The Pokѐ Cave

Biologists Slow the Aging Process in Fruit Flies: Study has Implications for Humans

Summary:

Scientists discovered a new gene (and found a way to manipulate it), called PGC-1. It’s so incredible because it makes the mitochondria in our body more active. Mitochondria  is in charge of supplying energy for all of our cellular functions, and if the mitochondria die, so do the rest of our cells basically.

The biologists put PGC-1 into the intestines of fruit flies, and discovered it increased their life span by 50%, but the gene is not yet manipulable or stable enough for humans yet. Since aging is the #1 cause of most diseases, if we slow/stop aging, people would rarely get sick anymore.

Why it interested me:

For a long time, I’ve been studying Aubry De Grey’s work. Aubry is a scientist who specializes in aging, and he wrote an entire book (that I’ve read) about what causes aging and how to prevent and stop it. I’m in love with everything that has to do with that, and finding yet another way to slow aging makes me incredibly excited, because with all these new discoveries, we’re not far from actually stopping aging.

Science News Current Event                                                                         

Title: Terrestrial Biodiversity Recovered Faster After Permo-Triassic Extinction Than Previously Believed

Date: Oct 10th, 2011

Summary (8-10 sentences)

We all (or some of us) know about the extinction of dinosaurs.Mainly the mass extinction that happened between the Permian and Triassic period. Recently, two researchers found data that could very well contradict most theories about what caused that extinction.

Previously, the terrestrial biodiversity was believed to take 15-30 million years to recover, but a scientist found terrestrialbiodiversity that recovered in just five million years. During a smart-people meeting, theories were exchanged. Some people thought that insteadof being spread out over the terrestrial realm severely, reprecussions may have taken less time than just the marine realm.

Since the study suggested that the reprecussions didn’t take as long as the marine realm, it makes sense to say that extinction–which took place about 251 million years ago–was caused by events that effected ALL life, globally.

What you found most interesting about the article and why (4-6 sentences)

When you think about dinosaurs and their extinction, it’s easy to think of it as something simple and rounded, events happening somewhat smoothly, right? Well, what I found fascinating was that modern research today can prove some of that wrong. Though this in specific doesn’t quite have the magnitude to “change textbooks”, it opened the door to be able to do that in the future. This proves that not only does the biodiversity recovery rate was falsely collected, but other things could possibly be wrong to. We could be wrong about so much more than just that.