For how we live.
A European follow-up of 80 patients given their own blood stem cells for severe scleroderma found most were progression-free at a decade — and that nearly half stayed in remission off all immune-suppressing drugs.
As blood stem cells age, mutant clones take over. By the eighth decade this shows up in about one person in ten — and it tracks with higher mortality and heart disease.
Mouse studies claimed one circulating protein reversed ageing of the heart, muscle and brain. A second team found the muscle effect ran the opposite way — and no human trial has ever tested it.
The reflex that stands body hair on end in the cold or at a stirring piece of music is largely a leftover from furrier ancestors — but new work shows the same wiring quietly keeps hair able to regrow.
Infusing plasma from young donors is sold as rejuvenation. The mouse work suggests diluting old blood may matter more than adding young blood — and regulators warn the paid infusions have no proven benefit.
Two notices, one day apart, end one line of federally funded research and freeze another pending review. NIH is now asking scientists which experiments could not be done without embryonic stem cells.