Help yourself
Altruism may be a cunning form of selfishness - at least from a genetic point of view. This is the conclusion drawn by Samuel Bowles in a Science magazine report. The economics and behavioural science researcher in the US and Italy bases his theory on complex calculations, using genetics, climate and population data. He found that groups of early humans who co-operated by sharing - even in the face of harsh conditions and warfare - survived better than greedier groups, WebMD reports.
Calories count
Cutting calories may extend lifespan because it appears to boost key infection-fighting cells in the immune system. In a 42-month study of rhesus monkeys at the Oregon Health & Science University, calorie restriction increased the lifespan of a range of organisms, from yeast to flies and rats, healthday.com reports. Long-term restriction had a 'remarkable effect on the maintenance of the [monkey's] immune system', says team leader Janko Nikolich-Zugich. The study focused on so-called T cells, which are crucial to the immune system and appear to be the most susceptible to ageing.
Diag-nose with smell
A simple smell test may provide early diagnosis of a range of mental illnesses, from schizophrenia to Alzheimer's disease. Studies by the University of Melbourne found that an abnormal sense of smell may indicate problems because such conditions typically affect the brain's frontal lobe, which is used to analyse and identify smell. Of 81 young people given 40 smells to match with a list of food odours, those who developed a mental illness had trouble identifying more than half, AFP reports.
Grey matter matters