How simple painkillers may make one forever young

. Researchers at Newcastle University say that chronic inflammation may accelerate ageing and trigger diseases by preventing the body’s cells from regenerating. Scientists believe that cheap anti-inflammatory drugs, namely ibuprofen, can boost the chances of older people staying fit and healthy, as they cure age-related type two diabetes, arthritis and dementia. The drug, taken by millions of people every day to treat headaches, muscle pains and flu, ‘rescued’ inflammation-prone mice and stopped their ageing process. Radio VR discusses the medical issue with experts in the field from Newcastle University: Dr. Diana Jurk, Research Associate at the Institute for Ageing and Health and Professor Derek Mann, Head of the fibrosis laboratories Whatever positive prospects the finding may open up for the mankind, it's unlikely that ageing is impacted by one factor only, argue both experts in an interview to radio VR. "The length to which we live is different between different people and that is likely to be multifactoral, including differences in the types of genes that we have, the way in which those genes are expressed, how we react to our environment". We all indeed grow up in a variety environments and surroundings that differ significantly from one another, the Mr. Mann says. There are some regularities in the ageing process,...

Read More........→September 08, 2014

3 scientists share 2013 Nobel Prize in Medicine

The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to scientist Schekman, Rothman and Suedhof The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute awarded The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to 1) James E. Rothman, Randy [USA], 2)W. Schekman [USA], 3)Thomas C. Südhof [Germany], Award Money - $1.2 million, For their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells The 2013 Nobel Prize honors three scientists who have solved the mystery of how the cell organizes its transport system. Each cell is a factory that produces and exports molecules. For instance, insulin is manufactured and released into the blood and chemical signals called neurotransmitters are sent from one nerve cell to another. These molecules are transported around the cell in small packages called vesicles. The three Nobel Laureates have discovered the molecular principles that govern how this cargo is delivered to the right place at the right time in the cell. Randy Schekman discovered a set of genes that were required for vesicle traffic. James Rothman unravelled protein machinery that allows vesicles to fuse with their targets to permit transfer of cargo. Thomas Südhof revealed how signals instruct vesicles to release their cargo with precision. Through their discoveries, Rothman, Schekman and Südhof...

Read More........→October 12, 2013

The neuroweapons threat

JAMES GIORDANO: James Giordano is a professor of neurology, chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program, and co-director of the O’Neill-Pellegrino Program in Brain Science and Global Health Law and Policy at...More Nearly two years ago, Juliano Pinto, a 29-year-old paraplegic man, kicked off the World Cup in Brazil with the help of a brain-interface machine that allowed his thoughts to control a robotic exoskeleton. Audiences watching Pinto make his gentle kick, aided as he was by helpers and an elaborate rig, could be forgiven for not seeing much danger in the thrilling achievement. Yet like most powerful scientific breakthroughs, neurotechnologies that allow brains to control machines—or machines to read or control brains—inevitably bring with them the threat of weaponization and misuse, a threat that existing UN conventions designed to limit biological and chemical weapons do not yet cover and which ethical discussions of these new technologies tend to give short shrift. (It may seem like science fiction, but according to a September 2015 article in Foreign Policy, “The same brain-scanning machines meant to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease or autism could potentially read someone’s private thoughts. Computer systems attached to brain tissue that allow paralyzed patients to control robotic appendages with thought alone could also...

Read More........→March 07, 2018