Insects: Up close and personal!!!

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Moles 'good indicator to ageing'

A sign of slower ageing?

The number of moles may offer an indication of how quickly the body ages, a study suggests.

King's College London scientists compared key ageing DNA with the number of moles in a study of 1,800 twins.

They found the more moles a person had, the more likely their DNA was to have the properties to fight off ageing.

The study, in the Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention journal, contrasts with the link between a high mole-count and high skin cancer risk.

Moles appear in childhood and disappear from middle age onwards.

When present in large numbers they can increase the risk of melanoma, a rare form of skin cancer. Moles vary significantly in numbers and size between individuals.

It's important people know that having a large number of moles can increase your risk of skin cancer Dr Kat Arney, of Cancer Research UK

The average number of moles in people with white skin is 30 but some people may have as many as 400.

The reason for such differences between people is unknown as is the function of moles.

Since moles disappear with age, scientists looked at the relationship between the number of moles and telomere length in cells, which is a good indicator of the rate of ageing in organs such as the heart, muscle, bones and arteries.

Telomeres, which get shorter as we age, are bundles of DNA found at the end of chromosomes in all cells and assist in the protection, replication, and stabilisation of the chromosome ends.

They have been compared with the plastic tips on shoelaces because they prevent chromosome ends from fraying and sticking to each other.

'Exciting'

In the study, researchers found those with more than 100 moles had longer telomeres than those with fewer than 25.

The difference between the two mole groups was equivalent to six to seven years of ageing.

Lead researcher Dr Veronique Bataille said: "The results of this study are very exciting as they show, for the first time, that moley people who have a slightly increased risk of melanoma may, on the other hand, have the benefit of a reduced rate of ageing.

"This could imply susceptibility to fewer age-related diseases such as heart disease or osteoporosis, for example. Further studies are needed to confirm these findings."

Dr Kat Arney, of Cancer Research UK, said: "While this is an intriguing finding and deserves further investigation, it's important people know that having a large number of moles can increase your risk of skin cancer.

"It's especially important to enjoy the sun safely if you have lots of moles or burn easily."

Link to this blog from NewHumanist

in good company

Power of Nature

clipped from www.linkinn.com

The underlying expectation -- that the present is supposed to be better than the past -- is a new phenomenon in history. No 18th-century politician would have asked "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" because it never would have occurred to anyone that they ought to be better off than they were four years ago.

(Also see Living in the Age of Abundance.)

clipped from online.wsj.com A Brief History of Economic Time Modern humans first emerged about 100,000 years ago. For the next 99,800 years or so, nothing happened. Well, not quite nothing. There were wars, political intrigue, the invention of agriculture -- but none of that stuff had much effect on the quality of people's lives. Almost everyone lived on the modern equivalent of $400 to $600 a year, just above the subsistence level. True, there were always tiny aristocracies who lived far better, but numerically they were quite insignificant. Then -- just a couple of hundred years ago, maybe 10 generations -- people started getting richer. And richer and richer still. Per capita income, at least in the West, began to grow at the unprecedented rate of about three quarters of a percent per year. A couple of decades later, the same thing was happening around the world.

The Three Secrets to Happiness

You can read more about three secrets at http://zenhabits.net/2007/03/the-three-secrets-to-happiness/

clipped from zenhabits.net We all know that money can’t buy happiness … but many times we act as if we’d be happier with a bit more money. We are conditioned to want to be rich (when we know the rich aren’t happy either); we are trained to want the latest gadget or style that television tells us to want; we want to earn more money because then we’ll have the good life. But none of that will bring us happiness. No matter how much we earn, no matter how much we have in the bank, no matter how nice our clothing or cars or toys, none of it will make us happier. And the sad thing is that it could take us decades of pursuing wealth and luxury items before we realize this. So what will bring us happiness? Luckily, it’s three things that don’t cost a thing. These three things have been proven by research — surveys of hundreds of thousands of people about what they have, what their lives are like, and how happy they are. Good relationships. Positive thinking. Flow.

Scientists find bird flu antibody

By Neil Bowdler BBC science reporter

It's hoped human trials of the bird flu antibody could begin soon

Antibodies that could protect against bird flu in humans have been isolated by an international team of scientists.

The discovery could lead to treatments that complement flu vaccines in the event of a human epidemic of the virus.

The H5N1 bird flu virus is estimated to have killed more than 180 people around the world since 2003.

Some countries are already stockpiling vaccines for a possible bird flu outbreak in humans, but no one knows how effective they might be.

'Emergency antidote'

This is because the particular strain of bird flu that might eventually spark a human pandemic is unknown.

But scientists working in Switzerland, Vietnam and the United States say they have isolated antibodies that they hope could offer protection against several different strains of the virus simultaneously.

Antibodies are used by our immune system to neutralise bacteria and viruses - in this case, the scientists have isolated antibodies that bird flu survivors in Vietnam produced to fight off the disease.

Professor Antonio Lanzavecchia, at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Switzerland, says the antibodies have already proven effective in the lab and in mice and he is confident that they could be used in humans.

"We in a way exploit the immune response of an individual who has been infected and has survived the infection and of course has made antibodies that neutralise these viruses," he said.

"And using this technique, we can isolate the cells that make these antibodies so that this antibody can now be reproduced in vitro and eventually massively produced to treat other individuals."

The antibodies could be used to protect key workers, such as nurses and doctors, in countries where a bird flu epidemic strikes.

The researchers say it could also be used as an emergency antidote in people who have already been infected with bird flu - if administered within a few days.

It is hoped human trials could begin shortly.

Religious belief is inconsistent with reason and corrosive to the human mind - Sue Blackmore

Blackmore: "Religious faith is something that we should struggle to throw off when we have better ways of learning the truth about the universe we live in; something we should overcome rather than something we should respect."

clipped from commentisfree.guardian.co.uk Faith is corrosive to the human mind. If someone genuinely believes that it is right to believe things without reason or evidence then they are open to every kind of dogma, whim, coercion, or dangerous infectious idea that's around. If someone is convinced that it is acceptable to base their beliefs on what is written in an ancient book, or what some teacher tells them they must believe, then they will have no true freedom of thought; they will be trapped by their faith into inconsistency and untruths because they are unable to throw out false ideas when evidence against them comes along. I want to be clear about some things I am not saying. First I am not saying that everything has to be rational. There is much about human life that has little or nothing to do with rationality; there's love and affection, art and poetry, happiness, beauty and intuition. But none of these things has to be taken on faith. I, for one, do not want to live in a world where religious faith is respected.