Young blood: The elixir of youth?

A few years ago there was a phenomenon of books and movies called "Twilight" which centered around a vampire and his human girlfriend. In the story importance was placed on human blood being a factor behind why vampires stay young, seemingly forever.  Of course vampires and the "Twilight" books are all fictional, yet it seems that there is some truth even in fiction. In the case of laboratory mice scientists have found that the blood of young mice, when given to older mice helps improve the memory of older mice and helps the older mice muscles.

  Originally the scientists connected blood vessels between older and younger mice, which showed that the younger mice did not benefit from the blood of older mice. So then, they decided to just try giving older mice the blood from younger mice and found that the older mice had healthier hearts and livers. The brains of the older mice also improved thanks to the effect on their brain cells or neurons which worked more efficiently.  This resulted in the older mice becoming  "smarter" and growing new brain cells, something that usually only occurs in young mice.

Now before you stop visiting your grandparents, because you might be worried that they might ask you to donate blood, this article only talks about research done in mice.  If this was ever to be applied to humans, researchers would isolate the substance in blood which is responsible for this beneficial change. For now the researcher done on mice indicates that a protein found in the blood of mice known as GDF11, which stands for growth differentiation factor 11, might be very important to understand more about how this process works.

The article written by Lida Katsimpardi shows the importance of asking questions and learning from our fellow species how our own bodies work and applying that knowledge to benefit the human species. It makes us wonder is there more to our blood cells than just blood, such as a "magic" protein which can help us stay young ?  Either way I will keep eating my veggies and spinach, until we have more understanding of GDF11 and how it works.  For now daily exercise and plenty of sleep will be my solution to aging too fast.

 You can find the article here:     

https://student.societyforscience.org/article/young-blood-elixir-youth

Discussion Questions :

 

1.  Can you think of another example of a substance or food where the promise of a longer life is based on eating or drinking something which will have immediate health benefits?  Do these examples have a negative side effect that accompanies the intended positive effect ?

 

2. What are the moral implications of asking teenagers for their blood so that products can be made for older people to make them younger ?   How will this affect the nice and neighborly habit of donating blood simply for the sake of helping a stranger with their health ?

 

Wily bacteria create ‘zombie’ plants

We are seeing a lot about Zombies these days, from our televisions to the bookstore it is certainly a part of popular culture. Recently I read an article that used the ‘zombie card’ to describe how a specific parasite took control over a certain species and preventing it from reproducing (thus, turning it into a zombie, serving only the bacteria that used it as home).

It sounds hard to believe that a parasite can actually change the behavior of a plant, but it seemed to modify the flowers to look more like leaves, which would attract insects, which would then transfer the bacteria to other plants and ensure that it could be spread over and over again. This leaf like structure stopped the plant from flowering, which is crucial to its reproductive cycle – meaning the plant itself could not continue to ‘spread’ so to speak.

Sounds hard to believe that you could stop a plant from reproducing so easily, but we do it all the time. At home in the summer, we pick the fading flowers from the plants in order to prevent them from going to seed so that it will continue to flower all summer long. Once a plant goes to seed, it stops producing flowers.

This article, written by Esther Landhuis is a good example of evolution at work. Surely the bacteria doesn’t think to itself “hey, maybe I can complicate life for that vulnerable looking plant……” it is all a part of natural selection which goes much further than how we came from Homo Habilis. It makes me stop and wonder just how the species we know now might evolve in four or five generations – or less.  It is certainly scary how fast bacteria can change and adapt to a friendly environment, especially with cold season right around the corner.

You can find the article here:

https://student.societyforscience.org/article/wily-bacteria-create-zombie-plants?mode=topic&context=79

Discussion Questions:

1)   Can you think of other examples of when a parasite host that continues to live on? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this situation? 

2)   How do you think life on earth will evolve over the next five generations? What are some of the highlights, and some of the drawbacks for us to this new evolution.