In some countries, progress has not always been smooth. Disease, epidemics and unexpected events are a reminder that ever-longer lives are not a given.
Meanwhile, the deaths that may preoccupy us — from terrorism, war and natural disasters — make up less than 0.5% of all deaths combined.
It will happen to all of us, but how and when we die speaks volumes about who we are and where we live.
Humans have long envied animals that are able to regenerate parts of their bodies. Arms, legs, tails, even whole chunks of the organism. Yet despite all the technology and best efforts, humans don’t have this ability. However, this could all change. Harvard University uncovered the DNA switch that controls genes for whole body regeneration. This means that one day, humans may be able to grow back lost limbs!
Many people know that certain animals are able to achieve extraordinary feats of repair, such as salamanders which grow back legs, or geckos which can shed their tails to escape predators and then form new ones in just two months. It doesn’t stop there either. Planarian worms, jellyfish, and sea anemones take this regeneration to a whole new level and can actually regenerate their entire bodies after being cut in half.
Typhus and other infectious illnesses hit homeless communities.
“The modern people of Basque Country, in northern Spain, are genetically similar to the Iberian Iron Age people with ancestry from the Russian steppe. While people around them mixed with different groups and changed, the Basques held on to their heritage.”
Ancient DNA is uncovering the secrets of the unique populations of what are now Portugal and Spain. Two studies published this week include unexpected findings from the DNA of people who lived thousands of years ago on the Iberian Peninsula.
The rugged peninsula is positioned between North Africa, Europe and the Mediterranean on the westernmost edge of the continent, so the DNA of its ancient population shows how it was affected by migration over time.
Iberia was also relatively warm during the last Ice Age, between 18,000 and 24,000 years ago, presenting a more welcoming climate for animals and people who retreated from the rest of Europe.
A new clock that analyzes the age of the immune system may be the next big thing in aging biomarkers.
Measuring the age of your immune system
As we age, our immune systems begin to decline due to many factors, including the thymus shrinking and producing ever-fewer T cells, the ever-increasing chronic inflammation called “inflammaging”, dysfunctional immune cells doing more harm than good, and a lifetime of microbial burden taking its toll. This gradual decline of the immune system is known as immunosenescence.
Posted in biotech/medical
Today’s Daily Dose of Science Tu Youyou won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine with her groundbreaking anti-malarial drug research, saving millions of lives. #womenshistorymonth
Born: 30 December 1930, Zhejiang Ningbo, China
Affiliation at the time of the award: China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China
Prize motivation: “for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria.”
Humans may one day have the ability to regrow limbs after scientists at Harvard University uncovered the DNA switch that controls genes for whole-body regeneration.
Some animals can achieve extraordinary feats of repair, such as salamanders which grow back legs, or geckos which can shed their tails to escape predators and then form new ones in just two months.
Planarian worms, jellyfish, and sea anemones go even further, actually regenerating their entire bodies after being cut in half.
With the announcement today that Mammoth Biosciences has received the exclusive license from the University of California, Berkeley to the new CRISPR protein Cas14, the company now has the last piece of its diagnostics toolkit in place.
Cas14 is a newly discovered protein from the lab of Jennifer Doudna, a pioneer in gene-editing research and a member of the first research team to identify and unlock the power of CRISPR technology.
Doudna and Mammoth Biosciences co-founder Lucas Harrington were part of the team of researchers to identify the new Cas14 protein, which can identify single-stranded DNA. The journal Science published their findings in October 2018.
