Chronic diseases such as diabetes are on the rise and are costly and challenging to treat. Whitehead Institute Member Richard Young and colleagues have discovered a common denominator driving these diverse diseases, which may prove to be a promising therapeutic target: proteolethargy, or reduced protein mobility, in the presence of oxidative stress.

In an international collaboration, researchers at Uppsala University have been able to identify undigested food remains, plants and prey in the fossilised faeces of dinosaurs. These analyses of hundreds of samples provide clues about the role dinosaurs played in the ecosystem around 200 million years ago. The findings have been published in the journal Nature.

Cellular death is a fundamental concept in the biological sciences. Given its significance though, its definition depends on the context in which it takes place, and lacks a general mathematical definition. Researchers from the University of Tokyo propose a new mathematical definition of death based on whether a potentially dead cell can return to a predefined “representative state of living,” which are the states of being that we can confidently call “alive.” The researchers’ work could be useful for biological researchers and future medical research.

Increasing physical activity levels could extend your life up to 11 more years according to new research using accelometry data. The study found that for the least active people in the population, a single one-hour walk could return a benefit of six additional hours of life. 

Researchers identify potential genes linking depression to menstrual pain