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Quantifying placebo and trial participation effects on cognitive outcome measures in aging dogs
The placebo effect, or the positive effects observed after an inert treatment which result from patients' expectations for the therapy, is well documented in human medicine. However, in veterinary medicine, where owner's expectations serve as a proxy for their pets, it remains underexplored, particularly for elderly dogs with cognitive decline. To address this gap, we examined 21 dogs (mean age: 12.85 years, SD: 1.46) from a placebo group in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) and compared their...
Future heat-related mortality in Europe driven by compound day-night heatwaves and demographic shifts
Anthropogenic climate change is driving summer heat toward more humid conditions, accompanied by more frequent day-night compound heat extremes (high temperatures during both day and night). As the fast-warming and aging continent, Europe faces escalating heat-related health risks. Here, we projected future heat-related mortality in Europe using a distributed lag nonlinear model that incorporates humid heat and compound heat extremes, strengthened by a health risk-based definition of extreme...
ApaH decaps Np<sub>4</sub>N-capped RNAs in two alternative orientations
Enigmatic dinucleoside tetraphosphates, known as 'alarmones' (Np(4)Ns), have recently been shown to function in bacteria as precursors to Np(4) caps on transcripts, likely influencing RNA longevity and cellular adaptation to stress. In proteobacteria, ApaH is the predominant enzyme that hydrolyzes Np(4)Ns and decaps Np(4)-capped RNAs to initiate their 5'-end-dependent degradation. Here we conducted a biochemical and structural study to uncover the catalytic mechanism of Escherichia coli ApaH, a...
Oxytocin Enhances Demethylation Through TET Enzyme Expression in Neurons of Aged Mice: Oxytocin as a Potential Antiaging Peptide
While it is well-documented that plasma oxytocin (OXT) levels decline with age, the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. This study aimed to elucidate the physiological mechanisms contributing to this age-related decrease in plasma OXT and the possible use of OXT supplementation on improving age-related decline of neural function. Comparing young (9 weeks) and aged (> 45 weeks) mice, aged mice showed reduced plasma OXT levels, an increase in the inflammation marker hs-CRP, and decreased...
Sustained benefits of long-term biochar application for food security and climate change mitigation
Biochar application offers significant potential to enhance food security and mitigate climate change. However, most evidence stems from short-term field experiments (≤3 y), leaving uncertainty about the long-term sustainability of these benefits, especially with annual biochar additions to soils. To address this knowledge gap, we analyzed a global dataset from 438 studies (3,229 observations) and found that long-term annual biochar application (≥4 y) not only sustains but often enhances its...
Searching for a Potential Blue Zone in the Nordics: A Study on Differences in Lifestyle and Health in Regions Varying in Longevity in Western Finland
To delay social and healthcare utilisation among the ageing population, there is an increasing focus on the role of health-promoting lifestyle adopted at an individual and/or community level. Longevity is generally viewed as the ultimate outcome of health, although a high life expectancy does not necessarily go together with health and/or a health-promoting lifestyle. The potential coherence between longevity, health and lifestyle may vary in different cultural, political, social and economic...
Hexokinase regulates Mondo-mediated longevity via the PPP and organellar dynamics
The transcriptional complex Mondo/Max-like, MML-1/MXL-2, acts as a convergent transcriptional regulatory output of multiple longevity pathways in Caenorhabditis elegans. These transcription factors coordinate nutrient sensing with carbohydrate and lipid metabolism across the evolutionary spectrum. While most studies have focused on the downstream outputs, little is known about the upstream inputs that regulate these transcription factors in a live organism. Here, we found that knockdown of...
Associations of Skin Biomechanical Properties With Biological Aging Clocks and Longitudinal Changes in Intrinsic Capacity in Adults Aged 20-93: The INSPIRE-T Project
Evidence connecting skin aging to functional decline and systemic aging biomarkers is lacking. This study investigated how skin-aging biomechanics were associated with changes in intrinsic capacity (IC), a marker of healthy aging. We also explored their links with biological aging clocks (epigenetic and inflammatory clocks) and potential moderating effects on the skin-IC relationship. Baseline skin elasticity and viscoelasticity were measured in 441 INSPIRE-T participants aged 20 to 93 (59.9%...
Daily briefing: Political officials could control US federal science grants
How Indigenous values permeate my chemistry teaching and research
Six questions to ask before jumping into a spreadsheet
How does agricultural land become forest? I trek to find out
Catalytic enantioselective synthesis of alkylidenecyclopropanes
Author Correction: A virtual rodent predicts the structure of neural activity across behaviours
Author Correction: RNA codon expansion via programmable pseudouridine editing and decoding
Death threats to NIH official spark debate over aggressive campaign to end animal research
White Coat Waste Project files complaint over government employee’s emails claiming it incited harassment against Nicole Kleinstreuer
New method reveals perhaps the most massive black hole yet spotted
Big brute 5 billion light-years from Earth is 36 billion times as massive as the Sun
NIH ponders overhauling HIV budget to capitalize on prevention breakthrough
Scientists warn $1 billion push for “implementation science” spurred by promise of lenacapavir will hurt research on new treatments and vaccines
The role of hemoglobin/red cell distribution width value in predicting early major adverse events after open heart surgery in elderly patients
CONCLUSION: In this study, we showed for the first time in the literature that the HRR value calculated from preoperative blood values is a key predictor for in-hospital MAE. In these patients, the HRR value can be used as a preoperative risk biomarker.
Analysis of variability and epigenetic age prediction across microarray and methylation sequencing technologies
Using 100 technical replicate samples from two adult buccal cohorts, we compared technical methylation variability and signal strength between the Infinium MethylationEPIC v2.0 array and the Twist Human Methylome Panel across 753,648 shared CpGs. Twist methylation sequencing showed skewed methylation distributions and fewer highly correlated CpGs than MethylationEPIC arrays. Variance analysis revealed a skew toward higher signal strength in MethylationEPIC datasets, with a subset of CpGs showing...