Tag Archives: age

Forensic Technique Uses Forehead X-Rays to Assess Age of Juvenile Remains

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…)

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In the Age of Social Media, He’s a New Kind of Scientist

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…)

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Seven a day keeps the reaper at bay

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…)

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How age opens the gates for Alzheimer’s

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…)

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Heart attack survival far lower in UK than Sweden

The chance of surviving a heart attack is far lower in the UK than Sweden, according to a major new study published in The Lancet. The startling findings suggest that more than 11,000 lives could have been saved over the past 7 years had UK patients experienced the same care as their Swedish counterparts.

“Our findings are a cause for concern,” says study leader Professor Harry Hemingway, from the Farr Institute of Health Informatics Research, and the National Institute for Cardiovascular Outcomes Research at UCL. “The uptake and use of new technologies and effective treatments recommended in guidelines has been far quicker in Sweden. This has contributed to large differences in the management and outcomes of patients.” (more…)

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New Study Finds Extreme Longevity in White Sharks

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…)

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Aging erodes genetic control, but it’s flexible

In yeast at least, the aging process appears to reduce an organism’s ability to silence certain genes that need to be silenced. Now researchers at Brown University who study the biology of aging have shown that the loss of genetic control occurs in fruit flies as well. Results appear online in the journal Aging.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Biologists at Brown University have found a way to measure the effects of aging by watching the ebb and flow of chromatin, a structure along strands of DNA that either silences or permits gene expression. In several newly published experiments they show that gene silencing via chromatin in fruit flies declines with age. (more…)

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UCLA scientist uncovers biological clock able to measure age of most human tissues

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…)

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