Like many high school students I completely misunderstood the philosopher Herbert Spencer’s phrase “survival of the fittest.” I interpreted it to mean that those animals of a species that were the most…
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Articles on Ageing
Displaying 321 - 340 of 401 articles
The political debate over generational equity, which has been rekindled in the past week, now dominates discussions over wealth, government spending and fiscal sustainability. But a closer look at some…
People have used bodybuilding to improve their physical performance for at least 1,500 years. The first recorded example was the sixth-century wrestler, Milo of Croton, in southern Italy. Milo reportedly…
The Australian Study of Health and Relationships (ASHR), the latest findings of which were released recently, has much to commend it. Like its counterpart, the British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes…
When I was younger, about ten years old, I realised that everyone ages and dies. And I thought well why should that be? Can’t we do something about it? I then thought I’d do it. I’ll study ageing and figure…
Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122, remains the oldest person on record. One might assume that she led a faultless, healthy lifestyle. Not at all. Every year on her birthday, as her celebrity…
Nothing is more certain in life than death. As we age, we become much more susceptible to major diseases like cancer and heart disease because the mechanisms that help prevent them earlier in life start…
A whole industry has grown around testosterone supplementation for ageing men. But neither the benefits nor risks of the practice are clear yet, and they remain the subject of ongoing research. Beginning…
Good things happen as we get older. We start to have grandchildren and great grandchildren. We celebrate our 80th birthdays and 60th wedding anniversaries. Growing old doesn’t mean inevitable depression…
As Ukip mount a challenge to the Tories in the Newark by-election, their apparent inability to stop local candidates going embarrassingly off-script has caught up with them again. And once again, the party…
When a fruit fly’s ability to taste its food or water is suppressed, its lifespan significantly increases or decreases – regardless…
New research we’ve done into ageing shows that the strength of your grasp may also be one of the most useful ways to measure your true age. Different measures of physical abilities can be assessed to determine…
Cellular mechanisms in worms may be modified to overcome infertility and ageing in future generations, new research suggests…
Loneliness in older people is a serious issue but when I visited HenPower, a lottery-funded project in the north east that puts older people and hens together, I admit I had been expecting another worthy…
Alzheimer’s disease causes progressive damage to the brain, resulting in problems with memory, cognition, social engagement, and, ultimately, a person’s ability to care for themselves. Alzheimer’s is the…
Despite being called a “grand challenge” alongside climate change and terrorism, the fact of an ageing society isn’t new; it has been proceeding quietly across all developed countries for 174 years: data…
Today we wish a very happy 116th birthday to Misao Okawa who was born in Japan in 1898, making her the world’s oldest person. When she was young, Einstein hadn’t yet grasped the mysteries of a relative…
The complexity in biology is astounding. That is why biologists are thankful that model organisms, like the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, can be used to breakdown biological processes into simpler…
It is a sad fact that old age brings diseases. Many may not be life-threatening, but they make life less fun. One such condition is sarcopenia, which causes the loss of muscle mass and strength, and it…
Given conventional ideas of male roles, we often tend to imagine carers as being women. But more men take on this “unpaid work” than you might think, and particularly in older groups. Research we’ve carried…
Top contributors
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Professor of Biogerontology, University of Brighton
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PhD student, University of Buckingham
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Professor: Health and Population Division, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand
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Emeritus Professor, University of New England
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NHMRC Senior Lecturer, School of Medical Sciences, UNSW Sydney
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Senior Research Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), UNSW Sydney
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Visiting Research Fellow, Department of English and Creative Writing, University of Adelaide
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Chair of Molecular Biogerontology, University of Birmingham
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Senior Research Fellow, The University of Edinburgh
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ESRC Strategic Adviser on Quantitative Methods Training, The University of Edinburgh
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Associate professor in Criminology, The University of Melbourne
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Adjunct Associate Professor, Australian Research Centre for Sex, Health & Society, La Trobe University
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Reader in Molecular Genetics of Ageing, University of Essex
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Senior Lecturer in Economy and Society, Department of Sociology, Macquarie University
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Associate Professor of Psychology, University of South Australia
