The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel: Sci, Space, Tech

Is Aging a Disease That can be Cured?

"It's a repair and maintenance approach to extending the functional life span of a human body. It's just like maintaining the functional life span of a classic car, or a house. We know -- because people do it -- that there is no limit to how long you can do that. Once you have a sufficiently comprehensive panel of interventions to get rid of damage and maintain these things, then, they can last indefinitely. The only reason we don't see that in the human body now is that the panel of interventions we have available to us today is not sufficiently comprehensive."

~ Aubrey de Grey, molecular biologist and author of End of Aging

A Cure for the Common Cold? Geneticists Close to Cracking Code

"We still can't cure the common cold", the rallying cry of anyone trying to belittle progress.  You'll notice that these people don't live in caves, walk to work, die of smallpox or eat anything they caught themselves, but it makes them feel better to complain.  And it makes us feel better to know they may soon be wrong, as a team of genetics researchers target the entire common cold genome.

New Discovery Could Help Halt Alzheimer's

The brain might be the most complicated object in existence, because it is, but we're working our way in one scientific step at a time.  Scientists have scanned the structure of a vital neurological transmitter, blueprinting one more cog in the vast ticking mechanism that makes mankind possible.

The glutamate receptor GluA2 enables communication between neurons, opening an ion channel for charged particles to flow along nervous system connections.  Errors in this essential process are known to play a part in epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease.  A greater understanding of the protein could help prevent these problems.

Human Gene Mutation Creates Resistance to Kuru -A Rare, Violent Epidemic

"It's absolutely fascinating to see Darwinian principles at work here. This community of people has developed their own biologically unique response to a truly terrible epidemic. The fact that this genetic evolution has happened in a matter of decades is remarkable."

Professor John Collinge, Director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Prion Unit 

Photographic Memory In A Pill? New Research Finds Way to Boost Visual Memory

The most interesting upgrades aren't for your computer, your car, or even the internet - they're for you.  We've always tinkered with our own thought processes (using crude equipment like "alcohol" and "regular exercise") but now mankind has the tools and time to tune the system directly, and one team of scientists may make yellow sticky notes obsolete: they've found a way to boost visual memory.

The most interesting upgrades aren't for your computer, your car, or even the internet - they're for you.  We've always tinkered with our own thought processes (using crude equipment like "alcohol" and "regular exercise") but now mankind has the tools and time to tune the system directly, and one team of scientists may make yellow sticky notes obsolete: they've found a way to boost visual memory.

MIT Team Discovers 'Superspeed' Human Brain Programming

The human brain can react and rewire itself to adapt to new situations.  "No duh," you might say, "That's kind of it's job."  But now scientists have recorded the brain adapting far faster than it's physically possible to make new connections, hinting at hidden wiring or some other automatic-interaction system that allows for rapid reprogramming.

Hacking the Most Amazing, Sophisticated System Ever: Us -A Galaxy Classic

Scientists are using lasers to directly control parts of primate brains - and not just the crude Ming the Merciless "Point a laser gun and tell them what to do" method, where initial apparent successes are overshadowed by the way your entire base blows up.

Instead, MIT scientists direct a tightly focused laser pulse onto neurons in primate brains, which is a wonderful way of phrasing it without actually saying "Sawed open monkey skulls."  You can't just poke any old neuron with coherent light to make it dance, though, unless you're prepared to turn up the power and count "burning to death" as a very specific tango.

“Longevity Genes” -Research Reveals Why Some Live Longer

Scientists have long been baffled as to why some people live so much longer than others. Diet and exercise account for some of it, but researchers have found that genetics also factor heavily into the equation, and that long life is somewhat hereditary as it is with living bristlecone pine that were alive when Caesar ruled Rome.

Photographic Memory In A Pill? New Study Finds Way to Boost Visual Memory

The most interesting upgrades aren't for your computer, your car, or even the internet - they're for you.  We've always tinkered with our own thought processes (using crude equipment like "alcohol" and "regular exercise") but now mankind has the tools and time to tune the system directly, and one team of scientists may make yellow sticky notes obsolete: they've found a way to boost visual memory.

Mystery of the 1918 "Spanish Flu" Pandemic: Solved!

 

MIT researchers have explained why two mutations in the H1N1 avian flu virus were critical for viral transmission in humans during the 1918 pandemic outbreak that killed at least 50 million people -believed more than that taken by the Black Death, and higher than the number killed in World War I.

Is Aging a Disease That can be Cured?

"It's a repair and maintenance approach to extending the functional life span of a human body. It's just like maintaining the functional life span of a classic car, or a house. We know -- because people do it -- that there is no limit to how long you can do that. Once you have a sufficiently comprehensive panel of interventions to get rid of damage and maintain these things, then, they can last indefinitely. The only reason we don't see that in the human body now is that the panel of interventions we have available to us today is not sufficiently comprehensive."

~ Aubrey de Grey, molecular biologist and author of End of Aging

A Cure for the Common Cold? Geneticists Close to Cracking Code

"We still can't cure the common cold", the rallying cry of anyone trying to belittle progress.  You'll notice that these people don't live in caves, walk to work, die of smallpox or eat anything they caught themselves, but it makes them feel better to complain.  And it makes us feel better to know they may soon be wrong, as a team of genetics researchers target the entire common cold genome.

New Discovery Could Help Halt Alzheimer's

The brain might be the most complicated object in existence, because it is, but we're working our way in one scientific step at a time.  Scientists have scanned the structure of a vital neurological transmitter, blueprinting one more cog in the vast ticking mechanism that makes mankind possible.

The glutamate receptor GluA2 enables communication between neurons, opening an ion channel for charged particles to flow along nervous system connections.  Errors in this essential process are known to play a part in epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease.  A greater understanding of the protein could help prevent these problems.

Human Gene Mutation Creates Resistance to Kuru -A Rare, Violent Epidemic

"It's absolutely fascinating to see Darwinian principles at work here. This community of people has developed their own biologically unique response to a truly terrible epidemic. The fact that this genetic evolution has happened in a matter of decades is remarkable."

Professor John Collinge, Director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Prion Unit 

Photographic Memory In A Pill? New Research Finds Way to Boost Visual Memory

The most interesting upgrades aren't for your computer, your car, or even the internet - they're for you.  We've always tinkered with our own thought processes (using crude equipment like "alcohol" and "regular exercise") but now mankind has the tools and time to tune the system directly, and one team of scientists may make yellow sticky notes obsolete: they've found a way to boost visual memory.

The most interesting upgrades aren't for your computer, your car, or even the internet - they're for you.  We've always tinkered with our own thought processes (using crude equipment like "alcohol" and "regular exercise") but now mankind has the tools and time to tune the system directly, and one team of scientists may make yellow sticky notes obsolete: they've found a way to boost visual memory.

MIT Team Discovers 'Superspeed' Human Brain Programming

The human brain can react and rewire itself to adapt to new situations.  "No duh," you might say, "That's kind of it's job."  But now scientists have recorded the brain adapting far faster than it's physically possible to make new connections, hinting at hidden wiring or some other automatic-interaction system that allows for rapid reprogramming.

Hacking the Most Amazing, Sophisticated System Ever: Us -A Galaxy Classic

Scientists are using lasers to directly control parts of primate brains - and not just the crude Ming the Merciless "Point a laser gun and tell them what to do" method, where initial apparent successes are overshadowed by the way your entire base blows up.

Instead, MIT scientists direct a tightly focused laser pulse onto neurons in primate brains, which is a wonderful way of phrasing it without actually saying "Sawed open monkey skulls."  You can't just poke any old neuron with coherent light to make it dance, though, unless you're prepared to turn up the power and count "burning to death" as a very specific tango.

“Longevity Genes” -Research Reveals Why Some Live Longer

Scientists have long been baffled as to why some people live so much longer than others. Diet and exercise account for some of it, but researchers have found that genetics also factor heavily into the equation, and that long life is somewhat hereditary as it is with living bristlecone pine that were alive when Caesar ruled Rome.

Photographic Memory In A Pill? New Study Finds Way to Boost Visual Memory

The most interesting upgrades aren't for your computer, your car, or even the internet - they're for you.  We've always tinkered with our own thought processes (using crude equipment like "alcohol" and "regular exercise") but now mankind has the tools and time to tune the system directly, and one team of scientists may make yellow sticky notes obsolete: they've found a way to boost visual memory.

Mystery of the 1918 "Spanish Flu" Pandemic: Solved!

 

MIT researchers have explained why two mutations in the H1N1 avian flu virus were critical for viral transmission in humans during the 1918 pandemic outbreak that killed at least 50 million people -believed more than that taken by the Black Death, and higher than the number killed in World War I.