Making Sense of Science

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- Kids stressing you out? They could be protecting your health.
- A new device unlocks the heart's secrets
- Super-ager gene transplants
- Surgeons could 3D print your organs before operations
- A skull cap looks into the brain like an fMRI

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- Reprogram cells to a younger state
- Pick up this sport for brain health
- Do all mental illnesses have the same underlying cause?
- New test could diagnose autism in newborns
- Scientists 3D print an ear and attach it to woman

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

What makes for a good life? Such a simple question, yet we don't have great answers. Most of us try to figure it out as we go along, and many end up feeling like they never got to the bottom of it.

Shouldn't something so important be approached with more scientific rigor? In 1938, Harvard researchers began a study to fill this gap. Since then, they’ve followed hundreds of people over the course of their lives, hoping to identify which factors are key to long-term satisfaction.

Eighty-five years later, the Harvard Study of Adult Development is still going. And today, its directors, the psychiatrists Bob Waldinger and Marc Shulz, have published a book that pulls together the study’s most important findings. It’s called The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.

In this podcast episode, I talked with Dr. Waldinger about life lessons that we can mine from the Harvard study and his new book.

Dr. Waldinger is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, in addition to being Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. He got his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and has published numerous scientific papers he’s a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, he teaches Harvard medical students, and since that is clearly not enough to keep him busy, he’s also a Zen priest.

His book is a must-read if you’re looking for scientific evidence on how to design your life for more satisfaction so someday in the future you can look back on it without regret, and this episode was an amazing conversation in which Dr. Waldinger breaks down many of the cliches about the good life… making his advice real and tangible. We also get into what he calls “side-by-side” relationships, personality traits for the good life, and the downsides of being too strict about work-life balance.

Show links

- Bob Waldinger
- Waldinger's book, The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness
- The Harvard Study of Adult Development
- Waldinger's Ted Talk
- Gallup report finding that people with good friends at work have higher engagement with their jobs
- The link between relationships and well-being
- Those with social connections live longer

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- A blood test to detect Alzheimer's
- Vets take their psychologist anywhere
- Can intermittent fasting affect circadian rhythms?
- A new year's resolution for living longer
- 3-D printed eyes?

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

Meet Charles Brenner, the Longevity Skeptic. Brenner, a leading biochemist at City of Hope National Medical Center in L.A., has been attending the largest longevity conferences with one main purpose: to point out that some of the other speakers are full of it.

Brenner is "throwing cold water" on several scientists in the field of aging, accusing them of hyping various fountains of youth, despite limited evidence for these therapies.

In this podcast episode, Brenner sat down with Leaps.org to discuss his groundbreaking work on metabolism and his efforts to counter what he considers to be bad science.

In addition to bringing his candor to conferences, Brenner is applying it in academic journals, publishing a paper in September, "A Science-Based Review of the World's Best-Selling Book on Aging," in which he pans the author of this bestseller, David Sinclair, a Harvard biologist, for talking up the potential for humans to live far past 100. These aspirations may sound nice, but they're not backed by science, Brenner says. He's had high-profile debates online with Sinclair and Aubrey de Grey, a prominent biomedical gerontologist.

Meanwhile, in his own lab work, Brenner is credited with identifying a vitamin precursor called NR that seems to enable repair of cellular damage that happens as we get older - a major discovery that he's helped turn into a supplement, commercialized with a company called ChromaDex.

Whether it's possible to extend human lifespan is a pressing question as investments in longevity startups are projected to increase from $40 billion to $600 billion over the next three years. 

Brenner is an intriguing figure in these debates. Although he’s been introduced in public appearances as a longevity skeptic, he calls himself an optimist.

Links:
Charles Brenner, City of Hope

Charles Brenner Lab

Charles Brenner on Twitter

Charles Brenner's debate with Aubrey de Grey

Brenner's paper, "A Science-Based Review of the World's Best-Selling Book on Aging"

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- An mRNA vaccine that works against cancer
- These cameras inside the body have an unusual source of power
- A new theory for what causes aging
- Can bacteria make you excited to work out?
- Why women get Alzheimer's more often than men

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- Catching cancer early could depend on sugar   
- How to boost memory in a flash
- This is your brain on books
- A tiny sandwich cake could help the heart
- Meet the top banana in the fight vs. Covid variants

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- Research on a "smart" bandage for wounds   
- A breakthrough in fighting inflammation
- The pros and cons of a new drug for Alzheimer's
- Benefits of the Mediterranean diet - with a twist
- How to recycle a plastic that was un-recyclable

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- How to improve your working memory   
- The plain old solution to stress?
- Progress on a deadly cancer for first time since 1995*
- Rise of the robot surgeon
- Tomato brain power

And in an honorable mention this week, new research on the gut connection to better brain health after strokes.

* The methodology for this study has come under scrutiny here.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- How to exercise for cancer prevention
- A device that brings relief to back pain
- Ingredients for reducing Alzheimer's risk
- Is the world's oldest disease the fountain of youth?
- Scared of crossing bridges? Your phone can help

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs