Link: How accurate are age-at-death estimates for older adults?
IEEE Spectrum covers a new research study looking at the accuracy of a method for determining the age-at-death of skeletal remains: “Errors Found in Forensic...
All posts tagged with aging
Cynthia Kenyon profile
The Guardian has a profile interview with aging researcher Cynthia Kenyon: “Cynthia Kenyon: ‘The idea that ageing was subject to control was completely unexp...
Denisova APOE status
I got thinking this evening about APOE, which includes a very well-known polymorphism of three alleles, where the most ancient (ApoE4) is associated signific...
114-year-olds are not mutants!
Alexis Madrigal for the Atlantic: “The Surprisingly Mundane Genetic ‘Secrets’ of Earth’s Oldest People”.
Sequence the old, fast
The Archon Genomics X Prize is a $10 million contest to see what company or organization can develop a low-cost accurate sequencing technology. The AP’s Malc...
Chimp brains don't shrink with age
The Wall Street Journal reported on Chet Sherwood’s work late last month: “Brain Shrinkage: It’s Only Human”.
Membership has its privileges
A new paper in PNAS by Erik Trinkaus covers the mortality patterns of old versus young adults in Neandertals, early modern humans in the Levant and early Upp...
Robot geriatrics
Coming soon: elderly cyborg farmers?
Human lifespans have not been constant for the last 2000 years
Few things are worse than a skeptic sloppy about checking his facts. For example, the “Bad Science” feature of LiveScience claims that we’re not getting any ...
Bigger brains, more cancer?
Rachael Rettner reports on a hypothesis that human cancer risk may be a side-effect of brain evolution. The hypothesis emerges from studies of gene expressio...
Worm longevity and the germline
Nicholas Wade writes about experiments that link germline gene regulation to life extension in C. elegans:
Bottle gray
According to this press release, gray hair in aging people is the result of a hydrogen peroxide metabolism gone haywire:
Human evolution stopping? Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I’m usually pretty measured when I respond to dumb ideas about evolution reported in the press. After all, scientists are often misquoted, or misunderstood b...
"Wellderly" and "Illderly" study
I meant to point out this news article when it came out earlier this month. It’s a short description of a Scripps-Venter initiative to sequence 2000 healthy ...
Hunter-gatherer mortality
Kim Hill and colleagues (2007) report in the current Journal of Human Evolution on the mortality profile of recent Hiwi hunter-gatherers. Here is their abst...
Aging, telomeres, cancer and body mass
FuturePundit points me to a study of telomerase expression in mice. Here's the abstract:
Genetics and lifespan
The New York Times is carrying an article by Gina Kolata that discusses research on genetics and longevity. She has quotes from several big figures in the f...
How Hamilton mathed up senescence
This is one of the most beautiful openings to a paper, ever:
Death of the frail
I found this quote from Vaupel et al. (2003) very interesting:
"You either work at the bench, or you don't work at the bench."
Here's some timeless advice for anyone:
She who spins the thread
The gene's name is Klotho, the nicest of the three Fates. Science is reporting on a not-yet-available-to-me-at-least article about this gene, which affects ...
Appendix appendix
Carl Zimmer (The Loom) is back from appendicitis, and has a Times article on ... appendicitis!
Gene expression in aging humans and chimpanzee brains
A paper by Hunter Fraser and colleagues (2005) in PLoS Biology describes a survey of gene expression in the cortex of humans and chimpanzees and the cerebel...
Prove Aubrey de Grey is a nut, win $20,000
MIT Technology Review is offering a prize to any researcher in biogerontology who can write an essay demonstrating why Aubrey de Grey's SENS project is unwo...