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It’s right to be a bit sceptical of advice from people who’ve lived a very long time. They might claim their longevity is all down to their daily glass of wine or walk around the block, but the picture is usually much more complicated, mixing genetics, diet and other lifestyle factors. However, when María Branyas Morera died at 117, she offered scientists a chance to gather some substantial data on a centenarian.
A new study has revealed that Branyas’s microbiome looked more like what you’d expect from someone decades younger. And her comparing this to her diet offered some clues about why she may have lived so long.
The government has announced plans to bring back maintenance grants for students in England, as well as boosting the further education sector. Many will welcome the news, but the strategy comes with challenges and risks.
When FBI director Kash Patel spoke at a press conference on the fatal shooting of rightwing political activist Charlie Kirk recently, Patel ended with the phrase, “See you in Valhalla.” A scholar of Old Norse explains why this reference to the Viking afterlife can have a much more sinister political dimension than the director probably meant it to.
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Katie Edwards
Commissioning Editor, Health + Medicine
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Danijela Maksimovic/Shutterstock
Rachel Woods, University of Lincoln
Yoghurts, microbes and a 117-year lifespan: the story of María Branyas Morera’s extraordinary gut.
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Harbucks/Shutterstock
Helena Gillespie, University of East Anglia
Starmer’s vision for a changed education sector attempts to use the same measures to address two separate problems.
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Arthur Szyk, Valhalla, from The Nibelungen Series (New York, 1942)
The Arthur Szyk Society, Burlingame, CA
Tom Birkett, University College Cork
Was the FBI chief sending a message to white supremacists? It’s more likely Patel’s Valhalla reference was a clumsy attempt to call Kirk a hero.
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World
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Leonie Fleischmann, City St George's, University of London
The Palestinian activist, jailed more than 20 years ago, tops the polls as Palestinians’ preferred leader.
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Arts + Culture
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Marie-Louise Crawley, Coventry University
The work is about the artist’s power of immortality, his features frozen in time forever.
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Will Shüler, Royal Holloway University of London
The play makes a clear statement about Indhu Rubasingham’s thoughts on the power of the theatre and what audiences might expect under her leadership.
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Business + Economy
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Colin Mason, University of Glasgow; Michaela Hruskova, University of Stirling
Levelling up needs to be driven by entrepreneurs.
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Jiao Wang, University of Sussex
Donald Trump appears unbothered by the impact of his trade policy on US consumers.
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Education
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Lucy Taylor, University of Leeds; Paula Clarke, University of Leeds
Libraries should be an inclusive resource for communities of children with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and learning needs.
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Health
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Natalia Levina, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick; New York University; Hila Lifshitz-Assaf, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick; João Sedoc, New York University
Delphi-2M is the first open source, large-scale model for predicting a patient’s disease risk and when it may occur.
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Dipa Kamdar, Kingston University
Fast, discreet and trending: caffeine pouches promise energy on demand. But here’s why they could be riskier than they might seem.
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Abigail Dove, Karolinska Institutet
When sleep is disrupted, the brain feels the consequences – sometimes in subtle ways that accumulate over years.
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Science + Technology
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Fabrizio Alberti, University of Warwick
The discovery could also make the production of psilocybin in the lab more sustainable.
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Miguel de Lucas, Durham University
A new study created a detailed map of how plants respond to cues in the world around them.
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