Lifeboat Foundation

Female kidneys are known to be more resilient to disease and injury, but males need not despair. A new USC Stem Cell-led study published in Developmental Cell describes not only how sex hormones drive differences in male and female mouse kidneys, but also how lowering testosterone can “feminize” this organ and improve its resilience.

“By exploring how differences emerge in male and female kidneys during development, we can better understand how to address sex-related health disparities for patients with kidney diseases,” said Professor Andy McMahon, the study’s corresponding author, and the director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

First authors Lingyun “Ivy” Xiong and Jing Liu from the McMahon Lab and their collaborators identified more than 1,000 genes with different levels of activity in male and female mouse kidneys, in a study supported by the National Institutes of Health. The differences were most evident in the section of the kidney’s filtering unit known as the proximal tubule, responsible for reabsorbing most of the nutrients such as glucose and amino acids back into the blood stream.

The current crop of AI robots has made giant leaps when it comes to tiny activities.

There are robots performing colonoscopies, conducting microsurgeries on blood vessels and nerve cells, designing circuit boards, constructing delicate timepieces and conducting fine touch-up operations on fading, aging classical paintings by the masters.

Continue reading “Targeted stiffening yields more efficient soft robot arms” »

Traveling to faraway places is a great way to seek out new experiences, but jet lag can be an unpleasant side effect. Adjusting to a new time zone is often accompanied by fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and a host of other problems that can turn an otherwise exciting adventure into a miserable trip.

Jet lag is caused by a difference between the circadian system —the body’s internal clock—and the surrounding environment. Around the turn of the century, scientists began to recognize that the body has multiple internal clocks, calibrated in different ways, and that jet lag-like symptoms can result when these clocks drift out of sync with each other. This can happen in several ways and grows more prevalent with age.

A team of scientists from Northwestern University and the Santa Fe Institute developed a theoretical model to study the interactions between multiple internal clocks under the effects of aging and disruptions like jet lag. The article, “A minimal model of peripheral clocks reveals differential circadian re-entrainment in aging,” appeared in the journal Chaos on Sept. 5, 2023.

A comprehensive review in the journal Cell outlines a unified framework for classifying and validating aging biomarkers, aiming to streamline their integration into clinical research and practice. The study categorizes biomarkers into types like molecular, functional, and clinical, and sets criteria for their feasibility, validity, and applicability, all with the goal of better understanding and intervening in the aging process.

This week in neuroscience, we’ve seen groundbreaking advancements ranging from a diet that can potentially extend lifespan without calorie restriction, to a new drug that could revolutionize obesity treatment.

The Death of Death is an international bestseller by José Cordeiro and David Wood that claims that “death will be optional by 2045” – or even earlier, if more public and private funds are invested in rejuvenation technologies.

Longevity. Technology: Already available in more than 10 languages, the book provides insight into recent exponential advances in AI, tissue regeneration, stem cell treatment, organ printing, cryopreservation and genetic therapies that, say the authors, offer a realistic chance to solve the problem of the aging of the human body for the first time in human history. In fact, the book’s subtitle is The Scientific Possibility of Physical Immortality and its Moral Defense.

Given that until relatively recently, just mentioning the concept of ‘biological immortality’ was enough to raise eyebrows and with most of the opinion that it should be filed away under ‘science fiction’ or ‘charlatanism’. However, longevity science is advancing at an incredible pace and today there are people who no longer wonder if immortality is possible, but when it will be a reality. We sat down with José Luis Corderio PhD to find out more.

Global worming?

Scientists recently revived microscopic creatures frozen for 46,000 years in the Siberian permafrost.

The ancient nematodes, better known as roundworms, are able to shut their bodies down in unsuitable environments — a process called anabiosis.

After a certain age, approximately 40% of people experience some degree of hearing loss. While age-related hearing loss is most prevalent in adults over the age of 65, it can start occurring far earlier than that, when people are in their 40s or 50s.

Despite their widespread use, existing diagnostic techniques might be unable to detect earlier signs of hearing loss, such as the loss of the ability to hear speech in crowded or noisy environments. Some researchers have thus been trying to devise viable techniques to detect subtler forms of hearing loss, so that they can be addressed early, before they are irreparable.

To this end, two neuroscientists at the Rotman Research Institute in Canada have recently been exploring the relationship between effortful listening and eye movements. Their most recent paper, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, suggests eye movements tend to decrease while young adults are placing greater effort in trying to hear speech.

Scientists from the Babraham Institute suggest an alternative connection between diet and aging, based on studies in yeast. Dr. Jon Houseley and his team have published their experiments, demonstrating that healthy aging is achievable through dietary change without restriction by potentially optimizing diet and that ill health is not an inevitable part of the aging process.

Scientists have long known that caloric restriction – intentionally consuming far fewer calories than normal without becoming malnourished – improves health in later life and may even extend life. However, studies in mice show that caloric restriction really needs to be maintained throughout life to achieve this impact, and the health benefits disappear when a normal diet is resumed. Dr. Houseley’s new research conducted in yeast suggests an alternative to calorie restriction can lead to improved health throughout the lifecycle.