Aging Matters
Sex is so important to the health of a breeding community that natural selection has arranged to encourage everyone to participate. There’s a conflict here, because the selfish gene does not want to share. The strongest and most fertile individuals–anyone who has an advantage in the present environment–is tempted not to dilute her genes by … Read more
I like to think about chromosomes as Torah scrolls in the Arc of the cell nucleus. As the Torah contains the germ of all Jewish law, the chromosomes are repositories of all the information that the cell uses to do its business. Like the Torah, the chromosome is a copy of a copy of a … Read more
CRISPR is a two-year old technology developed at Berkeley, Harvard Stem Cell Inst and elsewhere, that is making genetic engineering faster, simpler, and more accurate in the lab. Last year, they figured out how to insert and delete genes. This year there are methods for repressing and perhaps promoting genes (epigenetically, without modifying the genome) … Read more
Good quality sleep, 6-8 hours per night but not more, is statistically associated with longevity. Is there a causal connection? Experiments with rats and data from people doing shift work suggests that yes, there is. But how to get good sleep, and even what good sleep means varies widely from one person to the next. … Read more
Just this past Spring, Tony Wyss-Coray of Stanford demonstrated that infusions of blood plasma from young mice can make old mice grow new brain tissue. Others have demonstrated benefits for muscle and liver health. The old mice are healthier, smarter, better healers for the infusion of hormones and dissolved factors (not blood cells) from the … Read more