A Compound To Let You Stay Young Longer

Scientists have identified a compound that may delay the aging processes and prevent Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. As we live longer and longer, a lot of people are occupied with their state of health and, not least, quality of life in old age. However, none of the existing explanations are able to explain all the biological aspects of human aging. Previous research has shown that a main process in aging is the capacity of the cells to keep our genes, our DNA, more of less intact. However, changes in the cells’ power stations, the mitochondria, also affect aging processes. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the National Institute of Health in the US have shown that the coenzyme NAD+ bridges the gap between two main aging theories – repairs to the DNA and poor functioning mitochondria. This study shows an age dependent decrease in the level of NAD+, and this decrease is far greater for organisms with early aging and a lack of DNA repairs. Adding NAD+ postponed both the aging processes of the cells and extended life in worms and in a mouse model. The researchers bred mice and roundworm with the illness Ataxia telangiectasia (A-T) for the purpose of the study. In A-T patients, the part of the brain that is responsible for coordination gradually degenerates, DNA repairs are lacking, and they experience other symptoms characteristic of early aging. This new study stresses that NAD+ plays a main role both in maintaining the health of the mitochondria and in their capacity for repairing the genes.

Docs Separate Twins Joined At The Head In 20-Hour Operation

Forty medical experts at a New York hospital on 14 October successfully separated conjoined twins attached at the head after a 20 hour procedure. Officials at Montefiore Medical Centre in the Bronx said the 13 month old boys, Jadon and Anias McDonald, were recovering from the marathon surgery. Their mother Nicole McDonald said the atmosphere at the hospital was one of celebration mixed with uncertainty. She said Jadon did better than Anias during the procedure, adding that doctors predicted the former might not be able to move part of his body at first. The operation was led by pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Oren Tepper. In 2004, Goodrich also successfully separated Carl and Clarence Aguirre and a half dozen other sets of twins from around the world.

1st Drone Delivery Service For Blood

Rwanda has launched a national level delivery program that will allow blood and plasma to be flown to health clinics across the country by drones. It’s considered the world’s first commercial delivery service using drones. The poor road conditions have often delayed delivery of medical supplies to the rural western part of the county by hours and sometimes even days. Recode.net reports that the program has been launched in collaboration with California based drone startup Zipline, shipping company UPS Foundation and Gavi, a vaccine fund backed by Bill Gates. The Rwandan government is paying for the service, which costs about the same as the motorbike blood deliveries the country relies on today. Zipline itself is a private company that includes among its investors Microsoft co-founder Paul Alien and Yahoo founder Jerry Yang.  CNN Money reported that earlier it took an average of four hours to make an emergency delivery to a hospital. With a drone, those can be completed in 15 minutes, according to Jean Philbert Nsengimana, Rwanda’s minister of information and communication technology. In certain cases it was really bad. Roads could become impassable during the rainy season, slowing vital deliveries from the National Centre for Blood Transfusion.

Soon, Google Maps For The Body

Scientists launched a global initiative on 14 October to map out and describe every cell in the human body in a vast atlas that could transform researchers understanding of human development and disease. The atlas, which is likely to take more than a decade to complete, aims to chart the types and properties of all human cells across all tissues and organs and build a reference map of the healthy human body. Cells are fundamental to understanding the biology of all health and disease, but scientists cannot yet say how many we have, how many different types there are, or how they differ from one organ to another. The human cell atlas initiative is the beginning of a new era of cellular understanding. Researchers will discover new cell types, find how cells change across time during development and disease, and gain a better understanding of biology. The project is currently led by a team from the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard in the United States, the Sanger Institute and Wellcome Trust in Britain. The plan is for research teams and funder worldwide to collaborate. By making the atlas – essentially a vast database of cellular detail – freely available to scientists the world over, the scientists hope to transform research into human development and the progression of diseases such as asthma, Alzheimer’s and cancer. The human body is made of trillions of cells – the fundamental units of life – which divide, grow and take on distinct functions in embryo, eventually leading to different cell types such as skin cells, neutrons or fat cells. Until recently, scientific knowledge of cells has been limited to what can be found out by looking at them under microscopes, or by genetically analyzing clumps of hundreds or thousands of cells and finding their average properties. But technological advances in field known as single cell genomics means researchers can now separate individual cells from different tissues and organs, analyze their properties and measure and describe which molecules are produced in each.