Monthly Archives: February 2010

This blog post is philosophical rather than scientific in its thrust, having to do with what successful aging consists of, including successful passing away.  Aging offers certain benefits – as long as you don’t age so much that you get … Continue reading →

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive and fatal disease affecting as many as 5.2 million Americans, the fourth most common cause of death in developing nations.  There are various treatments for symptoms of AD but as of now there is … Continue reading →

The flood of telomere/telomerase research news has gotten to be so great that I have to be finicky in selecting items reported in this blog.  That having been said, I think the new finding reported here is an important one … Continue reading →

A number of important genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have come to my attention in the last few weeks.  And I anticipate that the current steady stream of them will very soon become a roaring river.  These are studies that sort … Continue reading →

“If I saw a doctor, he would just find something wrong with me.”  Those are words my stepmother Ann told to me last Friday.  I was fortunate to be able to spend a good amount of time with her and … Continue reading →

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are generating increased excitement among cancer, neurobiology and longevity researchers.  I wrote an introduction to MicroRNAs is in my earlier blog post MicroRNAs, diseases and yet-another view of aging, and readers might want to review that information before … Continue reading →

The idea of people living hundreds of years has about as much credibility today as the idea of the world not being at the center of the universe had in 1540.  Intellectually and in terms of our laws, institutions and … Continue reading →

The press has been making a big deal of research made public a few days ago that correlates a genetic defect in one of the key telomerase-producing genes TERC with shorter telomeres later in life.  This link leads to 23 news stories … Continue reading →

When my guest-bathroom toilet flap valve recently gave out due to old age, I purchased and tried out four different “one size fits all” replacement flap valves, shopping at Home Depot and different hardware stores.  They are very simple devices … Continue reading →

When I wrote my first blog entries on epigenomics and epigenetics eleven months ago(ref)(ref) , it was clear that these were active areas of extremely interesting academic research.  However, my impression was that it would be years before the knowledge … Continue reading →