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Archaeology society votes to ban photos of Indigenous burial offerings
The Southeastern Archaeological Conference (SEAC) announced yesterday it will maintain a new image policy that prohibits its flagship journal from publishing photographs of objects buried with Indigenous ancestors. The decision reflects a vote held on the issue that concluded on 4 December. Many tribes with ties to the U.S. Southeast say seeing such images is a profound spiritual and cultural violation, and that publishing them is exploitative. Critics of SEAC’s new policy say they worry it will infringe on academic freedom and shut down significant areas of research. Thirty of those critics petitioned to...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - December 6, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research

Not all organs age the same. ‘Older’ ones may predict your risk of disease
You’re only as old as you feel, so the adage goes. But new research suggests you may really be as old as your oldest organ. Scientists say they have developed a simple, blood test–based method to measure the speed of aging in individual organs such as the heart and brain. When an organ is substantially “older” than a person’s actual age, the risk of death and diseases related to that part of the body shoots up, the researchers report today in Nature . The team’s findings are compelling, says Daniel Belsky, an epidemiologist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and co...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - December 6, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research

mRNA vaccines may make unintended proteins, but there ’s no evidence of harm
Even after the billions of doses given during the pandemic, messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines still hold surprises. A study out today reveals they may unexpectedly prompt cells to produce small amounts of unintended proteins. There is no evidence that these mistakes compromise the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines, which saved millions of lives, and the researchers have already proposed a fix that may help make future vaccines or drugs based on mRNAs safer and even more effective. Other scientists say there is nothing alarming about the new work, reported today in Nature , and agree that it could help im...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - December 6, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research

Locusts raised in spinning centrifuge have stronger skeletons
This study is kind of a door opener for us,” says Dirks, who hopes the findings will inspire more appreciation for the humble insect exoskeleton. “It’s a wide biological question,” he adds, which goes beyond “just spinning insects.” (Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment)
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - December 6, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research

DNA recovered from polar bear snowprints could shed light on elusive species
Polar bears are tough animals to track. Scientists must brave frigid Arctic landscapes to observe them, if they can spot them at all. And if they want to collect genetic information, they often have to dart and capture the animals—a risky proposition for both researcher and bear. A new approach may lend a paw to such efforts. In two new studies, scientists report that they can identify individual polar bears from the DNA of skin cells left in their snowy pawprints. One of the papers claims the same results in two other elusive animals: lynx and snow leopards. The work could help researchers monitor these and other ...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - December 5, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research

Leading scholarly database listed hundreds of papers from ‘hijacked’ journals
Scopus, a widely used database of scientific papers operated by publishing giant Elsevier, plays an important role as an arbiter of scholarly legitimacy, with many institutions around the world expecting their researchers to publish in journals indexed on the platform. But users beware, a new study warns. As of September, the database listed 67 “hijacked” journals—legitimate publications taken over by unscrupulous operators to make an illicit profit by charging authors fees of up to $1000 per paper. For some of those journals, Scopus had listed hundreds of papers. These ersatz publications represent a tiny frac...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - December 5, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research

Tumor-killing viruses score rare success in late-stage trial
Once touted as the next big thing in cancer therapy, tumor-attacking viruses have been a letdown, failing in multiple clinical trials as far back as 1949. But preliminary results from a small phase 3 study presented at a conference last week suggest these unconventional cancer treatments, known as oncolytic viruses, might work after all. The data showed that an oncolytic virus developed by Irvine, California–based CG Oncology eliminated tumors in 64% of 66 patients with bladder cancer that didn’t respond to mainline treatment. The follow-up period was only 6 months, and much more research is necessary. But even a...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - December 5, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research

Studies that expose bats to SARS-CoV-2 could help gauge future pandemic risks
It’s not easy to work with captive horseshoe bats, as Linfa Wang discovered. In 2005, the molecular virologist wanted to infect the animals with the virus that had caused the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) a few years earlier to find out whether it would evolve to grow well in the bats. Working in a maximum-biosecurity lab, he and his team at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory struggled to feed the small insectivores while wearing full-body protective gear. “We had to fly small worms in front of them while wearing these spacesuits,” recalls Wang, who is now at the Duke-NUS Medical School. I...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - December 4, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research

Trial puts Howard Hughes Medical Institute —and disabled scientists—in the spotlight
In a trial beginning today in Maryland, a jury will consider whether the powerful Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) discriminated against a scientist by terminating her plum investigator award after she became disabled and asked for accommodations. Experts on disability rights say the trial will bring attention to an overlooked and pervasive form of discrimination in science. HHMI says it concerns nothing more than the institute’s right to terminate a scientist whose research didn’t measure up. In 2008, University of Michigan (UM) RNA biologist Vivian Cheung was selected as an HHMI investigator, a coveted po...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - December 4, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research

Al Gore ’s climate watchdog spots rogue emissions
The carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and methane (CH 4 ) that have such palpable effects on climate are frustratingly elusive. Even advanced satellites struggle to pinpoint plumes of the gases, which are the dominant drivers of global warming. Instead, countries assess their emissions by piecing together direct measurements, statistics on agriculture and fossil fuel use, and modeling. This week, at the United Nations’s annual climate change conference in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), countries are presenting those emissions inventories to show whether they have made progress on promised cuts. ...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - December 3, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research

Shock election win by the far right worries academics in the Netherlands
Last week, a day after voters in the Netherlands delivered a surprise victory to far-right parties that have vowed to restrict immigration, Vinod Subramaniam, a nanoscientist and president of the board at the University of Twente, sent a letter to students and employees. “We are concerned about the effects of these results on higher education in general, and about the feelings within our community,” Subramaniam wrote. “As a university, we stand for an open, diverse and inclusive community, looking outwards.” Subramaniam was reacting to the unexpected victory of the Party for Freedom (PVV) led...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - December 1, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research

‘Wherever we’ve looked, we see destruction.’ The Ukraine war’s impact on buried archaeological sites
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began nearly 2 years ago, international observers have verified damage to hundreds of buildings , including museums and more than 150 churches. Now, a team of Ukrainian and U.S. archaeologists is surveying another category of destruction: damage to Ukraine’s archaeological heritage, much of which remains underground, often unexcavated and undocumented. Ukraine’s open steppes, now crisscrossed by lines of trenches and pocked with bomb and artillery craters, gave rise to huge settlements in the early days of farming. The country is the homeland of the Yamnaya, the Bro...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - December 1, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research

‘Toxic bait’ from Indian pitcher plants lures hungry insects to their doom
Pitcher plants in the genus Nepenthes thrive in places where they shouldn’t. There’s very little nitrogen in the Southeast Asian and Australian soils where they grow—but they do just fine, thanks to a macabre source for this essential nutrient: the dissolved flesh of small animals, mostly insects, that slip into their bulbous traps. A new study suggests why Nepenthes is so effective at catching its victims: It produces a sweet nectar containing a potent neurotoxin that could make them lose their balance at the pitcher’s edge. The work, published as a preprint on bioRxiv th...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - November 30, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research

Climate crisis sparks effort to coax oceans to suck up carbon dioxide
Standing on the aft deck of a modified 13-meter fishing boat in Halifax Harbour, Dariia Atamanchuk gazes at both a cause of the climate crisis and, she hopes, part of the solution. On the nearby shore, three red-and-white-striped smokestacks rise like enormous barber poles, funneling carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) from a natural gas–fueled power plant into the pale morning sky. At the seawall in front of the plant, seawater used to cool its piping flows into the harbor. Normally that water runs clear. But today, the outflow roils in a pink froth, like a cauldron of Pepto Bismol. “Ooh, that’s very milky,” sa...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - November 30, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research

Amid Congo ’s deadliest mpox outbreak, a new worry: virus has become sexually transmissible
Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was experiencing its largest, most deadly outbreak of mpox ever, with more than 12,000 suspected cases so far this year and nearly 600 deaths, far surpassing those from the global outbreak of the same viral disease over the past 2 years. The WHO report and a study out today also explore a worrisome possibility: that the strain of virus in the DRC, far deadlier than the one that drove the global outbreak, is in some cases spreading between sexual partners. Originally known as monkeypox, the disease is caused by a vi...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - November 30, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research