This article from Neurobiological Aging reports that users of anti-inflammatory drugs not only have a reduced incidence of Alzheimer’s disease, but also show significantly less age-related brain atrophy, suggesting inflammation may be one of the causes of the cognitive decline commonly seen in the elderly.
Examples of anti-inflammatory substances include the Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs), such [...]

It’s always great when new uses are discovered for drugs that are already on the market, and such is the case with the osteoporosis drug Forteo (teriparatide), which is a recombinant form of parathyroid hormone.
It’s been discovered by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center (and reported here) that teriparatide boosts bone stem cell [...]

Some of you may be aware that the the antibiotic doxycycline hyclate has been found to possess anti-matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) activities. MMPs are the enzymes that break down connective tissue such as collagen, and their relative increase is thought to contribute to the development of wrinkles in aged skin.
This is because, while the ability to [...]

Just thought I’d share this article: Computer Program Self-Discovers Laws of Physics, which just appeared on Wired Science. It’s about an AI that can derive laws of physics by analyzing data sets.
Scaled up, the possibilities of something like this would be amazing… this really offers us a glimpse of the nature of the technological singularity, [...]

Two commonly administered substances were today attributed with some new anti-cancer properties: tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main active constituent of cannabis, and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3 fatty acid found in fish oil.
Reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, THC was shown to induce human glioma (brain cancer) cell death through a process known as autophagy, [...]

Research emanating from the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University and published in the Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics has shown that dietary supplementation with lipoic acid lowered plasma triglyceride levels up to 60 percent in rats. While the extent of the effect is yet to be determined in humans; if similar, lipoic acid [...]