Despite the claims of people selling books on ascension into being robots or diet fads, you are not going to live forever.

It used to be life was truly short and now we are in a period where life is much longer but after the age of 65 it is not better, it is instead a slow steady decline toward death.

The goal cannot be to try and live forever, nature has built in too many biological landmines to control that, but to live healthier until we do die. First, we'd have to agree on what this 'successful' aging would look like, without wellness psychobabble.

Researchers have discovered a molecular ‘switch’ that controls replication and transcription of mitochondria DNA, a key finding that could influence the development of targeted therapies for cancer, developmental processes related to fertility and aging. 

Mitochondria are organelles located outside the nucleus of nearly every cell in humans. While most of the cell’s DNA is inside the nucleus, mitochondria maintain their own DNA and contribute a small number of genes that are essential for cellular respiration and energy generation.

Extreme mechano-sensitive neurons of tactile-foraging ducks fit the bill for touch research.

When we reach out to touch something, our nervous system converts the mechanical input from our fingers contacting an object into an electrical signal in the brain. The process, known as mechanosensation, is one of our fundamental physiological processes, on par with sight and smell. But how it works on a cellular level remains poorly understood, holding back development of effective treatments for mechanosensory disorders like chronic pain.

Now, a team of researchers from the Yale University School of Medicine has identified a new model organism that may help elucidate the cellular mechanisms behind mechanosensation: the ordinary duck.

Darwin's finches, inhabiting the Galápagos archipelago and Cocos island, constitute an iconic model for studies of speciation and adaptive evolution. A team of scientists from Uppsala University and Princeton University has now shed light on the evolutionary history of these birds and identified a gene that explains variation in beak shape within and among species. The study is published today in Nature, on the day before the 206th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin.

Among blood donors with normal hemoglobin levels, low-dose oral iron supplementation, compared with no supplementation, reduced the time to recovery of the postdonation decrease in hemoglobin concentration in donors with low or higher levels of a marker of overall iron storage (ferritin), according to a study in the February 10 issue of JAMA.

Many people buy and wear clothing from prestigious brands as a way to express and distinguish themselves. However, a new study from the University of Missouri has found that people who are more sensitive to how others perceive them are actually more likely to avoid clothing with large logos, even if the clothing is from a prestigious brand. Eunjin Kim, a doctoral candidate in the MU School of Journalism, says it is important for companies to understand this brand avoidance behavior when marketing their products to consumers.