4 ms·
Drug perks up old muscles and aging brains
- msie 11y agoI'm guessing that human trials are a decade away. :-( If something like this were released today it would save trillions in elderly care. This should be a priority for any government. No Manhattan project to accelerate delivery to market?
- iamcurious 11y agoThe Manhattan project and JKF's promise succeeded, but Nixon's promise to cure cancer didn't. Maybe we would have more luck if we pretend another nation is up to no good curing all diseases before the US.
- agumonkey 11y agoIt's a bit sad how far can one go under 'negative' pressure. Nothing happens unless there's a shiny carrot to eat.
- blisterpeanuts 11y agoYou'd think that a promising new age-reversing technology would attract a lot of attention from the bio-technology sector. It would be the biggest pharmaceutical profit maker ever. You could charge anything for it - a million, a billion - and you'd get takers. I suspect that when something real comes along, we'll know it :)
- tokenadult 11y agoNo direct link to the University of California press release, which is the original source for this story, and no link to the underlying journal article published in a very obscure, low-impact-factor journal. It's a bit early to be discussing this on Hacker News, methinks. Anyway, several other participants here have previously identified ScienceDaily (a press release dissemination service, nothing more) as a poor source for submissions to Hacker News.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8737181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8737181
- robot22 11y agoI don't think it is fair to write-off research based on the journal it was published in.
- speechduh 11y agoI do think it's fair to call it out, though. Articles in second or third tier journals deserve higher levels of scrutiny. I'd rather see this replicated a couple of times before acting on it.
- robot22 11y agoThis is spot on and holds for all scientific research.
- JoshTriplett 11y agoIt absolutely is. Some journals have more peer review than others, and experts in the field typically know which ones will effectively rubber stamp anything that crosses their desks. That doesn't inherently make the research wrong, but it means the usual "this was published in a peer-reviewed journal" signaling carries no weight.
- robot22 11y agoPeer review is less effective then you imagine and a highly political process. These experts usually have a vested interest in a certain viewpoint or line of research. I agree extra scrutiny always helps, but scientific consensus does not guarantee truth.
- JoshTriplett 11y agoIt's certainly not a guarantee. However, it does tend to provide a non-zero improvement in signal-to-noise. That process can and should be drastically improved, though.
- joe_the_user 11y ago
- MiddleEndian 11y agoThe real question, assuming it works (because eventually something will): Will it be made illegal if people use it to "cheat" at sports?
- tvon 11y agoI am not aware of anything that has been made illegal to the general public because it was used to gain an advantage in professional sports.
- MiddleEndian 11y agoIIRC, steroids became a controlled substance in the US in response to steroid use in the Olympics.
- aidenn0 11y agoBut you can still get a prescription for them.
- MiddleEndian 11y agoI guess maybe "forbidden" or "restricted" might be a better term than "illegal," but that also applies to other schedule III drugs.
- alexc05 11y agoHonestly, from the headline I legitimately thought the answer was going to be testosterone propionate or similar.
- spanktar 11y agoImage for the TGF-β pathway, in case you're into that kind of thing: https://www.qiagen.com/us/products/genes%20and%20pathways/pathway%20details.aspx?pwid=432 https://www.qiagen.com/us/products/genes%20and%20pathways/pa...
- discardorama 11y ago"In 2005, Conboy and her colleagues infused old mice with blood from young mice -- a process called parabiosis -- reinvigorating stem cells in the muscle, liver and brain/hippocampus and showing that the chemicals in young blood can actually rejuvenate the chemical environment of aging stem cells." Wasn't there some horror movie (or story...) about some guy (Dracula?) staying young by taking young people's blood transfusions? Or am I off base?
- agumonkey 11y agoI've read it has been done many times throughout history. I found it funny that 21th century science is reaching folklore level of knowledge.