The science news of the week: The world’s average life expectancy continues to rise and is currently 72 years. However, many people live much longer, and reaching 100 is far from the limit. Many associate this with a healthy lifestyle and heredity, but although scientists are confident that genetics plays an important, if not decisive, role in longevity, the mechanism of general life extension remains unresolved. And in the meantime, such knowledge could greatly advance humanity, if not in the search for the elixir of eternal youth, then at least in the acquisition of important tools to combat aging.
An important step in this direction has been taken by a group of researchers led by Professor Paolo Garagnani of the University of Bologna. They sequenced the genomes of 81 individuals over the ages of 105 and 110, and then compared them to the genomes of a relatively young group of healthy individuals aged 68. “The people in the second group did not suffer from many age-related diseases and therefore provided an excellent example of healthy aging,” Professor Garanyan points out. We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what’s next. The number of episodes should stay the same: episodes End of story. Podcast advertising.
The researchers found that people in the group over the age of 105 were more likely to carry five key genetic variations associated with effective DNA repair than those in the younger group. The results of previous studies on a group of 300 centenarians showed the presence of the same groups of genes in them. The genes of all these people were inherited from their parents, but DNA can change throughout our lives. Some of these changes, known as somatic mutations, occur in specific cell lines throughout the body and are associated with the aging process. Despite the fact that people in the older group lived three or even four decades longer than people in the younger group, they had significantly fewer mutations. According to scientists, this means that some people are simply born with genetic variations that allow them to repair DNA better, giving them a greater chance of living to a very old age. However, the mechanism that slows down somatic mutations remains a mystery. All that can be said with certainty is that the body’s ability to reduce damage to cells plays a key role in longevity.
Humans have long had plans to colonize the Moon and explore its vast expanses, but no actual bases have been built. However, the European Space Agency (ESA) is already considering a key component of future lunar infrastructure – a cellular communications and satellite navigation system. After all, how else will astronauts navigate the lunar surface where there are currently no road signs? The project, called Moonlight, will also include a telecommunications network. It will be launched to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program, which will replace Apollo, which ended more than half a century ago.
The satellite network must provide nearly complete coverage of the lunar surface. ESA has commissioned two European consortia to develop a lunar satellite navigation and cellular communications network. This network will consist of at least three – and most likely more – positioning and relay satellites capable of covering virtually the entire lunar surface. In addition, several beacons would be installed on the ground to correct the signals. Initially, the satellites are expected to provide positioning accuracy of up to 100 meters on the ground, and as the network develops, it could reach up to 30 meters. One of the consortia is a small British satellite manufacturing company based in Surrey – SSTL, which has already launched equipment for the European Union’s Galileo satellite navigation system. Access to ESA’s planned network will enable countries and individual companies planning to send their probes or ships to the Moon in the next decade to reduce the risks involved and save significant resources. This network of satellites will also greatly facilitate the work of lunar rovers and space telescopes on the far side of the Moon, allowing much greater amounts of information to be transmitted back to Earth. ESA is expected to use such a commercial model, where it will purchase services from telecom operators rather than owning or operating the equipment itself. If this model proves successful, small private space companies as well as giants like ESA and NASA will be able to use the services of this operator or operators. In fact, NASA has been using subcontractors for a long time, especially in the Artemis project, where they launch cargo ships for NASA and develop manned ones.
Pathfinder is expected to be launched into lunar orbit as early as 2023-24. ESA also decided to follow the beaten track and signed a contract to provide telecommunications services with SSTL, whose lunar satellite Pathfinder (“Патфайндер”) could become a prototype for the “Lunar Light” project satellites. The satellite is now being assembled at the Guildford company (which is self-funding) and, after its planned launch in 2023-24, anyone will be able to pay to use its services. “Pathfinder will be launched into a high elliptical orbit to remain within sight of the Moon’s south pole for an extended period of time, where the first Artemis missions will be directed. “Pathfinder” needs to test the market, because when launching a commercial project, it is much easier to start small, with one satellite, to ensure that it provides the necessary communications,” said Nelly Offord, head of commercial research at SSTL. “In addition, Pathfinder will be able to interact with the entire future network, so it can become the first node in that network if desired.”
There is nothing wrong with beautiful makeup, and in certain circumstances it can be very appropriate and even necessary. And cosmetics companies with multi-billion dollar annual revenues are doing their best to prove it, and needless to say, they are succeeding… As Dax Kelly and his colleagues at the University of New South Wales in Australia have found experimentally, the more makeup a woman uses, the lower (usually) her intellectual ability and moral standards are rated by those around her. In the first experiment (the full research was published in the European Journal of Social Psychology), women between the ages of 18 and 59 were asked to imagine themselves in one of four scenarios: on a date, in a job interview, composing a message on Instagram, or going to the grocery store. After the roles were assigned, the women were asked to select and Photoshop makeup appropriate for the scenario, and then to complete a questionnaire describing how they rated themselves in terms of intelligence, emotionality, compassion and thoughtful decision-making, desire to compete with other women, and reaction to jealousy from their partner. At the same time, the researchers found no evidence that makeup had any effect on women’s self-esteem. In the following experiment, a mixed group of men and women were shown photographs of women from the first experiment, first without makeup and then with Photoshop cosmetics. They were then asked to rate how they perceived the mental abilities and moral qualities of these women (essentially asking them the same questions that were included in the questionnaire for the “first round” participants). And it turned out that women who wore more cosmetics appeared to be more attractive, but also more approachable and flirtatious. According to scientists, this indicates that the link between makeup and attractiveness does not in itself turn women into sexual objects, but at the same time, cosmetics suggest the idea of easy accessibility, and it is at this point that women are denied high intellectual abilities and moral qualities. “The result of the second experiment clearly shows that the amount of cosmetics definitely affects how people perceive a woman’s rationality, her ability to make rational decisions, and her emotions,” Kelly explains. “And whether these judgments are positive or negative depends on whether the outside observer associates makeup with a woman’s attractiveness or her accessibility.”