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Amid growing investment in the field, a new paper argues it rests on shaky foundations

Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world and is a rich source of caffeine, a methylxanthine. Here we show that exposure to caffeine significantly reduces ionizing radiation (IR) induced DNA breaks and resulted in no or minimal G2/M arrest within the human cell, in contrast to IR alone. At the molecular level, we demonstrate that when naked plasmid DNA or oligomeric DNA was irradiated, the number of breaks was significantly less in the presence of caffeine. The observed...

Healthspan, the disease-free period of life, has become a central focus in aging research. Cuscuta chinensis seed and Eucommia ulmoides bark extracts, two traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) remedies, have shown promising healthspan-extending effects in Caenorhabditis elegans. In this study, RNA-seq analysis of aged worms treated with these extracts revealed significant transcriptomic alterations. Gene ontology and KEGG pathway analyses indicated upregulation of genes involved in immune defense,...

Aging is associated with skeletal muscle weakness and oxidative stress. Here, we hypothesized that aging may lead to alterations in adrenoceptor (AR)-dependent regulation of muscle contractility. These changes can aggravate muscle contractile dysfunction and correlate with redox disturbances. Glycolytic extensor digitorum longus (EDL) and oxidative soleus muscles from young adult (3 months), middle-aged (12 months), and old (24 months) mice were used. Contractile responses were elicited by...

CONCLUSION: The study highlights the gradual loss of the significant directed causal connections between the control and motor networks in different stages of PD. The governing influence of control network over the motor and attentional networks diminishes, leading to the isolation of the somatomotor network. The ability of TPDC-derived features to distinguish prodromal from Parkinson's patients underscores its value for identifying potential biomarkers of disease onset and progression.

In human populations, cognitive performance in early life has been identified as a strong predictor of future dementia risk. If cognitive ability were a stable trait across the adult lifespan of mice, then this species would provide an excellent framework for understanding the biology underlying this modifiable risk factor. To address this issue, longitudinal cognitive testing was performed in female C57BL/6J mice aged between 4 and 18 months of age. By tracking individuals, we were able to...

Entropy, a measure of disorder and randomness, is an essential feature of thermodynamics, chemistry, and information theory, but there has been little study of entropy in human aging. Entropy arises from random molecular interactions or other forms of damage and will manifest at all levels of human biology. It should also progress in concert across many systems and increase the risk of numerous aging-related conditions. Illustrating these principles, research by Hong in this issue of Aging Cell...

Science, Volume 390, Issue 6774, November 2025.