Two things happen when you get old: one… your memory goes, two… can’t remember This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Imagine your aging brain as a vintage sports car: engine’s fine, but not very fast. Why? The protein HDAC3 is an emergency brake pruning memory
Continue reading
It’s thymus time, baby! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. The thymus is an organ that produces immune cells during childhood. But it is largely unimportant in adulthood. Or so we thought! Enter Simon Bernatz and team from Mass General Brigham. They wanted to see
Continue reading
Vote your conscience, or vote your… amygdala!? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Voting can give people a sense of purpose and strengthen community ties. But what about better health? Enter Femida Handy and Sara Konrath from University of Pennsylvania and Indiana University. They examined
Continue reading
Aging rewrites immune systems, but is nature giving men and women entirely different scripts? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Maria Sopena-Rios from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center studied immune cells from nearly a thousand adults. The plot twist? Older women develop hyper-alert, inflammatory cells. This
Continue reading
Want to age like fine wine? Don’t turn up the heat! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Rising temperatures don’t just melt glaciers. They stress our bodies, specifically gut and immune systems. Heat also warms the ocean waters, which fuels growth of deadly waterborne bacteria.
Continue reading
Medicine from SOUND? That’s music to my ears. This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. How will non-medication dementia treatments, like music listening, play out? This challenge struck a chord with Naomi Thompson and team from Anglia Ruskin University. At dementia-specialized care centers, music therapists trained staff
Continue reading
Hold on! What’s this say…? Oh! It says “I’m Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.” Whoof. Getting old is hard on your eyes. But! Alexandra Bernardo-Colón and team at the National Eye Institute just might keep blindness at bay. Aging and disease cause the death of eye
Continue reading
Oh yeah, feel that beat, brainy! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. The blood vessels in your brain expand and contract to the beat of your heart. This is called arterial pulsation and it’s measured to study heart health. But! Methods for measuring it are
Continue reading
Friends don’t let friends… get wrinkly??? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Friendships are one of life’s joys, but could they also slow aging? Dr. Anthony Ong and team at Cornell studied over two thousand middle-aged adults to find out. They compared bloodwork to biological
Continue reading
Is the fountain of youth… filled with naked mole-rats? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. For ages, we’ve been slathering creams and botox on our wrinkles. But naked mole-rats? They stay smooth while living ten times longer than lab mice! How?! Yu Chen’s team at
Continue reading