http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=making-scents-of-sounds-n

Monday, February 8, 2010

Genes reveal 'biological ageing'


Quite a headline - fits in eerily well with our discussion in class about various ways the media portrays genetic findings as we compared headlines discussing aging and the p63 gene.

Here from the news today, the BBC reports on findings concerning the rates at which people age possibly detected on the genetic level:

"What our study suggests is that some people are genetically programmed to age at a faster rate"

Interesting to note the term "program" in relation to genetic information in the cell...

The article focuses on "telomeres" which are DNA sequences at the end of chromosomes. They are important enough that last year's Nobel Prize in Physiology was granted to Elizabeth Blackburn and colleagues because of their discoveries of telomeric function.


AY

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