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First study of how drugs affect behavior of fish in the wild adds to concerns about chemical exposure

Despite missing his entire upper beak, Bruce the kea is winning at life

Double-stranded nucleic acids can undergo transitions from canonical B/A-forms to alternate left-handed Z-DNA/Z-RNA (Z-NAs). Z-NAs are implicated in processes such as neuroinflammation in Alzheimer's disease, Lupus Erythematosus, microbial biofilms, and type I interferon-mediated human pathologies. Since endogenous Z-NA sensors like the Zα domain can induce B-to-Z transitions, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) Z-D11 and Z22 have been regarded as conformation-specific tools to confirm Z-NA in situ,...

Skeletal muscle is a fundamental tissue as it is found throughout the body, sustains posture, and produces movement. Yet, skeletal muscle disorders, such as myopathies, affect a large percentage of the population, degrading an individual's quality of life. A recent study links myopathy progression to the decline in chaperone-mediated autophagy that occurs during aging. Underscoring the importance of a balanced CMA pathway in maintaining skeletal muscle function and integrity, the study also...

In an ever-changing environment, the ability to adapt behavior based on feedback is a crucial skill. Although this process is assumed to decline with age, initial evidence suggests that emotional information processing may help buffer against these age-related impairments. We therefore conducted a probabilistic learning task with emotional faces in two varying emotional intensities (weak vs. strong) to investigate whether healthy younger and older adults would benefit from strong emotional...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder. While previous studies have reported a high prevalence of dementia diagnoses in the ASD population, the risk of dementia-related neurodegeneration remains poorly understood. This study aimed to assess dementia-sensitive composite measures of brain structure and brain age across the lifespan in an ASD cohort (ages 7-73) to investigate neuroanatomical features linked to neurodegenerative vulnerability. The composite score and brain...

CONCLUSION: We propose a comprehensive framework comprising three components: cohort setting, measuring contributing factors, and full assessment. This framework sets the stage for a unified, supranational protocol that harmonizes survey methods across countries, integrates multidisciplinary perspectives, and adopts a longitudinal approach. It would enable larger sample sizes and more robust statistical analyses, allowing researchers to explore complex relationships and derive more accurate...

The aim of this study is to investigate perceptions of aging among Hispanic adults. Fifty participants in Texas and Arkansas were asked to take a short questionnaire including multiple-choice and Likert scale format questions. Individuals 18 and older who identified as Hispanic were included in the study. Counts and frequencies for each response were obtained. Furthermore, an exploratory comparison of responses between younger and middle-aged/older respondents was conducted. According to the...

Aging is associated with a decline in the regenerative capacity of many tissues. Central to this decline is a complex interplay between inflammation and stem cell function. How these two processes are linked and influence regenerative capacity remains unclear. Here, we undertake a comprehensive assessment of age-related changes in the mouse colon at single-cell resolution. A survey of immune and epithelial compartments revealed a hyperactivated inflammatory state in the colon of old mice...

DNA-protein crosslinks (DPCs) are toxic DNA lesions that block all DNA transactions including replication and transcription, and the consequences of impaired DNA-protein crosslink repair (DPCR) are severe. At the cellular level, impaired DPCR leads to the formation of double strand breaks, genomic instability, and cell death, while at the organismal level, it is associated with cancer, aging, and neurodegeneration. Despite its importance, the mechanisms of DPCR at the organismal level are...

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Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterised by the progressive degeneration of dopaminergic (DA) neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc). Lewy bodies- the defining neuropathological hallmark of PD-are chiefly composed of aggregated forms of α-synuclein (α-syn). Despite the widespread presence of α-syn pathology, neurodegeneration is often selective, and the mechanisms underlying the vulnerability of specific neuronal populations in PD remain poorly understood. This review critically...

Ferroptosis promotes the progression of Parkinson's disease (PD) through its unique regulatory pathways. Biochanin A (Bioch A) has long attracted the attention of researchers due to its neuroprotective effects. However, whether Bioch A can treat PD by inhibiting ferroptosis and the underlying mechanism remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether Bioch A exerts a neuroprotective effect on PD by activating the Sirt1/Nrf2/GPX4 signaling pathway to inhibit ferroptosis. Behavior was...

Chronic systemic inflammation and DNA methylation changes are two major hallmarks of aging, yet their interaction is poorly known. We investigated the relation between circulating inflammatory proteome and epigenetic age acceleration as assessed by DNA methylation in four independent cohorts of different ages and health conditions. Epigenetic age scores known to predict human health span (GrimAge and PhenoAge) were more strongly associated with age-associated inflammatory proteins, frailty, and...

Inundations of pelagic Sargassum plague the tropical Atlantic, with size and impacts steadily increasing to surpass 30 million tons in 2025. Understanding the drivers of Sargassum growth in the so-called Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt is fundamental to developing effective mitigation strategies for affected nations. We present a nonlinear regression model that both explains the seasonal and interannual variability observed between 2011 and 2022 and predicts Sargassum concentrations in 2023 and...