and high school GPAs. For example, students placed in math remediation scored a mean of 17.4 on the math section of the ACT while students who did not take the classes scored 23.3 (a similar gap, 15.8 versus 22.8, is found for English remediation). A simple comparison of the outcomes of students placed into remediation and those who are not suggests that remedial students had worse educational outcomes. After five years, a larger proportion of them dropped out of college without a degree (65.2 for those in math remediation versus 30.8 percent) and fewer of them completed a baccalaureate degree (18.1 for those in math remediation versus 53.3 percent). 

In any case, about 60% of high school graduates go to college, even though 25%-30% of high school graduates are basically on track to go to college and drop out (many in the first year), while 30%-35% of high school graduates are actually on track to go to college and graduate.

Footnotes and Additional Sources

Excludes 100% distance learning programs, Argosy University which has only 2 full time undergraduate students, an extension campus of Columbia C. - Missouri in Centennial which is Non-Profit, and Jones International University - Centennial which is For Profit.

Partially related, a recent Congressional report on for profit higher education in the United States can be found here.

A Natural Experiment In Economic Development Favors Collective Ownership Of Farmland

There should be more such books! New Zealand and Uruguay had roughly comparable per capita incomes in 1920, yet New Zealand pulled away and never gave back much of that lead. One factor, according to the author, was that the Kiwis had about 40% public ownership of farm land in 1930, resulting in a greater distribution of gains from agriculture and eventually a more egalitarian polity. Uruguay, in contrast, had engaged in some badly-run land privatizations and ended up with excess concentration. New Zealand also took the lead on frozen meat shipments, and New Zealand had a much more rapid recovery from the Great Depression, among other factors, and in Uruguay the enforceability of contract rights slipped away considerably in the 1940s and 1950s. In sum, Uruguay ended up with more rent-seeking policies that redistributed resources toward elites. I can’t believe this one wasn’t a bestseller.

Andre Schlueter, Institutions and Small Settler Economies: A Comparative Study of New Zealand and Uruguay, 1870-2008.  

Marginal Revolution has the book review above above by Tyler Cohen.

Particularly notable is that this economist, a group often skeptical of public ownership, points to collective ownership of farmland as a critical positive factor in the economic development of New Zealand, while privatized land ownership helped ruin Uruguay's economy, contrary to what just about any contemporary economist would recommend today.

Empirical data rocks, everything else walks.  Unfortunately, economists are not terribly good about gather comprehensive and rich data sets.

Trade Show Previews Potential Military Technologies

The AUSA 2016 trade show for Army defense contractors has previewed some relatively mature future technologies for the United States Army. Several of the most interesting of them are discussed below.

A New Light Tank Technology Demonstrator

The General Dynamics "Mobile Protected Firepower" technology demonstrator.

The Problem

The United States Army has several thousand 70 ton M1 Abrams main battle tanks in its arsenal. But, in recent conflicts in places like Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, they have not been in heavy demand.

Why?

One problem is that it can take weeks to get them to the conflict via sea lift, make very intense use of scarce long range airlift resources (the C-5 and C-17), and can't be deployed on the numerous but smaller capacity (about 20 tons) C-130. It is so heavy that in many parts of the world, it can't even be transported by rail or cross rivers on existing bridges, because existing rail and road bridges aren't strong enough to hold the weight of the behemoths one after the other.

Another problem is that many mountain passes and urban roads are too small to fit the M1 Abrams, denying them access to key conflict areas.

A third problem is that M1 Abrams tanks are diesel hogs requiring lots of fuel to be transported along long, vulnerable supply lines near war zones.

Each of these problems could be addressed with a lighter version, at the sacrifice of secondary armaments and some degree of armor protection. But, the armor would still be better than in the Stryker armored personnel carriers and armored Humvees in wide use by the Army during the Iraq War. 

Apart from IED protection, there has not been a huge need for heavy armor in the conflicts that the Army has participated in recently. Military systems against which heavy as opposed to medium grade armor makes a difference haven't been widely used by the Army's adversaries and are often vulnerable to air strikes and precision guided artillery strikes that can remove the threats before tanks arrive. In conflicts with near peer adversaries like Russia and China, the risk of a conflict escalating into a nuclear war discourages large scale conventional tank warfare in any case.

A light tank would not, however, address some problems which have also been identified with the M1 Abrams in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

While heavy tanks provide more protection against IEDs which have been the signature threats in Iraq and Afghanistan than lighter vehicles, their relatively flat bottoms are still not optimal against these threats which MRAPs are designed to minimize. This would remain an issue.

While off road capabilities are desirable, tracks are slower and less fuel efficient than wheels and in the experience of U.S. forces, the vast majority of driving takes place on roads anyway and much of the off road driving is also capable of being handled by wheeled vehicles.

Particularly in Iraq, it has also become clear that main battle tanks in urban areas need to be supported by secondary gunners who are shielded from snipers and from enemy soldiers who approach on foot out of sight lines to deliver anti-tank ordinance at point blank range in the most vulnerable accessible places.  So, tanks need to be deployed with infantry who can escort the tanks so as to screen them from these kinds of attacks. This support requirement would be unchanged.

The Proposed Solution With Off The Shelf Technology

One future light tank, called the Griffin, prepared on the dime of General Dynamics and its partners, starts with the gun turret of an M1 Abrams tank, which in the original version accounts for 22 of the tank's 70 tons, finds a way to trim 14 tons from the turret and 28 more tons from the chassis, to come up with a 27 ton tank with some limited room to cut a few more tons in a more refined design as opposed to a rough and ready technology demonstrator. 

Very little training would be required for soldiers already familiar with operating the M1 Abrams as all of the gunnery interfaces are identical, as are many of the maintenance functions and spare parts.

No figures on fuel efficiency for this light tank have been released but it would also certain use less fuel than an M1 Abrams (which can travel just 0.6 miles per gallon of diesel).

The new design's main gun purportedly has the same offensive capabilities as the existing main battle tank, although presumably the light version is not as heavily armored. It would still be too heavy to transport by a C-130 shorter range cargo plane, the work horse of the military airlift fleet.  But, the new system would be lighter than an M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle (it is about 35 tons allowing two M2's rather than one M1A to be transported by a C-17), and is just barely light enough to allow three two (the company only claims to be able to ship two on a load) to be shipped in each trip of the U.S. military's C-17 medium sized long distance transport plane (which has a roughly 85 ton capacity).

The design sticks to the old paradigm of using cheap dumb tank rounds rather than expensive smart missiles which might make it possible to drop the weight of the system with the same explosive potency while significantly while increasing offensive range and accuracy - which might allow for a C-130 transportable system. But, the small learning curve for existing personnel and prospect of a system that could be up and running in a couple of years rather than a decade or more, makes it quite attractive as a procurement option for Pentagon planners.

The Army's "Mobile Protected Firepower" initiative is open to the idea of a lighter tank weighing up to 35 tons, which would still allow two to be transported on a C-17, using existing technology and probably either a 105mm or 120mm main barrel (the contract requirement is at least 50mm but without creating a new kind of ammunition to manage).  The Army would prefer it if the system could be air dropped but recognizes that this may be an unrealistic expectation.

A New Stryker Turret

Raytheon's New Modular Stryker Turret

The C-130 transportable Styrker is a wheeled armored personnel carrier that is the core military vehicle in many of the Army's medium weight brigades, which provide quick deployability with moderate weight armor and armaments, rather than sending in relatively unprotected infantry that is well suited to counterinsurgency campaigns. It comes in several variants including one with a "mobile gun system" that mounts a tank-like main gun on the vehicle to allow it to deliver powerful explosive rounds.

Raytheon and a defense contractor called CMI have come together to design a new modular turret for the Stryker. In addition to sensors called the "command independent viewer" or CVI:

The roughly five-ton turret can be manned or unmanned and is capable of accepting any number of guns, including a 30mm or 105mm cannon or a missile launcher, according to Bo Arne Berglund, chief marketing officer for CMI. “The only thing you need to change is the cannon and possibly the auto-loaders and ammunition systems,” he said.

The Army will start testing the 30mm gun version in 2017. See also here.

The system is a rival to the General Dynamics Corporation's Protector medium-caliber remote weapons station (MCRWS) which already has an Army contract to upgrade part of the existing Stryker fleet.

Both systems reflect a desire to give the Stryker fleet more offensive power in future conflicts.

A Next Generation MV-22 Osprey

The Bell V-247 Vigilant Armed Drone

An Artist's Rendition of the Sikorsky SB-1 Defiant

The Marines have the MV-22 Osprey, a tilt rotor vertical takeoff and landing plane. After numerous technical problems in its original incarnation, it is now a proven technology that allows for greater speed, range and fuel efficiency than a helicopter, with the vertical take off capabilities of a helicopter that make it deployable from ships smaller than a full sized aircraft carrier.

Textron's Bell Helicopter unit is highlighting technology demonstrators of two proposed successors to the MV-22 and hoping to convince the Army to replace some of its conventional helicopter fleet with them.

The V-280 Valor is a tilt rotor utility aircraft which is one of four contestants designed to replace the UH-60 Blackhawk and CH-47 Chinook helicopters entering service by 2035 as part of the Army's "Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator" competition. It would carry 14 troops and a gunship version that would carry Hellfire missiles and other armaments is in the works.

The main competition for the V-280 is the "Sikorsky SB-1 Defiant" a more conventional helicopter with a pusher-prop for added speed" which will have its first test flight next year.

Bell Helicopter's sister aircraft to the V-280 is its newly announced V-247 Vigilant an armed tilt rotor drone. This 14.5 ton aircraft would be 37 feet long and have a 65- foot wingspan ("about the size of the Air Force‘s medium-altitude drone MQ-9 Reaper."), and is a Marine request.  Like the MV-22, the V-280 and helicopters, it could deploy from ships at sea that are not full sized aircraft carriers. It would cruise at the same speed as the MV-22 (250 knots) allowing it to escort the lightly armed Osprey on missiles in hostile territory. It could also replace some AH-64 Apache gunships in the Army's current helicopter fleet.

The V-247 for the Marines also plays to service rivalries. The Navy also has a ship based armed drone in the pipeline, called the MQ-25A, but that drone can only be launched from aircraft carriers and is comparable to a jet fighter in capabilities, which are far in excess of those of the V-247 in most circumstances.

Both aircraft involve significant modifications from the MV-22's tilt-rotor system and a novel method of reducing the size of the wings/rotors in a hanger, for example, on a ship.

Meanwhile, the Army is also reallocating its helicopter fleet between the active duty force and the Army National Guard, shifting Apache gunships to the active service, while moving utility helicopters to the National Guard, while phasing out entirely the OH-58 Kiowa scout helicopter originally designed for reconnaissance and then as an improvised light attack helicopter, all of which are tasks that other Army assets now do better.

A Light Mobile Howitzer System

AM General featured a Humvee with a 105mm howitzer, that would usually be towed, instead integrated into the vehicle itself.

It's National Taco Day Today!

This picture has nothing to do with National Taco Day (which is today).

Cat Sleeping In A Wine Glass via Boing Boing.

A First Glance At Colorado's 2016 State and Regional Ballot Measures

There are a great many ballot issues for Colorado voters to consider this year and I'll have a post with my own takes on those issues in early October before ballots arrive around October 19.  But, in the mean time, to get you thinking about them, I'll provide someone else's recommendations.

The Colorado Fiscal Institute is a think tank focused on Colorado specific economic issues whose signature publication, which provides background on a wealth of such issues, is the Purple Book. For the most part, it has a good government oriented center-left orientation, a bit like the Brookings Institute nationally, but with perhaps more of an economist's slant.

The CFI has taken positions on six of the nine statewide ballot issues (some of which I agree with and some of which I do not) and I'm reprinting its positions here for your convenience:

Amendment 69 (ColoradoCare): Oppose.

CFI supports universal health care and is open to a single-payer system, but believes this must be done at the national level and cannot be done on a state-by-state basis. We're also concerned that the particular financing methods within Amendment 69 rely too heavily on federal approvals that may not come. Many other organizations that support universal care as CFI does also oppose the amendment. 

Amendment 70 (Minimum wage): Support.

CFI wholeheartedly supports Amendment 70, which would raise the minimum wage to $12 by 2020. This is a modest, phased-in increase in the minimum wage, and the evidence overwhelmingly shows that such judicious increases have little to no effect on employment. Meanwhile, the evidence also shows there will be positive effects on the economy. Increasing the minimum wage is a no-brainer, which is why we are part of a vast coalition supporting the amendment.   

Amendment 71 (Raise the bar): Oppose.

Supporters of this amendment want to make it harder to amend the constitution by initiative but have crafted a proposal that will simply reserve the initiative process for the billionaire class. 

By requiring that signatures come from all 35 state senate districts, Amendment 71 would make signature collection exorbitantly expensive. It also would mean that 1/35th of the state’s population, by refusing to sign a petition in sufficient numbers, could decide that the rest of the state would not get to even consider an issue, even if 34/35ths of the population had signed the petition 

While the proposal raises the voter approval requirement for initiated constitutional amendments to 55 percent, it also imposes this requirement for referred measures from the legislature. This is a fatal flaw. Unlike initiated measures, referred measures go through an extensive vetting process, have lots of public input and must achieve the consensus of two-thirds majorities in both legislative houses. Amendment 71 would make it much more difficult for referred measures to pass, even when that measure has been well-considered and fully vetted and might fix a serious and urgent problem, such as one caused by a flawed constitutional initiative. 

There are organizations across the political spectrum opposed to this measure.

Amendment 72 (Cigarette tax): Support.

This amendment would triple the taxes on a pack of cigarettes in Colorado, and CFI joins the long list of organizations in support. A vast body of evidence shows that increasing the price of cigarettes deters smoking, especially among the young, who are more price sensitive and less likely to become habitual smokers when the price of a pack of cigarettes goes up. Fewer smokers means lowers medical costs for all of us and a more productive economy. 

Amendment T (Delete slavery language in constitution): Support.

Removes language in the state constitution that currently allows slavery and involuntary servitude to be used as punishment for the conviction of a crime. CFI supports this measure as an important symbolic action. 

Amendment U (Property tax exemption for "possessory interest"): Support.

Would, beginning with tax year 2018, eliminate property taxes for individuals or businesses that use government-owned property for a private benefit that is worth $6,000 or less in market value. Examples include people who lease land from the federal government for cattle grazing, skiing or river rafting. The value of such a private financial benefit on public land is taxable as a “possessory interest” under current law. 

For more information on all these measures, please go to countmeincolorado.com

Background information on all nine statewide ballot issues and one multi-county metropolitan Denver ballot issue is available at the Colorado Secretary of State's website, which also contains contact information for supporters, opponents and registered issue committees. 

A complete list of the ballot issues from the Colorado Secretary of State's office, with links to the relevant "Bluebook" language, but without contact information, can be found below the break.