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Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Study Finds Special Brain Traits of 'SuperAgers.' Here's How They Avoid Dementia
A study that began in the year 2000 is finally paying off. Northwestern University's SuperAger program has been in the works for over 25 years, and a new report in the Journal of the Alzheimer's Association is detailing what the group has found. Published on August 7, the report details the scope of the study and its results so far — 25 years out since the start. 290 people signed up to be studied in that time, all over 80 years old and cognitively well. Participants are tested for a high delayed word recall ability, signifying a higher memory capacity at an older age. These seniors that show exceptional memory are labeled "SuperAgers". Of the 290 participants, 79 allowed scientists to autopsy their brains after passing away. Because of this, researchers were able to make a connection between dementia, particularly Alzheimer's, and the structure of the brain. "Neurotypical seniors ≥ 80 years of age have significant and widespread cortical thinning compared to neurotypical 50- to 60-year-olds," the report reads, "Superagers, on the other hand, showed no cortical thinning compared to the younger controls." The brain — particularly the cerebral cortex — naturally thins as a person ages, but Northwestern's report shows that may happen less quickly in some people than in others. "It appears that cortical thinning is unavoidable," the report states, "but that it is probably much slower in superagers." Further, researchers reported that superagers' brains tend to develop few or zero amyloid plaques and tau tangles, which are two tell-tale signs of Alzheimer's disease. While no specific cause has been determined, researchers believe they're a bit closer to understanding dementia. What is dementia? Dementia is a decline in memory or mental capacity, usually found in senior citizens. Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, affecting around 11% of those 65 and older. There are various factors that scientists believe could lead to an increased chance of developing Alzheimer's or dementia as a person ages. Some of these factors, as found in the study by Northwestern University, are structural and genetic. Others, though, may come from a person's lifestyle. Research shows that traumatic brain injuries earlier in life, high blood pressure, untreated depression, and hearing loss may help onset dementia. Low physical activity and few meaningful personal connections may also exasperate the degenerative Finds Special Brain Traits of 'SuperAgers.' Here's How They Avoid Dementia first appeared on Men's Journal on Aug 7, 2025 Solve the daily Crossword
Fox News
39 minutes ago
- Fox News
Meteorite fragment that slammed through homeowner's roof is billions of years old, predates Earth: professor
A meteorite fragment that burst through the roof of a Georgia home last June has been determined to be billions of years old and to predate the Earth, according to a geology professor. "A lot of people saw the fireball," University of Georgia geologist Scott Harris told Fox News Digital of the meteorite fragment that he said had come from an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and fell to Earth on June 26 near Atlanta. He said he was immediately alerted to the incident and went to examine what had happened, looking in the attic for the fragment's point of entry. "The homeowner didn't know that they actually had a clean hole through the roof, through an air duct," he continued. "They knew about the hole in the roof, but they didn't know it went through the air duct, through one side of the air duct, out the other side of air duct through a couple of feet of insulation, then through the ceiling, then they had about a 10-foot-high ceiling, kind of a slanted frame ceiling, and then it went the distance from there to the floor and left about a centimeter-and-a-half little crater in the floor." He said the meteorite had left a hole in the floor "about the size of a large cherry tomato." "And so this hit hard enough that part of it just absolutely was pulverized like somebody hitting it with a sledgehammer," he explained. Harris said the ancient fragment briefly broke the sound barrier when it entered the Earth's atmosphere. "These are objects that go back to the original material formed 4.56 billion years ago," Harris explained. "So, in the days slightly before the formation of the planets themselves, and at least the rocky interior planets. And, you know, those are the basic building blocks then of our rocky planets and, so that's one of the reasons that scientists are interested in studying them is it shows us about some of the processes that were active during the early days of the solar system." The Earth is believed to be 4.54 billion years old. Harris explained that while such a small fragment didn't present a threat to anyone, scientists want to study the dynamics of meteorites falling to Earth because the "ultimate goal is to tell you what the risk assessment is for what could be absolute doom." "No one's got to do anything about a small object like this coming through the atmosphere, but understanding where these materials come from in the solar system and understanding that even the dynamics of the small pieces are important for ultimately understanding where the bigger ones are and what the risks are for us in the future," he said. Scientists studying the dynamics of meteorites can attempt to "engineer ways to avoid collisions with them, most notably by techniques like were demonstrated a few years ago by the DART mission, where we could actually have what's called a kinetic impacter to go and basically move an asteroid a little bit," Harris explained. "If you move an asteroids headed toward us, and you move it early enough, then you get it to avoid us all together."
Yahoo
44 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Crew-10 astronauts return to Earth following five-month mission
STORY: :: NASA :: Four astronauts from NASA's Crew-10 mission return to Earth after a five-month mission :: August 9, 2025 :: San Diego, California U.S. astronauts Nichole Ayers and Anne McClain, the Crew-10 commander, boarded the gumdrop-shaped Dragon capsule on Friday afternoon along with Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov ahead of a 17.5-hour trek back to Earth to a splashdown site off the California coast. The four-person crew launched to the ISS on March 14 in a routine mission that replaced the Crew-9 crew, which included NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the astronaut pair left on the station by Boeing's Starliner capsule. NASA said they are returning to Earth with "important and time-sensitive research" conducted in the microgravity environment of the ISS during the 146-day mission. The astronauts had over 200 science experiments on their to-do list.
