ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

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• Longevity gene may boost brain power: Researchers discover the gene may enhance cognitive abilities
• New species of metal-eating plant discovered in the Philippines
• Mitochondrial deficits in children with autism confirmed

Longevity gene may boost brain power: Researchers discover the gene may enhance cognitive abilities Posted: 09 May 2014 12:08 PM PDT Scientists showed that people who have a variant of a longevity gene, called KLOTHO, have improved brain skills such as thinking, learning and memory regardless of their age, sex, or whether they have a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. Increasing KLOTHO gene levels in mice made them smarter, possibly by increasing the strength of connections between nerve cells in the brain.

New species of metal-eating plant discovered in the Philippines Posted: 09 May 2014 10:00 AM PDT Scientists have discovered a new plant species with an unusual lifestyle -- it eats nickel for a living -- accumulating up to 18,000 ppm of the metal in its leaves without itself being poisoned, says the lead author of a new report. Such an amount is a hundred to a thousand times higher than in most other plants.

Mitochondrial deficits in children with autism confirmed Posted: 08 May 2014 02:23 PM PDT Children with autism experience deficits in a type of immune cell that protects the body from infection. Called granulocytes, the cells exhibit one-third the capacity to fight infection and protect the body from invasion compared with the same cells in children who are developing normally. The cells, which circulate in the bloodstream, are less able to deliver crucial infection-fighting oxidative responses to combat invading pathogens because of dysfunction in their tiny energy-generating organelles, the mitochondria.

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