Science – Page 2 – praag.org

Millions of ‘Spanish’ Jews to apply for citizenship

Jewish associations expect 3.5 million Sephardic Jews to apply for Spanish citizenship after Spain’s Justice Ministry approved a draft law which will allow them to return to the country their ancestors were kicked out of more than 500 years ago.

The descendants of Sephardic Jews banished from Spain in 1492 will now be able to regain Spanish nationality under a new law approved by Madrid’s Cabinet of Ministers on Friday.

Those who can prove their Spanish origins will be able to apply for dual nationality at the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain, El Mundo newspaper reported on Sunday.

According to Israel’s Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese Association (OLEI), the newly-approved legislation has already resulted in a flurry of applications from Sephardic Jews around the world.

Source: The Local

Scientists steer nanomotors inside living human cells

Scientists at Penn State University have successfully controlled tiny nanomotors inside living human cells. Consisting of tiny, rocket-shaped bits of metal, the nanomotors were propelled by ultrasonic waves and steered with magnets. Researcher Tom Mallouk wasn’t afraid to talk up potential future applications, saying that the technology could one day be used “to treat cancer and other diseases by mechanically manipulating cells from the inside.” Once inside a living cell, the nanomotors could pulverize the cell’s contents like an “egg beater” or just break the cell’s membrane, Penn State’s note about the research says, which could allow for targeted attacks on specific cells. More importantly, Mallouk says that the nanomotors were able to move independently of one another, instead of the “whole mass of them going in one direction.”

Though it’s a long way off from Mallouk’s self-stated dream of “Fantastic Voyage-style medicine, where nanomotors would cruise around inside the body, communicating with each other and performing various kinds of diagnoses and therapy,” it is the first time that nanomotors have worked inside living cells. Previously, nanomotors required toxic fuels to operate, which obviously wouldn’t work on living tissue. Working inside actual living animals is still a ways off, Mallouk tells CNN that it would be a decade or more before research hit that stage.

Source: theverge.com

RoboEarth: Should we just surrender?

Scientists have created a network which various smart devices and artificial intelligences will use autonomously to share information and learn from each other – increasing their capabilities. Should we just surrender now? The BBC reports:

A world wide web for robots to learn from each other and share information is being shown off for the first time. The system has been developed by research scientists from Philips and five European universities including Eindhoven.

It is the culmination of a four-year project, funded by the European Union. The eventual aim is that both robots and humans will be able to upload information to the cloud-based database, which would act as a kind of common brain for machines.

“At its core RoboEarth is a world wide web for robots: a giant network and database repository where robots can share information and learn from each other,” said Rene van de Molengraft, the RoboEarth project leader.

James Barrat, who has written extensively about the dangers of robots gaining their own intelligence, thinks there need to be safeguards: “The consequences of sharing that capability [to evolve or otherwise improve their own software] with the central ‘mind’ should be explored before it happens.”

Source: BBC

Enter the molecular age

Materials shape human progress – think Stone Age or Bronze Age. The 21st century has been referred to as the molecular age, a time when scientists are beginning to manipulate materials at the atomic level to create new substances with astounding properties.

Taking a step in that direction, Jens Bauer at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and his colleagues have developed a bone-like material that is less dense than water, but as strong as some forms of steel. “This is the first experimental proof that such materials can exist,” Bauer said.

Since the Industrial Revolution our demand for new materials has outstripped supply. We want these materials to do many different things, from improving the speed of computers to withstanding the heat when entering Mars’ atmosphere. However, a key feature of most new materials still remains in their strength and stiffness – that is, how much load can they carry without bending or buckling.

Few fully dense solid materials are lighter than water. Those that are tend to be porous, like wood or bone, and they exhibit exquisite structures when observed under a microscope, and they served as inspiration for Bauer’s work.

For many years, material scientists have thought that some empty areas on the compressive strength-density chart should be filled by materials that theory predicts. Computer simulations could be used to indicate an optimum microstructure that would give a material the right properties. However, nobody had tools to build materials with defined patterns at the scale of a human hair.

With recent developments in lasers and 3D printing, however, a German company called Nanoscribe started offering lasers that could do just what Bauer wanted. Nanoscribe’s system involves the use of a polymer that reacts when exposed to light and a laser that can be neatly focused on a tiny spot with the help of lenses.

A drop of a honey-like polymer is placed on a glass slide and the laser is turned on. A computer-aided design is fed into the system and the slide carefully moves such that the laser’s stationary focus touches only those points where the material is to be made solid. Once complete, the extra liquid is washed away, leaving behind materials with intricate internal structures.

However, these materials on their own are not as strong as Bauer wanted. So he coats them with a thin layer of alumina (aluminium oxide) before subjecting them to stress tests. Based on the tests, he was able to improve the theoretical models he used to design the internal structure of the materials. Their results were just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Even though alumina layers increase the density of these materials, all of them remain lighter than water. Bauer’s strongest material has a specific honeycomb internal structure and is coated with a 50 nanometre-thick (billionth of a metre) layer of alumina. It beats all natural and man-made materials that are lighter than 1000kg/m3, being able to withstand a load of 280MPa (mega pascals is a unit of measuring pressure), which makes it as strong as some forms of steel.

There are limitations. Nanoscribe’s system can only make objects that are tens of micrometers in size. “One of their newer machines can make materials in the millimeter-range, but that’s about it for now,” Bauer added. But that is not enough for any real-life application.

However, there have been rapid improvements in all the areas this work relies on: 3D printing, new polymers and laser technology. That means we may soon have a suite of new, super lightweight materials for everything from skis to aircraft parts. If nothing else, Bauer’s work shows that we are definitely in the molecular age.

Study claims American ‘racism’ harmful to health

Accelerated aging and a greater likelihood of suffering from an age-related illness at a younger age are two consequences being linked to African-American men who have experienced high-levels of racism throughout their lives.

A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine finds that African-American men who reported high levels of racial discrimination, or who have internalized anti-black attitudes themselves, have an increased risk of premature death and chronic disease than white people.

Previous research has documented African-Americans’ shorter life expectancy and greater risk of chronic diseases, but this new study is the first to link racism-related experiences to accelerated aging at the biological, cellular level.

“We examined a biomarker of systemic aging, known as leukocyte telomere length,” Dr. David H. Chae, assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Maryland School of Public Health and the study’s lead investigator, said in a statement.

Chae continued: “Shorter telomere length is associated with increased risk of premature death and chronic disease such as diabetes, dementia, stroke and heart disease. We found that the African American men who experienced greater racial discrimination and who displayed a stronger bias against their own racial group had the shortest telomeres of those studied.”

The “telomeres” measured in the 92 African-American men were lost at a length equivalent to 1.4 and 2.8 years of life faster. The men also had an average of 140 base pairs shorter than the average of 50-100 lost each year.

The men surveyed were asked about their experiences with racial discrimination from the police, at work, and in daily scenarios in stores and restaurants. The men were also tested using “implicit association” exams that measure their own attitudes toward various racial groups.

“Our findings suggest that racism literally makes people old,” Chae said, citing the “social toxins” African American men experience as a result of stereotyping, police harassment, and disrespect in the workplace and society. ”Stop-and-frisk policies and other forms of criminal profiling such as ‘driving or shopping while Black’ are inherently stressful and have a real impact on the health of African Americans.”

Although Chae notes that further research is needed on the correlation, he indicates that there is a growing research field for how the stress of racism on African-Americans can be harmful to health. – washington.cbslocal.com

Geek oil or peak oil?

A new scientific discovery that takes algae and turns it into crude oil in minutes rather than millions of years could be the end of constant worries over “peak oil.”

Engineers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) announced that they have created a process that takes an enriched stew of algae and turns it into crude oil which, in turn, can be made into a usable bio-fuel. The development was announced in a recent issue of the journal Algal Research.

Genifuel Corp., a biofuels company from Utah, has licensed the technology and is attempting to utilize the process on a larger, industrial scale.

In a press release, PNNL described, “In the PNNL process, a slurry of wet algae is pumped into the front end of a chemical reactor. Once the system is up and running, out comes crude oil in less than an hour, along with water and a byproduct stream of material containing phosphorus that can be recycled to grow more algae.”

The press release also noted that “conventional refining” is then capable of taking the man-made crude oil and turning it into usable biofuels. PNNL notes that the man-made crude can be made into “aviation fuel, gasoline, or diesel fuel.”

PNNL also feels that its process has eliminated the high cost of other algae-based biofuels processes.

“Cost is the big roadblock for algae-based fuel,” said Douglas Elliott, leader of the PNNL research team. “We believe that the process we’ve created will help make algae biofuels much more economical.”

The biggest cost-saving aspect of the new process is that the PNNL team figured out how to use wet algae, whereas most other formulas require the algae to be in a dry form.

“Not having to dry the algae is a big win in this process; that cuts the cost a great deal. Then there are bonuses, like being able to extract usable gas from the water and then recycle the remaining water and nutrients to help grow more algae, which further reduces costs,” Elliot said.

Another exciting development in this new process is that the system works continuously. Other attempts created biofuels in single batches, but this new process works more like an assembly line in a continuously moving and producing system.

The new process also dispenses with the use of toxic chemicals and solvents to separate the energy-rich oils from the algae. The process uses high heat and pressure instead.

“It’s a bit like using a pressure cooker, only the pressures and temperatures we use are much higher,” Elliott said. “In a sense, we are duplicating the process in the Earth that converted algae into oil over the course of millions of years. We’re just doing it much, much faster.”

Perhaps it won’t be long before humanity manufacturing its own oil eliminates the question of whether to drill the earth for it. – breitbart.com

Multivitamins have no health benefits

Do daily multivitamins make you healthier?

After reviewing the available evidence and conducting new trials, the authors have come to a conclusion of “no.”

“We believe that the case is closed — supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful,” concluded the authors of the editorial summarizing the new research papers, published Dec. 16 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. “These vitamins should not be used for chronic disease prevention. Enough is enough.”

They went on to urge consumers to not “waste” their money on multivitamins.

“The ‘stop wasting your money’ means that perhaps you’re spending money on things that won’t protect you long term,” editorial co-author Dr. Edgar Miller, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, told CBS News’ chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook. “What will protect you is if you spend the money on fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, low fat dairy, things like that ..exercising would probably be a better use of the money.”

The strong message was based on a review of the findings from three studies that tracked multivitamins link to cancer protection, heart health, and brain and cognitive measures.

Vitamin and mineral supplements are taken by an estimated half of all Americans.

The first study, which was released online Nov. 12 in Annals, was a review of 24 studies and two trials on more than 350,000 individuals that looked at vitamin supplementation’s role in preventing chronic disease. The review was conducted to find evidence that can be used to update vitamin treatment guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a panel of medical experts who recommend the government on treatments.

That review found no evidence that vitamin and mineral supplementation would reduce heart disease in pill takers. Two of the trials found a small, “borderline-significant benefit” in cancer risk reduction, but only in men. Overall, the panel concluded there was no solid evidence for or against taking vitamins and minerals alone, or that a multivitamin to prevent heart disease or cancer. More strikingly, it found enough evidence to recommend against taking beta-carotene or vitamin E for preventing both diseases, finding they not only didn’t help but the former may raise risk for lung cancer for already at-risk individuals.

“In the absence of clear evidence about the impact of most vitamins and multivitamins on cardiovascular disease and cancer, health care professionals should counsel their patients to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet that is rich in nutrients,” the Task Force concluded.

The next study, published Dec. 16 in Annals, looked at cognitive health and whether long-term use of multivitamins would have any effect. Researchers assigned almost 5,950 male doctors aged 65 and older to take either a daily multivitamin or placebo for 12 years in a randomized, placebo-controlled trial,

Based on the results of memory tests, the researchers found the multivitamin did nothing to slow cognitive decline among men 65 and older compared to placebo takers.

“These data do not provide support for use of multivitamin supplements in the prevention of cognitive decline,” wrote the authors, led by Dr. Francine Grodstein, an epidemiologist who studies aging at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

It’s worth noting this study only looked at cognitive test results, not actual development of dementia.

The third study looked specifically at multivitamins and minerals role in preventing another heart attack, or myocardial infarction. They looked at more than 1,700 people who had a heart attack at least six weeks earlier, and randomized them to receive daily high-dose multivitamins and minerals or placebos for five years.
Having a heart attack raises risk for another attack, or cardiovascular event like stroke or premature death, so if multivitamins could reduce risk, they could be a boon to public health.

The researchers found no difference in rates of another heart attack, chest pain, the need for hospitalization, cardiac catheterization, or rates of stroke and early death between vitamin-takers and placebo-takers. But, they said the conclusions should be taken with caution, because several participants stopped taking vitamins early.

The authors of the editorial say the evidence is clear about supplements, except for vitamin D, which has been shown to be both effective and ineffective for preventing falls and fractures in elderly.

“Sales of multivitamins and other supplements have not been affected by major studies with null results, and the U.S. supplement industry continues to grow, reaching $28 billion in annual sales in 2010,” wrote the authors of the editorial summary, led by Dr. Eliseo Guallar, a professor of epidemiology who specializes in heart disease prevention at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. “We should translate null and negative findings into action. The message is simple: Most supplements do not prevent chronic disease or death, their use is not justified, and they should be avoided.”

Last year, Pfizer agreed to remove “breast health” and “colon health” claims from some of its Centrum multivitamins following pressure from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which said their claims of cancer prevention were misleading.

A dietary supplement industry group slammed the editorial and studies. – cbsnews.com

France names suspect in Paris newspaper shooting

by Nicolas Gaudichet, Pauline Talagrand

France said Thursday the suspect arrested over this week’s shootings in Paris is a man previously jailed for his role in a “Bonnie-and-Clyde” style multiple murder that gripped the country 20 years ago.

Abdelhakim Dekhar was arrested on Wednesday after a major manhunt following a shooting at the left-wing newspaper Liberation that left an assistant photographer seriously hurt and another at the headquarters of the Societe Generale bank.

His DNA matched samples from the scenes of the attacks, officials said.

“All the evidence today points to his involvement in the events that he has been charged with,” Interior Minister Manuel Valls said.

Dekhar, who is in his late 40s, was convicted in 1998 of buying a gun used in an October 1994 shooting attack by student Florence Rey and her lover Audry Maupin. Three policemen, a taxi driver and Maupin himself were killed in a case that shook France.

He served four years in jail for his role in the killings, and his former lawyers have described him as “enigmatic” and “strange”.

Dekhar was arrested Wednesday evening in a vehicle in an underground parking lot in the northwestern Paris suburb of Bois-Colombes, after apparently trying to commit suicide.

Valls said that “everything appears to point to a suicide attempt”, and sources told AFP Dekhar was semi-conscious when he was found.

The head of the Paris criminal police department, Christian Flaesch, said he was in custody in a “medical environment” and was not in a fit state to speak to investigators.

Valls said investigators would need more information to be able to “understand his motivation”, adding that “one or two letters” had been found.

Investigators said the letters were “confused” and sought to “explain this act.”

In a press conference, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the letters spoke of a “fascist plot,” touched on “how suburbs are run” and accused the media of participating in the “manipulation of the masses”.

Molins said Dekhar was in detention for attempted murder and kidnapping.

The arrest came after a witness statement to police, who had on Tuesday released a new photograph of the suspect and received hundreds of calls from potential witnesses.

One of them was a man who had housed the suspect, said a source connected with the investigation.

The witness quoted the suspect as saying “I’ve made a stupid mistake.”

The shooter opened fire with a 12-gauge shotgun at the offices of Liberation early on Monday, hitting a 23-year-old photographer’s assistant as he hauled gear in the lobby, then firing another blast that hit the roof before leaving within seconds.

He then crossed the city to the La Defense business district on its western edge, where he fired several shots outside the main office of the Societe Generale bank, hitting no one.

He hijacked a car and forced the driver to drop him off near the Champs Elysees in the centre of the French capital, before disappearing.

Police say he was the same man who last Friday stormed into the Paris headquarters of a 24-hour TV news channel, BFMTV, briefly threatening staff with a gun before hurrying out.

Dekhar was suspected of being the third man in the so-called Rey-Maupin affair in 1994, which shocked France.

Investigators at the time compared the young couple to the infamous American outlaws Bonnie and Clyde.

Witnesses at the trial in 1998 described him as a mentor to the couple and accused him of exploiting their youth to manipulate them.

He argued that he had been a secret agent in the pay of Algerian security services, charged with infiltrating the radical left in France in search of those acting in coordination with Islamists in Algeria.

In the early 1990s Dekhar was known to hang out at squats used by left-wing radicals and which were often under police surveillance.

Maupin died of injuries sustained during a shootout with police and Rey, a middle-class student hitherto unknown to the police, was tried and sentenced to 20 years in jail. She was released in 2009.

Dekhar was acquitted of armed assault but found guilty of procuring the weapon and sentenced to four years. He was released soon afterwards, having already served his time in pre-trial detention.

This week’s attacks set off a major manhunt and raised concerns about violence against media outlets.

The photographer, who suffered wounds to the chest and stomach, appeared to be in better condition on Wednesday.

Hospital officials said he had regained consciousness and was no longer on an artificial respirator. – AFP

Petrol hike increases taxi fares

The South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) has announced an increase in taxi fares which will be effective from the end of this month.

An increase of between 10% and 20% comes in the wake of the latest fuel price hike. Petrol rose by 32 cents a litre and diesel by 33 cents a litre. In June, the fuel price rose by 84 cents and diesel 78 cents a litre.

Santaco’s Bafana Magagula says local routes will be increasing by between R1 and R5 and long distance routes by R10 and R50.

In June, Sanatco introduced an index which will be used by associations to calculate taxi fares. The Taxi Fare Index is based on a computer programme that models the costs of taxi operations. The index will be released quarterly to the media and to Santaco members.

Consumers in general are under pressure as fuel hikes push up the cost of other consumer goods.

Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) Economist Lumkile Mondi, last Monday said that the volatile rand and relatively higher oil prices are to blame.

The expected e-tolls in Gauteng and possible interest rate hikes are other looming cost pressures for the consumer.

A storm is brewing: Sun’s magnetic field about to flip

The sun’s magnetic field is expected to flip in the next three to four months and it could lead to changes in our climate, storms and disruption to satellites.

This solar event only happens once every 11 years and signals what physicists call the Solar Maximum – a time when the Sun’s solar activity is at its highest.

During this peak in activity the outbursts of solar energy can increase the amount of cosmic and UV rays coming towards Earth and this can interfere with radio communications, cause solar bursts of light – known as flares – and can affect the planet’s temperature.

The sun’s magnetic field reverses around every 11 years at the peak of each solar cycle.

The last peak, or Solar Maximum, was in 2000 and Nasa initially predicted the next flip would take place between 2011 and 2012.

Physicists also warned at the time that the next Solar Maximum could be the strongest yet.

Scientists at Stanford’s Wilcox Solar Observatory have been studying the sun’s magnetic field since 1976, during which time they have witnessed three reversals.

In 1859 a solar storm known as the 1859 Solar Superstorm, or Carrington Event after Richard C Carrington who recorded the event, saw numerous solar flares appear all over Earth.

It was so strong that the Northern Lights – a natural light display that appears predominantly in that Arctic and Antarctic regions and is caused by the collision of energetic charged particles in the magnetosphere and solar wind – were said to be have been visible as far south as Rome.

Climate war reaches boiling point

The war between former Vice President Al Gore and his critics over global warming is about to hit the boiling point with a new claim that Sun-influenced climate change is shifting into reverse, with the Earth poised to head into a period of cooling that will end the rise of the oceans.

A global warming critic on Monday announced plans to release new data showing that the threat of rising global sea levels has peaked and that the Sun is entering a “hibernation” period that could bring colder weather.

“Like most major climate events, the past sea level rise was caused by the Sun and had little or nothing to do with mankind’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions,” said John Casey, a former White House and NASA advisor and climate author. “Now that the Sun has entered a state of ‘solar hibernation’ and is cutting back on the energy by which it warms the Earth, a new and potentially dangerous decades-long drop in global temperatures has begun,” he warned.

Casey is the president of the Space and Science Research Corporation and author “Cold Sun,” which predicts the coming cooling period. Because his predictions go against the mainstream, he has been ridiculed by supporters of global warming. Media Matters called him a “scam artist.”

Let there be light… in Rjukan!

The Norwegian town of Rjukan is shrouded in darkness for five months every year, but a project completed this month promises to bring a bright spot to the town’s central square via the recently completed installation of a series of massive mirrors that will reflect sunlight onto the meeting spot.

The Mirror Project was originally conceived by a Norwegian industrialist almost 100 years ago, but the lengthy wait has not dampened enthusiasm about the project’s completion.

Rjukan, which is located about halfway between Bergen and Oslo and is encircled by sun-obstructing mountains, is a dreary place to be between September and March, when the sun’s rays cannot reach its quaint streets.

But the effort, dubbed the “Mirror Project,” will ensure that Rjukan residents have a place to bask even in the darkest days of frigid Scandinavian winters.

“The aim of this project is to illuminate the town square of Rjukan with reflected sunlight. Rjukan is a town surrounded by mountains which prevent the sun from reaching the floor of the valley for five months of the year,” an online description of the plan states. “The project will result in a permanent installation which, with the help of 100 [square-meter] mirror[s], will redirect the sun down into the valley. The square will become a sunny meetingplace in a town otherwise in shadow.”

The 538-foot mirrors, which were installed in July with the help of helicopters, have yet to be tested, but as the sun recedes behind the mountains for the last time this year in September, the town’s residents and science-lovers around the world will be watching to see if they can really keep the town from its typical winter gloom. – ibtimes.com

Scientists discover brain’s misery molecule

Scientists have found the brain’s ‘misery molecule’ believed to be responsible for all of our feelings of stress and anxiety.

Researchers believe that the protein – named CRF1 – could also be linked to depression.

A team from Heptares Therapeutics, a medical company based in Hertfordshire, used one of the world’s most powerful x-ray machines to study the brain’s pituitary gland.

It has long been known that the gland controls stress, depression and anxiety by releasing stress chemicals, the Sunday Times reports.

Now, scientists have discovered the response is triggered by CRF1 – which is found in the outer membranes of pituitary cells.

Fiona Marshall, chief scientific officer at Heptares, told the paper: ‘Stress related diseases such as depression and anxiety affect a quarter of adults each year, but what many people don’t realise is that these conditions are controll

When it picks one of these molecules up, it triggers the parent cell to release the hormones which lead to stress and anxiety, the paper reports.

Using the Diamond Light Source, based in Harwell, Oxfordshire, which produces powerful x-ray beams, researchers were able to study the protein’s structure and pin point areas which could be targeted by new drugs.

Ms Marshall said they had identified a ‘crevice’ which would be an ideal area to aim a molecule which could be specially designed to block CRF1 – effectively disabling it.

She said the team now hope to use this research method to analyse molecules involved in type 2 diabetes – with the hope of one day developing a drug which can be taken orally as opposed to the injections which sufferers of the condition have to use. – Daily Mail

New blood test predicts life span

A revolutionary new blood test could tell you how long you will live, and how quickly you will age.

Scientists have discovered a chemical ‘fingerprint’ in the blood that may provide clues to an infant’s health and rate of ageing near the end of life.

The discovery raises the prospect of a simple test at birth that could help doctors stave off the ravages of disease in old age.

A revolutionary new blood test could tell you how long you will live, and how quickly you will age, thanks to a chemical ‘fingerprint’ in your blood

It could lead to the development of powerful new treatments for age related conditions such as bone problems and heart disease.

Scientists identified 22 metabolites, small molecules linked to metabolism, that may be useful indicators of how we can expect to grow old.

One in particular, linked to a range of traits including lung function, bone density, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, was singled out by the researchers.

It is also strongly associated with birth weight – itself a known determinant of healthy ageing.

Levels of this metabolite, C-glyTrp, could reflect accelerated ageing in later adulthood, the scientists believe.

Higher levels of the molecule were associated with lower weight at birth in comparisons between pairs of identical twins.

The discovery raises the prospect of a simple test at birth that could help doctors stave off the ravages of disease in old age

Since identical twins share the same genes, this suggests that levels of the metabolite are altered by nutrition or different conditions in the womb.

Study leader Professor Tim Spector, from King’s College London, said: ‘Scientists have known for a long time that a person’s weight at the time of birth is an important determinant of health in middle and old age, and that people with low birth weight are more susceptible to age related diseases.

‘So far the molecular mechanisms that link low birth weight to health or disease in old age had remained elusive, but this discovery has revealed one of the molecular pathways involved.’

Professor Spector’s team analysed blood samples donated by more than 6,000 twins.

Scientists found 22 metabolites, small molecules linked to metabolism, that may be indicators of how we will age. Some are strongly linked to birth weight suggesting this can be an important factor in health later in life

The researchers identified 22 metabolites directly linked to chronological age, with higher concentrations in older than in younger people.

Further work showed that the gene influencing levels of C-glyTrp could be modified by epigenetics, a process whereby environmental factors switch genes on or off and alter their activity.

The epigenetic changes may influence metabolism during a person’s lifetime, thereby affecting susceptibility to age-related diseases.

The findings are published today in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Co-author Dr Ana Valdes, also from King’s College London, said: ‘Human ageing is a process influenced by genetic, lifestyle and environmental factors, but genes only explain a part of the story.

‘Molecular changes that influence how we age over time are triggered by epigenetic changes. This study has for the first time used analysis of blood and epigenetic changes to identify a novel metabolite that has a link to birth weight and rate of ageing.

‘This unique metabolite, which is related to age and age-related diseases, was different in genetically identical twins that had very different weight at birth. This shows us that birth weight affects a molecular mechanism that alters this metabolite.

‘This may help us understand how lower nutrition in the womb alters molecular pathways that result in faster ageing and a higher risk of age-related diseases 50 years later.

‘Understanding the molecular pathways involved in the ageing process could ultimately pave the way for future therapies to treat age-related conditions.

‘As these 22 metabolites linked to ageing are detectable in the blood, we can now predict actual age from a blood sample pretty accurately and in the future this can be refined to potentially identify future rapid biological ageing in individuals.’ – Daily Mail