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Osteopenia is a common but often overlooked condition that causes bones to become less dense and more fragile. Because it develops silently, many people only discover they have it after a fracture or bone scan. Aging, menopause, poor diet, and inactivity can all contribute to bone loss. Fortunately, exercise, adequate calcium and vitamin D, and other healthy habits can slow or even partially reverse the decline.

What if consciousness isn’t limited to brains like ours? Philosophers Eric Schwitzgebel and Jeremy Pober argue that consciousness could arise in many different forms of life, even in beings built from radically different materials than those found on Earth. Drawing on the vastness of the universe and the likely existence of countless alien civilizations, they suggest it would be surprisingly Earth-centric to assume that only Earth-like biology can support conscious experience.

Scientists have discovered a tiny group of neurons in an ancient brain region that acts like a built-in focus filter, helping the brain ignore distractions and zero in on what matters most. When researchers temporarily switched off these neurons in mice, the animals became unusually distractible—similar to what is seen in ADHD—but regained normal focus as soon as the neurons were reactivated.

Scientists have uncovered a surprising new twist in what happens when cells die. As dying cells break apart, they leave behind tiny “footprints of death” packed with newly discovered particles that help guide the immune system to clean up the remains. But researchers found that influenza viruses can exploit this process, hiding inside these microscopic packages and potentially using them to spread to nearby cells.

Investigation finds problems in a key clinical trial that critics said was too good to be true

Analysis of fossil proteins deepens mystery of the enigmatic Homo naledi

CONCLUSION: Aging is associated with simplified muscle synergies and strengthened coactivation, which helps preserve stability under cognitive load but elevates energetic cost. These findings demonstrate that cognitive interference strengthens the coupling between neuromuscular organization and energetic expenditure, identifying synergy entropy and dual-task energy cost as potential targets for monitoring and improving mobility in older adults.

Aging is frequently associated with a progressive loss of physiological integrity, with immunosenescence and chronic inflammation playing pivotal roles in this process. While natural compounds like Dihydromyricetin (DHM) exhibit significant anti-aging potential, its precise upstream immunomodulatory targets and cross-species conservation remain largely elusive. Through a combination of transcriptomic analyses and cross-species assays, we demonstrated that DHM systematically downregulates basal...

As the population ages, the issue of falls among the elderly is becoming increasingly prominent, and balance dysfunction is one of the main risk factors for falls. Accurately assessing balance function in older adults and elucidating its underlying neural mechanisms holds significant clinical importance for predicting fall risk and developing personalized interventions. In recent years, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), as a non-invasive brain imaging technology, has demonstrated...

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) is essential for maintaining intracellular protein homeostasis, and growing evidence indicates that its dysregulation critically contributes to the onset and progression of various CVDs, particularly in the context of aging. Among these, ubiquitin-specific proteases (USPs) have emerged as promising therapeutic targets, but their precise roles and regulatory mechanisms...

Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) describes the proliferation of blood cell clones that carry driver mutations, such as DNA methyltransferase 3 alpha (DNMT3A), ten-eleven translocation 2 (TET2), additional sex combs like 1 (ASXL1), and Janus kinase 2 (JAK2), without leading to any obvious malignancy. Its occurrence rate is age-related and associated with cardiovascular and immune aging. In prospective cohort studies, CHIP substantially elevated the risk of myocardial...

Magma convection is a mechanism that greatly enhances heat transfer from mobilizable, crystal-poor magma bodies to the surrounding immobile, crystal-rich mush reservoir of Earth's igneous systems. As most of these systems are geophysically shown to be mush-dominated, magma convection is often omitted from thermo-kinetic models, and its role in magma evolution and eruptibility remains underexplored. Here we present 2-D numerical thermal modelling that parameterizes magma convection through a...

Overcoming interfacial mechano-electrochemical failure remains a fundamental challenge in solid-state lithium metal batteries, where polymers offer conformal interfacial contact but suffer from low ionic conductivity, while oxides/sulfides provide high ionic conductivity but face severe interfacial issues. Here we show a mechano-integrated gradient electrolyte based on a hydrogen-bonded polyurethane matrix with dual chain extenders. The polyurethane matrix exhibits high viscoelasticity (>5000%...

Stimulator of interferon genes (STING) is an evolutionary conserved immune signalling protein with key roles in host defence, cancer, senescence and inflammation^(1-3). Downstream of STING, type I interferon, inflammatory cytokine signalling and non-canonical autophagy are governed by a multilayered mechanism integrating ligand-induced structural transitions, protein-protein interactions and coordinated intracellular trafficking^(4-13). Despite its central role in immunity and relevance as...

Hippocampal theta oscillations coordinate computations underlying learning and memory. The frequency of theta varies with factors such as locomotion and anxiety, but the effect of an animal's sleep history on theta frequency remains unknown. Using long-duration CA1 recordings in rats, we found that awake theta frequency progressively decreases following sleep but remains elevated during sleep deprivation. These changes were not accounted for by movement but were predicted by the proportion of...

The dynamics of stem cell maintenance and proliferative patterns are key determinants of tissue aging in multicellular organisms. Leveraging our previously developed SMALT system with enhanced sequencing compatibility, we performed longitudinal lineage tracing of the adult Drosophila melanogaster midgut across different developmental stages. Using ubiquitous Tubulin-GAL4-driven labeling, we first profiled midgut-wide clonal dynamics during early adulthood (3-33 days post-eclosion). Phylogenetic...

Mitochondrial stress activates nuclear transcriptional programs to restore homeostasis and promote longevity; yet, the nuclear effector that directly reshapes chromatin during stress remains unclear. Through a forward genetic screen in Caenorhabditis elegans, we identify FUBL-3, the homolog of human far-upstream elements binding protein 1 (FUBP1), as a conserved regulator that couples mitochondrial stress to chromatin remodeling. FUBL-3 translocates to intestinal nuclei upon stress, where it...

Germline deletions of UDP-glycosyltransferase (UGT) UGT2B17 and UGT2B28 genes are common in human populations, yet their association with aging remains unclear. In this exploratory study, we analyzed data from 12,934 participants, mostly Caucasian, in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) to assess cross-sectional and prospective associations between UGT deficiencies and aging-related health outcomes, including mortality, multimorbidity, allostatic load, disease burden and...

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings showed that age, gender, experience, attitudes toward aging, and wisdom were related to attitudes toward dementia. This evidence could serve as a guide of practical implications in stigma-reduction campaigns, dementia education, and policy reform.

CONCLUSION: The findings indicate a high burden of self-reported chronic health problems and functional dependency among older adults in a hilly municipality of Nepal. Marital status, smoking, and physical activity were significantly associated with chronic illness, while age and chronic illness were significantly associated with ADL dependency. These results highlight the need for community-based geriatric screening and targeted behavioural interventions to improve health status among older...