Scientists think the common cold may at last be beatable

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STAT, October 20, 2016

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Time and again, Martin Moore’s children get sick with a cold. He hauls them to their doctor, who then informs him that there’s nothing to be done aside from taking them home and waiting it out.

The experience is maddening for Moore — especially because he’s a virologist. For everything that virologists have learned about rhinoviruses — the cause of the majority of colds — they have not invented a vaccine for them.

In 2013, Moore wondered if he could make one. He consulted a rhinovirus expert for some advice. Instead, the expert told him, “Oh, there will never be a vaccine for rhinovirus — it’s just not possible.”

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How the First Farmers Changed History

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The New York Times, October 17, 2016

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Beneath a rocky slope in central Jordan lie the remains of a 10,000-year-old village called Ain Ghazal, whose inhabitants lived in stone houses with timber roof beams, the walls and floors gleaming with white plaster.

Hundreds of people living there worshiped in circular shrines and made haunting, wide-eyed sculptures that stood three feet high. They buried their cherished dead under the floors of their houses, decapitating the bodies in order to decorate the skulls.

But as fascinating as this culture was, something else about Ain Ghazal intrigues archaeologists more: It was one of the first farming villages to have emerged after the dawn of agriculture.

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Friday’s Elk, October 9, 2016

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Thanks to Dana Ehret for taking pictures of my talk Thursday at the University of Alabama. Before speaking about human-driven evolution, I had an excellent day talking with UA biologists about turtles and death cap mushrooms and other glories of Alabama’s biodiversity.

 

Does the Human Lifespan Have a Limit?

Aging is one of those science-journalism topics that never gets old. (Sorry.) Over the years, I’ve written a number of pieces on what happens when we get old, and why we get old in the first place. You can read some of them here here here and here. Also, you can watch this Science Happens video or this lecture I gave at Stony Brook on the evolution of aging (I wrote it up here.) Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, October 9, 2016” →

As DNA reveals its secrets, scientists are assembling a new picture of humanity

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STAT, October 7, 2016

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When Benedict Paten stares at his computer monitor, he sometimes gazes at what looks like a map of the worst subway system in the world. The screen is sprinkled with little circles that look like stations. Some are joined by straight lines — sometimes a single path from one circle to the next, sometimes a burst of spokes radiating out in many directions. And sometimes the lines bend into sweeping curves that soar off on express routes to distant stations.

A rainbow palette of colors makes it a little easier to digest the complexity. But if you stare a little too long, vertigo sets in.

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What’s the Longest Humans Can Live? 115 Years, New Study Says

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The New York Times, October 5, 2016

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On Aug. 4, 1997, Jeanne Calment passed away in a nursing home in France. The Reaper comes for us all, of course, but he was in no hurry for Mrs. Calment. She died at age 122, setting a record for human longevity.

Jan Vijg doubts we will see the likes of her again. True, people have been living to greater ages over the past few decades. But now, he says, we have reached the upper limit of human longevity.

“It seems highly likely we have reached our ceiling,” said Dr. Vijg, an expert on aging at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “From now on, this is it. Humans will never get older than 115.”

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