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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