19, December 2014

Beat ageing with wrinkle banishing pills!

Scientists claim that the pills for putting a stop to wrinkles and could also be the key to beating ageing. In a breakthrough scientists have found that longer life was due to increase in the activity of genes that produce both collagen, that is also associated with young-looking skin and other proteins found in the body’s ‘extra-cellular matrix’ (ECM), the Daily Express reported.

This framework of scaffolding supports tissues, organs and bones. The study conducted on tiny laboratory worm called Caenorhabditis elegans, focused on strategies known to boost the lifespan, including calorie restriction and use of the drug rapamycin. Professor Keith Blackwell, from the Joslin (CORR) Diabetes Centre which is part of Harvard Medical School in the US, said that any longevity intervention that we looked at, increased the expression (activity) of collagen and other ECM genes, and enhanced ECM remodelling.

If the expression was interferes with, it meant interfering with the lifespan extension, and over-express some of these genes made the worm actually live a little bit longer, he added. Dr Blackwell said that it was possible that this mechanism was relevant to people as well. This has been the first time scientists looked at the possibility that ECM remodelling might be a defense against ageing, instead of protecting and regenerating cells.

The team said that it may lead to cosmetic products that also enhance overall health and the development of improved anti-ageing drugs that would put off the development or slow the progression of age-related chronic disease. Dr Blackwell said that inner beauty was the richest beauty, and people should start wanting to look young with the inside.

The findings are published in Nature journal’s online edition.

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

19.12.2014

‘Average looking’ faces are more trustworthy

A new study has revealed that people tend to believe average-looking faces, who aren’t seen as the most attractive, while assessing trustworthiness. The research indicated that being ‘average,’ which was often considered a bad thing, wins when people assess the trustworthiness of a face.

Carmel Sofer, lead researcher Carmel Sofer of Princeton University and Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands said that face typicality likely indicates familiarity and cultural affiliation; as such, these findings have important implications for understanding social perception, including cross- cultural perceptions and interaction.

The resulting ratings revealed a sort of U-shaped relationship between face typicality and trustworthiness: the closer a face was to the most typical face, the more trustworthy it was considered to be. When it came to attractiveness, however, typicality didn’t seem to play a role, participants rated faces as increasingly more attractive beyond the midpoint of the most typical face.

The experiment confirmed that the relationship between averageness and trustworthiness was not driven by the specific faces used or the by the transformation process that the researchers had employed to digitally combine and alter the faces. The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

19.12.2014

Believing everybody is dangerous, believing nobody is very danggerous