Skip to main content

Rejuvenation of Human Skin Cells to Reverse Ageing

Professor Wolf Reik from the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, has led a group of scientists to find a technique that rejuvenates skin cells by 30 years. BBC News recently reported about this breakthrough, a step forward in regenerative medicine research, which eventually might help in the treatment of diabetes, heart disease or neurological disorders, although there is still a great deal of work to be done, because some of the chemicals involved in the process of cell reprogramming can cause cancer, and clinical application are still "a long way off", according to Prof. Robin Lovell-Badge of the Francis Crick Institute in London.  

The BBC News article and the video below are suitable for C1 students and above.  You will find interesting words like: to tackle, ageing, tissues, age-related disease, disorders, to build on [a technique], to clone, super [exciting], to stress that, [scientific] issues to overcome, a critical step forward, to stem from, embryo, [human embryonic] stem cells, worn-out [body parts], to be regrown, to prove difficult, to cut short, a chemical bath, to be confident that, the [human] health span, the lifespan, to speed up [healing], to [part-]fund [the research], the long-stalled [benefits], immune cells, [immune cells become less] responsive, to boost [people's response to vaccination], [a method] of whole-body regeneration, an elixir of youth, an anti-ageing pill, fart-fetched, [scientific] hurdles, a trivial [process], chemicals, a long way off.

You can also watch this short BBC News video with subtitles (2':20"), which tells the story in, perhaps, slightly more colloquial terms:

Finally, if you are an expert in Biology, you might enjoy watching this 4':49" video from Golahura You Tube Channel, which is more technical, and could be assessed as beyond C2 level, that is ("Level Ex" for experts) in the classification of this blog.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Benefits Of Healthy eating Turmeric every day for the body

One teaspoon of turmeric a day to prevent inflammation, accumulation of toxins, pain, and the outbreak of cancer.  Yes, turmeric has been known since 2.5 centuries ago in India, as a plant anti-inflammatory / inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and also have a good detox properties, now proven to prevent Alzheimer's disease and cancer. Turmeric prevents inflammation:  For people who

Women and children overboard

It's the  Catch-22  of clinical trials: to protect pregnant women and children from the risks of untested drugs....we don't test drugs adequately for them. In the last few decades , we've been more concerned about the harms of research than of inadequately tested treatments for everyone, in fact. But for "vulnerable populations,"  like pregnant women and children, the default was to exclude them. And just in case any women might be, or might become, pregnant, it was often easier just to exclude us all from trials. It got so bad, that by the late 1990s, the FDA realized regulations and more for pregnant women - and women generally - had to change. The NIH (National Institutes of Health) took action too. And so few drugs had enough safety and efficacy information for children that, even in official circles, children were being called "therapeutic orphans."  Action began on that, too. There is still a long way to go. But this month there was a sign that

Not a word was spoken (but many were learned)

Video is often used in the EFL classroom for listening comprehension activities, facilitating discussions and, of course, language work. But how can you exploit silent films without any language in them? Since developing learners' linguistic resources should be our primary goal (well, at least the blogger behind the blog thinks so), here are four suggestions on how language (grammar and vocabulary) can be generated from silent clips. Split-viewing Split-viewing is an information gap activity where the class is split into groups with one group facing the screen and the other with their back to the screen. The ones facing the screen than report on what they have seen - this can be done WHILE as well as AFTER they watch. Alternatively, students who are not watching (the ones sitting with their backs to the screen) can be send out of the classroom and come up with a list of the questions to ask the 'watching group'. This works particularly well with action or crime scenes with