Could tweaking our genes help us live longer? Scientists have found that altering a single gene in mice extended their average lifespan by about 20 per cent, the equivalent of raising the average human lifespan by 16 years, from 79 to 95. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health in US lowered the expression of the gene called mTOR, which is involved in metabolism and energy balance, in mice.
The detailed study of these mice revealed that gene-influenced lifespan extension did not affect every tissue and organ the same way. For example, the mice retained better memory and balance as they aged, but their bones deteriorated more quickly than normal. “While the high extension in lifespan is noteworthy, this study reinforces an important facet of ageing; it is not uniform,” said lead researcher Toren Finkel, at NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. “Rather, similar to circadian rhythms, an animal might have several organ-specific ageing clocks that generally work together to govern the ageing of the whole organism,” Finkel said.
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Giant ‘terror bird’ was a vegetarian?
Berlin: A giant “terror bird” deemed to have been one of Earth’s top predators after the demise of the dinosaurs was probably a chicken-hearted herbivore, scientists say.
It is a fiercely debated question: was the ‘terror bird’, which lived in Europe between 55 to 40 million years ago, really a terrifying predator or just a gentle herbivore?
German researchers have studied fossilised remains of terror birds from a former open-cast brown coal mine in the Geiseltal (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) and their findings indicate the creature was most likely not a meat eater.
The terror bird, also known as Gastornis, was a flightless bird up to two metres in height with an enormous, ferocious beak.
— PTI