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there's an enzyme important to stem
cells that also goes wrong in cancer but
new research this week published in the
journal PNAS has shown that this enzyme
called telomerase has a role in healthy
cell aging to our DNA is arranged into
chromosomes which are capped on both
ends by telomeres which protect the
genome from damage but each time a cell
divides the telomere gets a little bit
shorter and once that cap wears away the
cell basically can't divide anymore
without risking serious genetic damage
now telomerase can lengthen telomeres
granting some cells like stem cells a
kind of pseudo immortality but cancer
cells can co-opt telomerase for their
nefarious purposes allowing them to keep
dividing indefinitely so until now
researchers have assumed that healthy
cells switch off their telomerase as a
way to protect themselves from turning
cancerous however the researchers in
this study noticed that in previous
studies of lab mice bred to be unable to
express telomerase in their cells those
telomerase 'less mice showed some
unexpected side effects like higher
rates of cancer and shorter lifespans
this made the scientists curious about
whether that missing telomerase had a
more nuanced role in cellular health
than had been suspected to investigate
they looked at skin cells from two
lineages of lab mice the ones that had
no telomerase and ones that still had it
they let the cells go through their
natural life cycle while monitoring how
they were growing and aging and watching
for signals of cellular processes like
DNA damage and they found that the cells
without telomerase seemed to approach
senescence more quickly the technical
term for cellular old-age and they were
more likely to develop more cancerous
characteristics than ones with the
enzyme restoring the cell's ability to
produce telomerase reduce to these
effects which kind of seems backwards
because remember cancer cells use
telomerase to help make themselves
immortal so by conventional thinking no
telomerase should mean less cancer later
experiments in the study found similar
changes in proteins within human skin
cells when their telomerase genes
expression is reduced suggesting human
cells use the same mechanism
conventionally it's been thought that
normal cells produce very little
telomerase or none at all
but essentially the only reason it would
turn on is if the cell is moving towards
cancer but the researchers actually
detected a burst of telomerase
production in response to DNA
during the aging process even in normal
cells so altogether telomerase may
protect ourselves by tapping the brakes
just a bit on the aging process the
researchers don't know the exact
mechanism but think it may indeed extend
those telomeres and might help direct
the cell's response to DNA damage this
could in turn reduce the effects of
stress from aging and help prevent those
cells from eventually giving rise to
tumors the researchers say the next step
is to figure out how telomerase is
turned on in healthy aging cells and
speaking of ways to get things to stick
around for an unusually long time late
last week researchers announced in the
journal Science advances that they found
a way to capture and release mechanical
waves basically vibrations when a wave
hits another object it's usually either
reflected and scattered like when a
sound wave echoes off a wall or is
absorbed into the material and
dissipated as heat but there might be
another option theoretically by hitting
a particular object with two waves
tailored to resonate with that object
and tightly controlling how the wave
varies over time they could store the
waves energy inside the object as if it
had been absorbed but without losing it
this phenomenon is called coherent
virtual absorption and this is weird
because it circumvents what we think
waves should do but it's also
potentially exciting because it could
open up new mechanical designs for
engineering or products monitoring minut
vibrations can help tell us if
structures like buildings and bridges
are in danger of collapse for instance
back in 2017 the scientists published
work showing this might theoretically be
possible with light waves but this time
around the researchers wanted to see if
they could not only extend this concept
to other types of waves but actually
take it from the theoretical into the
real world to put this to the test the
scientists performed a proof of
principle experiment they built a device
with a carbon steel rod with vibrating
actuators attached to each end in the
center of the bar it was a cavity where
the wave would be stored the actuators
when turned on sent waves down the
device like a plucked guitar string by
tweaking the waves in certain ways to
interact with both each other and the
cavity in the middle the scientists
could find a set up where the waves
energy was captured and stored and as
long as the scientists maintained the
correct configuration the waves energy
didn't scatter or dissipate into heat it
was contained and then by tweaking the
signals again the scientists could
release it in a controllable way this is
noteworthy not just because
cool when something someone worked out
on paper can be turned into a real-world
object but because the scientists think
this new idea could eventually lead to
new ways to control vibrations and that
can be used to do things like monitor
bridge safety or create better speakers
and expanding it to other types of waves
could even improve things like wireless
charging and quantum computing so
there's a lot of places that this
technology could go even if the waves
themselves are stuck in one place thanks
for watching this episode of scishow
news but before you go we have a new
dftba pin of the month to show you I
mean we don't have it physically here
because we haven't had them made yet but
it's this super fun super retro Viking
Lander and it's available for pre-order
throughout the month of September so if
you like old-school robotic space
exploration or if you just like orange
rainbows this is your chance to show it
off I just love how this Lander always
looks like it's kind of waving at you
these pins will ship in October at which
point they will never be available again
but next month spin will be just as cool
you can check them out and order one for
yourself in the merch shelf below the
video or over at dftba.com slash scishow
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