Lifeboat Foundation

Ultimately, the researchers discovered 270 different cycles of autocatalytic reactions. “Autocatalysis may not be that rare, but instead it might be a general feature of many different environments, even those that are really different from Earth,” Kaçar said.

Related: NASA may have unknowingly found and killed alien life on Mars 50 years ago, scientist claims

Most of the 270 cycles did not employ organic compounds. Some centered around elements that are absent or exceedingly rare in life on Earth, such as mercury, or the radioactive metal thorium. A number of cycles likely only happen under extremely high or low temperatures or pressures.

Could changing your diet play a role in slowing or even preventing the development of dementia? We’re one step closer to finding out, thanks to a new UNLV study that bolsters the long-suspected link between gut health and Alzheimer’s disease.

The analysis — led by a team of researchers with the Nevada Institute of Personalized Medicine (NIPM) at UNLV and published this spring in the Nature journal Scientific Reports — examined data from dozens of past studies into the belly-brain connection. The results? There’s a strong link between particular kinds of gut bacteria and Alzheimer’s disease.

UNLV study pinpoints 10 bacterial groups associated with Alzheimer’s disease, provides new insights into the relationship between gut makeup and dementia.

Continue reading “Brain-Belly Connection: Gut Health May Influence Likelihood of Developing Alzheimer’s” »

The University of Alberta is 3rd in the world for AI research.

Researchers meet the challenge of developing a model that uses speech traits to detect cognitive decline, paving the way for a potential screening tool.

Researchers are striving to make earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer’s dementia possible with a machine learning (ML) model that could one day be turned into a simple screening tool anyone with a smartphone could use.

Continue reading “Machine learning model able to detect signs of Alzheimer’s across languages” »

The study’s authors compared the influence of two components of the brain’s physical structure: the outer folds of the cerebral cortex — the area where most higher-level brain activity occurs — and the connectome, the web of nerves that links distinct regions of the cerebral cortex. The team found that the shape of the outer surface was a better predictor of brainwave data than was the connectome, contrary to the paradigm that the connectome has the dominant role in driving brain activity. “We use concepts from physics and engineering to study how anatomy determines function,” says study co-author James Pang, a physicist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

A model of the brain’s geometry better explains neuronal activity than a model based on the ‘connectome’.

Opting for olive oil could reduce your risk of fatal dementia, according to a new study.

Participants who included half a tablespoon of olive oil in their daily diet were 28% less likely to die of dementia.

The study authors found that replacing a single teaspoon of margarine or mayonnaise with olive oil reduced the risk of fatal dementia by 8–14%.

Continue reading “Dementia: Daily dose of olive oil linked to better brain health” »

Hearing diminishes as we age — about 50% of adults 75 and over in the United States have disabling hearing loss.

Age-related hearing loss cannot currently be stopped.

Researchers from the University of Guelph and Tufts.

Continue reading “Omega-3 fatty acids may slow age related hearing loss” »

On a rush-hour train or a crowded flight, you might draw your limbs in close, shrinking as people fill the space. As it turns out, living cells behave similarly in confinement, adjusting their size while growing alongside other cells in sheets of tissue.

John Devany, then a graduate student in the lab of biophysicist Margaret Gardel, had been studying epithelial monolayers—sheets of cells that form barriers in skin and coat internal organs—when he noticed something interesting about how the cells were dividing.

“The way people think about division is that a cell will grow to twice its size, divide, and repeat the cycle,” says Devany, the first author of the study, published in Developmental Cell. But in the epithelial tissue he was observing, division was proceeding as usual, but the daughter cells were ending up smaller than the mother. The team, collaborating with researchers from New York University, decided to investigate the mechanisms that control cell growth and cycle duration in tissue and discovered that the two processes are not directly coupled.

Continue reading “Cells in confinement and people in crowds have similar behaviors” »

Like members of a street gang, male dolphins summon their buddies when it comes time to raid and pillage—or, in their case, to capture and defend females in heat. A new study reveals they do this by learning the “names,” or signature whistles, of their closest allies—sometimes more than a dozen animals—and remembering who consistently cooperated with them in the past. The findings indicate dolphins have a concept of team membership—previously seen only in humans—and may help reveal how they maintain such intricate and tight-knit societies.

Findings reveal the marine mammals have a sense of team membership.

An analysis of data from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development study, a large longitudinal study in New Zealand, showed that participants with a history of antisocial behavior had a significantly faster pace of biological aging. When these individuals reached the calendar age of 45, they were on average 4.3 years older biologically compared to those who had lower levels of antisocial behavior. The study was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Antisocial behavior refers to actions that consistently violate social norms, disregard the rights of others, and often involve a lack of empathy or remorse. It involves behaviors such as deceitfulness, aggression, theft, violence, lying, and other behaviors that are harmful, manipulative, or exploitative towards others.

Antisocial behavior is typically associated with youth. This type of behavior starts between the ages of 8 and 14, peaks between 15 and 19, and usually becomes less frequent between the ages of 20 and 29. Although it becomes less common with age, it seems to have a lasting negative impact on health. Studies have shown that individuals who exhibit antisocial behaviors in their youth tend to have worse health outcomes as adults compared to their peers.