Scientists Develop Drug That Reverses Aging in Mice

Update: Here is a better article on the subject

Ageing into a miserably ill life, supported by crutches, healthcare and families, would be a thing of the past if scientists find the right human application for a “forever young” drug that has emerged in a Harvard University laboratory.

According to the findings of a research carried out by Dr Ronald DePinho, recently carried by well-known journal Nature, the drug that offers eternal youth as read about in folklores and mythology, could be experimented on human beings in the near future.

It would allow longer and healthier lives, free from debilitating illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, heart disease, or cancer. Such a drug would give skin and hair their youthful lustre, reported Daily Mail.

The scenario seem to be straight out of the Brad Pitt-starrer The Curious Case of Bejamin Button, in which he ages in reverse by getting younger by the year until he looks youthful.

The breakthrough centres around structures called telemores that are tiny biological clocks that cap ends of chromosomes, protecting them from damage.

Over time, the telemores get shorter and raise the odds of age-related diseases. At one point, they become so short that the cells die. This enzyme called telomerase is proven to have capacity to rebuild the telomere caps.

According to the report, Dr DePinho succeeded in “shocking” the enzyme back to life.

In the first major experiment with the drug, Dr DePinho reserved ageing on mice. From what looked like brains, skin, guts and other organs that resembled those of a 80-year-old person, the mice got younger after being administered with the experimental drug.

All that needed was just two months of being the enzyme for the mice to grow younger. They had by then re-grown so many degenerated cells.

In what was termed as remarkable, a male mouse transformed from infertility to fathering large litters, the report said.
“By 2025 we are going to have 1.2billion people aged over 60, which is when you start to see cancer, Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular disease. We are on a collision course for a significant amount of burden to society. This is the first time that ageing has been reversed,” Dr DePinho was quoted as saying.

Source: Emirates 24 7 Lifestyle

The Scientific Method

I came across this very simple flow chart which clearly shows the basics of the scientific method. A surprisingly few number of people actually know the components that make up the method that is the source of all that we know.

Tesla Motors - Roadster and Model S

Tesla Motors has developed two fully electric cars that look amazing and perform superbly. The Roadster is an electric sports car that can do 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds, 245 miles per charge and a top speed of over 130 m/ph. Breaking the trend for electric cars, the roadster actually looks like a high powered sports car and can rival top conventional petrol powered sports cars on the track. With 0 emissions and less than 2p per mile it is the greenest production sports car in the world.

For us mere mortals who cannot afford the Roadster, Tesla now have the option of purchasing the Model S which is very impressive also. It does 0 to 60 in just 5.6 seconds and has a range of 300 miles per charge. It is a stylish saloon with all the modern trimmings one would expect with the addition of a 17” touch panel display.

If households switch their electricity suppliers to 100% renewable suppliers and start to purchase these electric cars then we could see a dramatic decline in our impact on the environment without losing any of the fun and freedom that comes with owning and driving cars.

It would be good to see Tesla start to produce commercial vehicles. An electric van that can do say 500 miles per charge at a cost of less than 2 pence a mile would prove too tempting to pass up for many businesses.

Visit www.teslamotors.com and check out the Roadster and Model S

Microsoft XBOX Kinect Hacked

The new XBOX 360 Kinect device has already been ported to Ubuntu. The open source community has developed open source drivers for Linux. It is an impressive piece of hardware that has so much potential. Opening it up to the open source community means that the technology can be put to use in so many new ways.

Latest Solid State Disks

Solid state disks are still coming down in price. The OCZ vertex 2E for example has a max read of 285mb/s and a max write of 275mb/s and is only £99 or less for the 60GB version. This means for under £400 you can have 240GB running at at least 700+ mb/s average throughput if you configure 4 of them in RAID 0.