Science news of the day thread.

[Brian Peacock]

[macdoc]

Learned a bunch - always thought the 13,000 yr hypothesis was wrong.

[Brian Peacock]

While we've deprioritised the arts and culture in our curriculums to the point where it's virtually non-existent (unless you go to posh school) , research shows that familiarity, engagement with, and participation in the arts is far more beneficial to the individual and society than... say... algebra!

Arts and cultural engagement ‘linked to slower pace of biological ageing’

Singing, painting or visiting a gallery or museum helps people age more slowly, according to the latest study to link taking an active interest in art and culture with improved health.

The findings are the first to show that both participating in arts activities and attending events, such as viewing an exhibition, lead to people staying biologically younger.

“These results demonstrate the health impact of the arts at a biological level.

They provide evidence for arts and cultural engagement to be recognised as a health-promoting behaviour in a similar way to exercise,” said Prof Daisy Fancourt, the lead author of the research and the head of the social biobehavioural research group at University College London.

However, slower ageing does not necessarily mean someone will live longer. The “epigenetic clocks” used in the study to assess biological ageing are predictive of future morbidity and mortality, and previous studies have suggested a link between arts engagement and longer lifespan, but much more research would be needed to establish potential causal effects on longevity.

Those who take part in artistic pursuits the most often slow the pace of their biological ageing the most. Under one of the study’s methods of assessment, those who did so at least weekly slowed their ageing process by 4%, while monthly engagement led to it slowing by 3%.

Similarly, another of the tests showed that those who undertook an arts activity at least once a week were on average a year younger biologically than those who rarely engaged in such pursuits. Those who exercised once a week were only six months younger by that measure....

[Tero]

HIV controlled for 92 months with engineered immune cells

That same approach may help control H.I.V., among the wiliest of viruses, scientists will report on Tuesday. After a single infusion of immune cells engineered to recognize the virus, two people in a new study have suppressed their H.I.V. to undetectable levels, one of them for nearly two years.

The data is scheduled to be presented at a gene therapy conference in Boston, but the researchers shared an early copy with The New York Times.

In the new study, scientists at Caring Cross, a nonprofit focused on developing affordable immunotherapies, engineered immune cells from each study participant to carry two molecules on the cell surface. Both molecules bind to H.I.V. and kill infected cells, but one also prevents the immune cells from becoming infected.

“It’s this dual nature of targeting — killing and protecting — that we think is the missing piece in terms of how this therapy works,” said Boro Dropulić, the executive director of Caring Cross, who developed the method.

The researchers extracted immune cells from each participant, modified the cells, then injected them back in. The participants stopped taking antiretroviral drugs the day of the infusion.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/heal ... erapy.html