Forensic anthropology researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a technique that can provide an approximate age for juveniles and young people based on an X-ray of the frontal sinus region of the skull. The technique can be used to help identify human remains in forensic cases, as well as to determine age ranges in archaeological research or for living people for whom no records are available. (more…)
What does it mean to be a scientist? Far more than doing research in a lab, says Michael Johnson, whose unconventional passage into the field began with a bowling championship and a music degree.
“Think of it basically like a cheeseburger,” says Michael Johnson. He’s talking about the enzyme ribonucleoside-diphosphate reductase. (more…)
Eating seven or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day reduces your risk of death at any point in time by 42% compared to eating less than one portion, reports a new UCL study.
Researchers used the Health Survey for England to study the eating habits of 65,226 people representative of the English population between 2001 and 2013, and found that the more fruit and vegetables they ate, the less likely they were to die at any age. Eating seven or more portions reduces the specific risks of death by cancer and heart disease by 25% and 31% respectively. The research also showed that vegetables have significantly higher health benefits than fruit. (more…)
With advancing age, highly-evolved brain circuits become susceptible to molecular changes that can lead to neurofibrillary tangles — a hallmark of Alzheimer’s Disease, Yale researchers report the week of March 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The findings not only help to explain why age is such a large risk factor for Alzheimer’s, but why the higher brain circuits regulating cognition are so vulnerable to degeneration while the sensory cortex remains unaffected. (more…)
Great white sharks—top predators throughout the world’s ocean—grow much slower and live significantly longer than previously thought, according to a new study led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
In the first successful radiocarbon age validation study for adult white sharks, researchers analyzed vertebrae from four females and four males from the northwestern Atlantic Ocean. Age estimates were up to 73 years old for the largest male and 40 years old for the largest female. (more…)
Study finds women’s breast tissue ages faster than the rest of the body
Everyone grows older, but scientists don’t really understand why. Now a UCLA study has uncovered a biological clock embedded in our genomes that may shed light on why our bodies age and how we can slow the process.
Published in the Oct. 21 edition of the journal Genome Biology, the findings could offer valuable insights to benefit cancer and stem cell research. (more…)
A large, newly published study that includes more than 13,500 postmenopausal women has yielded the most definitive associations yet between certain lifestyle and demographic factors and levels of a promising early biomarker of type 2 diabetes risk.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Over the last decade researchers have amassed increasing evidence that relatively low levels of a protein called sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) can indicate an elevated risk of type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome years in advance. (more…)
Dolphins can recognize their old tank mates’ whistles after being separated for more than 20 years—the longest social memory ever recorded for a non-human species.
The remarkable memory feat is another indication that dolphins have a level of cognitive sophistication comparable to only a few other species, including humans, chimpanzees and elephants. Dolphins’ talent for social recognition may be even more long-lasting than facial recognition among humans, since human faces change over time, but the signature whistle that identifies a dolphin remains stable over many decades. (more…)
