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cherry6891

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Part I: Speaker

Stress Linked to Aging Chromosomes
Chromosome-protecting telomeres are shorter in people with depression--which has been linked to irregular stress hormone levels. Katherine Harmon reports
Feb 22, 2012

Too much sun, smoking and a poor diet can make us look older. But additional forces are at work aging our cells.

A growing body of research has pointed to chronic stress—and the hormones that come along with it—as hastening aging. That stress is particularly important for chromosomes. Unfortunately, our chromosomes suffer injuries over time. But to help guard them, chromosomes come with protective end buffers called telomeres.

New research finds that these caps are notably shorter in people with depression—which has been linked to irregular stress hormone levels. The findings are in the journal Biological Psychiatry. [Mikael Wikgren, et al., "Short Telomeres in Depression and the General Population Are Associated with a Hypocortisolemic State"]

Folks without depression who reported feeling the most stressed also had shorter telomeres. And abnormal levels of stress hormones have been found in people with post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome and irritable bowl syndrome. Which means that many more people might have chromosomes that are shortening in short order.

Those gray hairs might betray your chronological age. But the state of your chromosomes may be a better marker for how old you effectively really are.

source: Scientific American
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/stress-linked-to-aging-chromosomes-12-02-22/
[Rephase 1'18'']

cherry6891

Part II: Speed

Wine corks may owe quality to gene activity
Time2
Even the most superb wine won’t last without its cork, but the quality of this renewable oaken resource has nose-dived in recent years. A new genetic study of trees that produce high- and low-quality cork divulges some clues behind this decline, hinting at a possible link to climate change.

A great cork safeguards a wine’s taste and its aging process, while inferior cork can taint the vino’s flavor. Cork is made from the protective outer layer of bark surrounding Quercus suber oak trees, which grow only in southwest Europe and northwest Africa. But the global supply of cork, a $2 billion industry, has faced problems with quality and competition. Synthetic wine stoppers and metal caps offer a cheap alternative and have boomed in popularity in recent years, but oaken corks are still preferred by wine aficionados.

“Cork quality has been decreasing over the years, no one knows why,” says Rita Teixeira of the University of Lisbon. “Producing a fruitful cork tree takes about 50 years, so it’s urgent that we start studying reasons behind the downturn.”

Industry standards define bad cork as thin layers of bark that possess lots of lenticular channels — little air-penetrating conduits in the plant tissue. Stoppers made from bad cork let more air through than good cork stoppers. If too much oxygen seeps into a wine bottle, it can react with alcohol to form acetic acid, giving the wine the sour taste of vinegar.

Teixeira and colleagues compared gene activity between five high-quality cork trees and five low-quality trees from Southern Portugal. Good cork had a higher abundance of heat-shock proteins, which help other proteins form their correct shapes even under stressful conditions. Heat-shock proteins also aid cellular division, permitting the growth of thicker bark. Previous studies have found that heat-shock proteins guard cork trees from ultraviolet light, high temperatures and drought — all of which have steadily become bigger problems in Portugal over the last century.[320 words]

Time3
In bad cork, the researchers observed less gene activity for heat-shock proteins. But those trees may have an alternative defense against similar stresses. Genes that produce phenolic compounds, brownish UV-absorbing chemicals that pool in the bark’s lenticular channels, were more ample in bad cork. Bad cork harbors twice the load of phenolic compounds as good cork does, the team reports June 22 in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

“Our original hypothesis was that if the tree needs more protection, then it would produce thicker cork. But by producing more phenolics and having more lenticular channels, [a bad cork] tree might be shielded against the UV light,” Teixeira speculates.

Other genes that were more active in low-quality cork also suggested a reaction to UV exposure and water shortages. Genes that temper oxidative stress and fix DNA damage were elevated in bad cork. Cell division also seemed stunted in bad cork, explaining the trees’ thinner bark. Slowing growth may help the trees during harsh times such as drought: Minimizing cell division could protect a tree’s DNA from UV-triggered mutations or help conserve energy.

“The natural regeneration of the cork oak is slow and can be further affected by climate change,” says plant systems biologist Mónica Sebastiana of the University of Lisbon, who wasn’t involved in the research. “Genetic differences outlined in this study could yield future diagnostic tests for selecting the best plants for breeding programs to increase quality in cork oak groves,” she says.[243 words]

source:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/wine-corks-may-owe-quality-gene-activity


Music soothes the aging brain in film ‘Alive Inside’

Time4
Some of the most potent medicine doesn’t come in a paper cup or a little pill. Instead, it pours from a cheap set of headphones. As chronicled in Alive Inside, music has the power to awaken long-dormant memories and emotions in people suffering from Alzheimer’s and other disorders.

In the documentary, filmmaker Michael Rossato-Bennett follows the work of social worker Dan Cohen as he attempts to bring music to people in desperate need of soul soothing. Many of the patients depicted in the film live in nursing homes, places that can leave a person adrift, especially if that person suffers from dementia. One elderly man named Henry sits unresponsive until headphones begin playing his old favorites, including jazz singer Cab Calloway.

As soon as Henry hears the music, his eyes pop open. He begins singing and moving around in his wheelchair. His body and mind are transformed. Henry’s awakening went viral online in 2012 when it was released as a short clip. Alive Inside contains many such moments of music triggering long-buried thoughts, memories and emotions. These brief interludes burst with joy but don’t overcome the overwhelming, inevitable sadness the documentary evokes.

Given what scientists know about music’s influence on the brain, these musically inspired awakenings shouldn’t be surprising. As neurologist Oliver Sacks says in the documentary, music is one of the most powerful ways to tap into the brain. Work by neuroscientists suggests that music activates brain areas involved in emotion and memory, such as the hippocampus, amygdala and areas of the cortex. Molecules that carry signals around the brain, including endorphins, dopamine and growth factors, can also change in response to a tune. And music’s effects extend to the body: Songs can change blood pressure, heart rate and breathing.

Red tape, entrenched bureaucracy and cost all threaten to stymie Cohen’s quest to get headphones onto ears. But perhaps Alive Inside will remind people that music contains the power to temporarily transport a person back to happier times, a journey that’s particularly poignant for people who have become lost inside themselves.

Look for Alive Inside at film festivals and in theaters this summer.
[354 words]

source:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/music-soothes-aging-brain-film-%E2%80%98alive-inside%E2%80%99

To do your best, find a rival

Time5
I have been a runner for more than 10 years. For much of that time, I have been chasing Kate.

Kate is a friend of mine from graduate school. She’s one of those runners who has a gift for the sport. Naturally fast and naturally tenacious, she started beating me the day she started running races. At the last half marathon we both entered, she outran me by over 15 minutes. But I can’t stop running after her. I’m pretty sure I’ll be chasing Kate until one or both of us gets our runner’s knees replaced. Why do I bother racing after a runner I’ll never catch? I view her as a rival. And a new study suggests that keeping my rival in mind might mean that I run faster.

In a study published July 2 in Social Psychological and Personality Science, Gavin Kilduff shows that, in races, runners run faster when potential rivals are present. The study is the first to show associations among rivalry, motivation and performance, and suggests that rivalry really could up your game.

“Rivalry isn’t about liking or disliking a person,” says Kilduff, a social psychologist at New York University. “It’s more about feeling competitive, when you place greater significance on the outcome of a competition, because of the relationship you have with that person.”

Kilduff has been interested in competition and rivalry since graduate school. “Most studies of competition involve forced competition between strangers,” he explains. “The theory was that competition is this controlling force” that could end up hurting, rather than helping, performance.

But this didn’t make sense to Kilduff. He thought about rivalries, such as those in sports, where people elect to compete against one another. In those cases, rivalry and competition appear to be positive motivators. “I wanted to go beyond the competition alone to see what happens when people actually know each other,” he says.

Kilduff started with a study performed on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, an online marketplace that pays participants for study participation. He assigned 147 participants to one of two conditions. In one, they were asked to recall a rival. In the other, they were asked to recall a competitor who was not a rival. Participants who were asked to think of rivals reported higher motivation, and also said they experienced a better performance as a result. In a further experiment, participants also stated that they competed against rivals more often than against other competitors who were not rivals.

But asking people to recall rivalries isn’t enough to link the rivalry with improved performance. Kilduff went to a small northeast running club, where 76.5 percent of amateur runners who raced frequently said yes, they did have rivals. The runners reported that rivalry gave them more motivation, and they believed that rivalry made them push themselves harder and perform better.

To look directly at performance, Kilduff looked at race scores. Many local running races have websites that record races information and results. He focused on small, local races, where the same people were likely to meet over and over again, and were very likely to know, or at least recognize, fellow runners. This would make them more likely to form rivalries.[530 words]

Time6
Kilduff put together a score that took into account similarities in age and gender, how often runners competed against specific people, and how evenly matched the competitions appeared to be. He used the score to identify potential rivals. Then he looked at their race results.

It turns out that if at least one potential rival was present, a given runner would, in general, run faster. And quite a bit faster — about 4.92 seconds per kilometer faster, or about 7.44 seconds per mile. This may not sound like much, but in a 5-kilometer race that’s a potential time difference of up to 25 seconds, easily the difference between first place and no place at all.

The results show a link between rivalry and increased motivation and performance. But that link is not quite proof that a rival causes a runner to go the extra mile, says Thomas Britt, a social and organizational psychologist at Clemson University in South Carolina. “The objective nature of the data and the creative way Kilduff identified the presence of rivals is great,” he says. “He’s tried to rule out competing explanations, but you still can’t say that rivalry is causing the performance. You’d have to do that in an experimental setting where you could construct a rivalry.”

And while rivalry might increase motivation and improve performance on the track, it might not always be a good thing. “This paper opens a venue for the positive effects of competition,” says Kou Murayama, a psychologist at the University of Reading in England. “Of course I must emphasize that rivalry would not always facilitate performance. I can easily imagine situations where rivalry turns into fear of failure, having a detrimental effect on performance, or even increasing cheating behavior.” Kilduff agrees, and notes that “These runners are competitive people. The individuals in that situation may mean that rivalry has a positive impact. But if you’re working on a complex task, the extra arousal might not be a good thing.”

So maybe my rivalry with Kate improves my own running. Certainly, in the last race we both ran, I ran a personal best. I was happy I did well. But I would have been happier if I’d beaten Kate.[368 words]

source：
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/do-your-best-find-rival

cherry6891

Part III: Obstacle

The Secret to a Long Life May Be Deep Inside Your Brain
It may have been the word retrieval adventure I had the other night when I couldn’t remember the name of thinly sliced cured ham. (I nailed the “p,” but didn’t come close to conjuring up “prosciutto.”) Or it could have been the annoying pain I feel in a knuckle on my right hand these days. Probably both.

All I know is that when I read about a recent study in which scientists were able to slow down the aging process in mice, I was more than a little intrigued.

According to the researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, the key to stalling the harsh march of aging is likely deep inside your brain, specifically the almond-size section called the hypothalamus.

It has long been associated with our sense of hunger and thirst, our body temperature and feelings of fatigue. But the scientists, in the study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, say they found that by deactivating a molecule found in the hypothalamus called NF-kB, they were able to get mice to live 20 percent longer, and also show fewer physical signs of aging.

More specifically, when they blocked the substance from the hypothalamus, the animals lived up to 1,100 days, about 100 days longer than the normal limit for mice. But when they gave other mice more NF-kB, they all died within 900 days. The mice without NF-kB also had more muscle and bone, healthier skin and were better at learning.

During the study, the researchers also determined that NF-kB lowered levels of a hormone called GnRH. And when they gave the mice a daily treatment of that hormone, it too helped to extend the animals’ lives and even caused new neurons to develop in their brains.

This is where I need to raise the caveat about research with mice, namely that what works with them often doesn’t carry over to humans. Or as io9 noted, “comparing the aging processes of mice to humans is a precarious proposition at best.”

That said, the lead scientist for the study, Dongsheng Cai, says he’s excited by what the research suggests. “It supports the idea that aging is more than a passive deterioriation of different tissues,” he told The Guardian in an interview. “It is under control and can be manipulated.”

Thanks for my memory

Then there is Theodore Berger. He’s a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and he believes that one day in the not too distant future, it may be possible to use electrical implants in the brain to help people retrieve long-term memories.

So far, Berger and his research team have been able to show how a silicon chip externally connected to rat and monkey brains by electrodes can process information as actual neurons do. And last fall, the researchers demonstrated that they could help monkeys bring back long-term memories.

They focused on the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that retrieves the memories created by the hippocampus. The scientists placed electrodes in the monkeys’ brains to capture the neuron code formed in the prefrontal cortex that, the researchers believed, allowed the animals to remember an image they had been shown earlier. Then they drugged the monkeys with cocaine, which impaired activity in that part of their brains. Next they used the implanted electrodes to send electrical pulses carrying the captured code to the monkeys’ prefrontal cortex, and that, according to Berger, significantly improved the animals’ performance on a memory test.

Of course, the more you study the brain, the more complex it gets. And it’s quite possible that Berger hadn’t captured a code for how all memories are stored, but rather a code related only to the specific task of recalling an image. He says that within the next two years, he and his colleagues plan to implant a memory chip in animals, one that should, once and for all, determine if they have indeed cracked the code of creating long-term memories of many different situations and behaviors.

As he told M.I.T.’s Technology Review, ““I never thought I’d see this go into humans, and now our discussions are about when and how. I never thought I’d live to see the day, but now I think I will.”

The ticking clock

Here’s other recent research on aging and memory:

Be still, my heart: After tracking more than 5,000 men for 40 years, Danish scientists concluded that those with high resting heart rates–above 80 beats per minute–were considerably more likely to die at a younger age, even if they were considered healthy.

Not to mention it was a lot safer than actually having them drive: According to a study at the University of Iowa, elderly people who played a video game called “Road Tour” for as little as 10 hours, were able to measurably sharpen their cognitive skills.

And throw in a side of olive oil: More kudos for the Mediterranean diet. A study published in the journal Neurology earlier this week found that people who followed the diet, built around eating fish, olive oil and vegetables and very little meat, were 19 percent less likely to suffer memory problems or cognitive decay.

Although now they only dream in pink: And then there’s this report from German scientists: By having people listen to “pink noise” sounds that matched their brain wave oscillations as they slept, researchers were able to help them remember things they had learned the previous day.
Dead and famous: Research by Australian scientists based on obituaries published in the New York Times over a two-year period found that people who were famous were more likely to die younger, particularly performers and athletes. The study also determined that performers were at a particularly high greatest risk of dying of lung cancer.

We’re gonna need more fists: And finally, scientists at Montclair State University in New Jersey say their research shows that by clenching your right fist before memorizing something, and then your left when you want to remember it, you have a better chance of your memory coming through for you.[1017 words]

source：
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/the-secret-to-a-long-life-may-be-deep-inside-your-brain-50166788/

ffffionabear

谢谢Cherry妹纸~~首页督促做作业！！
----无限感恩~！！进击的阅读小分队~~你的作业（ ￣ー￣）[冷笑]  不，是你的作业~~一天不做，浑身哆嗦
~~--------------------------------------
[speaker]
Stress linked to aging;
Studies find caps that recover the aging chromosomes become shorter when people in depression, which may result in  unsteadily hormone level.
[speed]
1'59
Wine cork safeguards a wine's taste and aging progress,but its quality decrease abruptly over the year because of the heat-shock proteins in it cannot work steadily.
1'03
Genetic differences would yield to natural selection,choosing the best plants to breed and to fit the climate change.
1'47
Music can evoke the brain,changing blood pressure,heart rate and breathing,which help people suffering from Alzheimer's and other disorders.
1'43
Rivals encourage people to perform better and push themselves harder,which not link to liking or disliking,but link to motivation.
58'
But when rivalry turns into fear of failure,it will bring some side-effect,such as detrimental performance and cheating.
[obstacle]
3'52
main idea:Studies show the secret to long life,defend aging related to your brain.
1.Lower NF-FB lever will make us healthier,younger,and even let our brain regenerate.
2.silicon chip can preserve memory as neurons do.
3.following a mediterranean diet can decrease the risk of suffering memory problems.

公元前334

2:58 Metal candidators motivate us to find the reason of worse cork. Mainly because of gene.
2:38 Protein gene lackness cause other gene activity, leading a bad crak.
3:09 Music has the power to awaken long-dormant memories and emotions in people suffering from Alzheimer's and other disorders.
4:42 Rival makes people run faster.
3:34 Link between rivalry and increased motivation and performance is week. Rival also has negetive effects.

Dmyzywy

占个楼啊~~

TIMER 2:[2'01]
  Cork is an important factor that can determine wine's taste and aging process.
  the quality of cork depends on climate, years and other factors.

TIMER 3:[1'46]
  UV explosion and water are important factors to plant good cork.
  bad cork can be fixed in some ways.

TIMER 4:[2'09]
  music can transport many things into brain
  a flim that describes the effects of music to treat people.

TIMER 5:[2'37]
  kate->my rival
  brief introduction about Kate
  vitals are not someone you like or dislike, just a symbol to competite.
  competition is a positive thing.
  some resesarches.

TIMER 6:[1'51]
  a research K did to prove that rivals can improve competiters' score.
  but that research can not be a quite roof for the conclusion
  rivals can be always good

OBSTACLE:[5'25]
  about slow age->intrigued
  a research about slow age-> treated in mice->question->mice are different from people.
  a research about memory->vegetable and fish can help slow the speed of forgetting.
  a research about heart beat.
  a dream to slow the aging, but scientists are struggling to study it

liujingflora

time2:2:43 the importance of corks for wine, the difference between good cork and bad cork, why cork can efficiently protect the taste of wine
time3:1:53 there is genetic difference between bad cork tree and good cork tree
time4:2:54 the influence of music can help people to find themselves inside
time5:3:34 many runners have their own rival. The scientist think that rivalry can give people motivation
time6:2:23 although rivalry will bring motivation and improvement to people, but it may be not good thing in complex task
time7:7:28 the relationship between aging and memory

cherry6891

40-13
Time2
--The quality of wine cork influence the wine quality,because the low quality of cork let more oxygen into the bottle which react with wine and make the wine sour as vinegar
--compare the gene difference between good and bad cork trees
Good cork trees possess more hot react protein
Time3
Low quality cork trees produce more phenolic to against strong UV
And the slow growth helps to correct wrong DNA reproduction
Time4
Music has the power to wake up long dormant memory and emotions
Time5
Having a rival in mind during running will make u run faster
Time6
There is a link between rivalry motivation and performance ,but it is not fit for all situation like mutli-task
Obstacle
--NF-rB can  lengthen the life length and is shown to related to aging
High dose of N made mice shorter life
--electronic implant in the brain could help people have longer memory
--several factors give us the clue of life length: heart rates,diet, work

onion2.2

speed:
time2:1:43
time3:1:15
time4:1:42
time5: 2:17
time6: 1:28


obstacle: 5:40
N are found to be related to mice’s length of life, and it shows the process of aging can be controlled.
scientists lengthen monkey’s memory by an electronic way, and it may be useful in keep human being’s memory.
Other findings about aging and memory.

cyndichiang

Time2 1'29''
Wine corks have different qualities that affect the quality of wine
Quality of cork has decreased and the differences between corks are due to gene activity for heat-shock protein

Time3 1'20''
Exposure to UV radiation causes oak to produce more ophenolic.
UV-triggered mutation can be protected by minimizing cell division
Climate changes affect the quality of cork

Time4 2'26''
A new study found that music can spark the brain memory activity and is helpful  for dementia patients.

Time5 1'59''
Keeping a rivalry in mind can help people get higher motivation
K did a research to find out what role a familar rival plays in a racer' mind
Conclusion: Rivals push racers work harder and better

Time6 1'54''
Further study shows that rivalry does push people perform better
Extra arousal or overcompetition might lead to negative effects such as cheating

Obstacle: 6'05''
A research shows that if NF-KB--a substance in brain--is deactived,mice will live 20% longer,leading a conclusion that deterioration of tissue can be controlled and manipulated
A research on moneys shows that electrodes in brain help improve money's memory
ticking clock:
People who have slower heart beat will live longer
Another research shows that by having people listen to "pink noise"that matched their brain wave oscillations as they slept, they might remenber things