Aggregator

Dreams are not random mental noise. A large study of more than 3,700 dream and waking reports found that what we experience during sleep is shaped by both our personalities and the world around us. Rather than simply replaying daily events, the dreaming brain mixes memories, emotions, imagined possibilities, and familiar settings into vivid new scenarios.

Unsweetened sparkling water may offer a tooth-friendlier alternative to sugary soda, according to a small preliminary study tracking how different drinks change mouth acidity. Soda caused the strongest and longest drop in salivary pH, while sparkling water produced only a temporary decline before saliva restored normal conditions. Importantly, acidity remained above the level associated with enamel damage.

Population declines led to spike in spinal deformities and rare tumors, fossil study suggests

ObjectiveMany older adults stop seeing a doctor despite having insurance and significant health needs. This study asks whether psychological distress predicts disengagement from care, beyond structural barriers.MethodUsing three waves of the Health and Retirement Study (N = 5,184 adults 65+), we model whether distress in one wave predicts no medical contact in the next, testing whether wealth weakens this link.ResultsOlder adults with more psychological distress were significantly more likely to...

Macroautophagy/autophagy is a conserved eukaryotic intracellular degradation pathway, with specialized forms such as the biosynthetic cytoplasm-to-vacuole targeting (Cvt) pathway in yeast, which selectively delivers several resident hydrolase precursors to the vacuole rather than for turnover. Although the core autophagy machinery is highly conserved between yeast and plants, whether autophagy plays a biosynthetic role in transporting vacuolar hydrolases in plants has remained unclear. Here, we...

Adipose tissue (AT) is now recognised as a dynamic immunometabolic organ in which coordinated interactions between adipocytes, stromal cells, vascular elements, and resident immune populations are essential for maintaining metabolic homeostasis and endocrine function. Beyond its classical role in energy storage, AT actively regulates local and systemic immune responses through the production of adipokines, cytokines, chemokines, and lipid mediators. Among adipose-resident immune cells, B...

Aging can be experimentally induced in Hydra oligactis, making it an exception among the "immortal" cnidarian genus Hydra. In response to cold temperatures, H. oligactis polyps switch from asexual to "emergency" sexual reproduction and eventually age and die. We used GC-MS-based metabolite profiling to characterize cold-induced (CI) metabolic reprogramming during concurrent sexual differentiation and aging in H. oligactis. Metabolites in four clusters either decreased or increased progressively...

Eating within a shorter daily window may help protect certain thinking skills as people age. In a small six-month trial, older women who limited eating to about 8 to 9 hours a day performed better on planning and problem-solving tests than those who ate over 12 hours. Both groups lost similar amounts of weight, hinting that when people eat could matter in addition to how much they eat.

A controlled mouse study has provided direct evidence that inherited genetics can steer how cancer begins and evolves after DNA damage. The discovery could eventually help doctors better predict cancer risk and tailor screening and treatments to each patient.

Popular AI-powered food apps may make calorie counting easier, but they may also leave out a surprisingly large part of the meal. Four apps underestimated calories and fat by about one-third when tested against carefully prepared meals. High-fat ketogenic dishes appeared to cause the most trouble, while carbohydrates were measured more consistently.

Scientists used CRISPR to make prostate cancer cells easier for the immune system to detect and destroy. The experimental treatment dramatically improved the effects of immunotherapy in mice and may offer hope for other hard-to-treat tumors.

Scientists discovered that damaged fat cells can become inflamed, lose their ability to store lipids, and eventually vanish, disrupting the body’s metabolism. The findings show that diabetes can result not only from excess fat, but also from losing the healthy fat tissue the body needs.

Scientists have identified a possible tipping point that helps determine whether Alzheimer’s-related brain changes lead to dementia. The key may lie in how the brain’s immune cells respond to plaques and tau, offering a promising new target for treatments designed to extend cognitive resilience.

Immunosenescence increases susceptibility to infection and reduces vaccine responsiveness, yet bulk transcriptomic clocks obscure the cellular heterogeneity underlying this process. Here, we present IDEAL-Age, an interpretable deep learning framework that operates directly on single-cell PBMC transcriptomes. Benchmarking against 35 methods across independent cohorts demonstrates superior predictive performance. The framework's interpretability uncovers linear and non-linear gene contribution...

Mitis group streptococci are opportunistic pathogens residing in the oral cavity, where they produce hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)), a key virulence factor contributing to their pathogenesis. We previously demonstrated that these bacteria kill the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans through H(2)O(2) production. Metformin, a widely used biguanide drug for managing blood glucose levels, has shown promising effects on aging by extending lifespan in worms and mice, and has also demonstrated potential...

Aging is accompanied by progressive epigenetic alterations, including changes in DNA methylation affecting both gene-associated regions and repetitive elements such as LINE-1 retrotransposons. Reduced epigenetic repression of transposable elements has been implicated in age-related genomic instability. Circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) provides a minimally invasive substrate for monitoring systemic molecular changes; however, age-related LINE-1 methylation dynamics in cfDNA remain poorly...