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Domain: salk.edu
Stories and comments across the archive that link to salk.edu.
Stories · 2
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Experimental Drug Targeting Alzheimer's Disease Shows Anti-Aging Effects (nextbigfuture.com)
schwit1 writes with news that researchers at the Salk Institute have found that an experimental drug candidate aimed at combating Alzheimer's disease has a host of unexpected anti-aging effects in animals. Says the article: The Salk team expanded upon their previous development of a drug candidate, called J147, which takes a different tack by targeting Alzheimer's major risk factor–old age. In the new work, the team showed that the drug candidate worked well in a mouse model of aging not typically used in Alzheimer's research. When these mice were treated with J147, they had better memory and cognition, healthier blood vessels in the brain and other improved physiological features.
"Initially, the impetus was to test this drug in a novel animal model that was more similar to 99 percent of Alzheimer's cases," says Antonio Currais, the lead author and a member of Professor David Schubert's Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at Salk. "We did not predict we'd see this sort of anti-aging effect, but J147 made old mice look like they were young, based upon a number of physiological parameters." -
It Came From Beyond ... In Buckyballs!
ooky writes: "Scientists at NASA have claimed to have found conclusive proof that gases from outside the solar system can arrive on Earth (and other planets, presumably) in neat little buckyball cages! They've found a type of helium 3 that does not exist (nor, presumably, has ever existed) in our solar system in these fullerene packages, deposited in a layer around the Earth dating from the 65 MYBP dino-killing asteroid collision. Some of our own atmosphere may have arrived this way during the Age of Bombardment! For more info on buckyballs and what they are, see here and here." The article is boundingly enthusiastic rather than the least bit skeptical, so take it with a few mols of (fullerinzed) sodium chloride. Still ...