8/31/2011 – Facebook for Centenarians: Senior Citizens Learn Social Media

Assisted and independent living residents struggling with loneliness are learning how to use email, Facebook, and Twitter to reconnect with old friends.

Read the full article in The Atlantic

8/27/2011 – Living to 100 and Beyond

Scientists are on the brink of radically expanding the span of a healthy life. Author Sonia Arrison on the latest advances—and what they mean for human existence.

Read the full article at The Wall Street Journal

8/26/2011 – Grandparents play a bigger role in child-rearing

Less frail and more involved, today’s grandparents are shunning retirement homes and stepping in more than ever to raise grandchildren while young adults struggle in the poor economy.

Read the full article at Boston.com

8/25/2011 – Trial-and-error a memory booster for seniors

Trial-and-error may help older adults to learn better, a Canadian study suggests.

The experiments compared results on memory tests after trial-and-error learning and passive learning, which involves no chance for errors.

Read the full article at CBC News

8/22/2011 – How Music May Help Ward Off Hearing Loss As We Age

Older people often have difficulty understanding conversation in a crowd. Like everything else, our hearing deteriorates as we age.  So how can you help stave off that age-related hearing loss? Try embracing music early in life, research suggests.

Hear the full story at NPR.org

8/05/2011 – A Graying Bay Area

The Bay Area’s elderly population has been growing over the past 10 years. As the boomer generation hits its sixth decade, a so-called silver tsunami is on the way. By 2050, one in five Americans is expected to be over 65. Are Bay Area cities and communities aging friendly?

Listen to the podcast at KQED.org

8/18/2011 – Longer Lives for Obese Mice, With Hope for Humans of All Sizes

Sustaining the flickering hope that human aging might somehow be decelerated, researchers have found they can substantially extend the average life span of obese mice with a specially designed drug.

Read the full article at The New York Times

8/12/2011 – Tackling the Dangers of Workplace Inactivity

A growing body of evidence suggests that sedentary office workers and other inactive people are at a relatively high risk of dying early. Sedentary people have elevated levels of biomarkers linked to cardiovascular disease, including insulin, glucose, and triglycerides. And research in animals has shown that levels of an enzyme responsible for breaking down fat plummets when the animals are forced to be inactive.

Read the full article at Technology Review

 

8/8/2011 – Intelligence Lost: The Boomers Are Exiting

The U.S. business community is facing a war of intelligence attrition. Fortune 500s will see countless experienced knowledge workers walk out the door over the next two decades.

Read the full article at Bloomberg Businessweek on msnbc.com

8/5/2011 – A.M. Vitals: Alzheimer’s Research Suggests Early Interventions

Research increasingly suggests that Alzheimer’s disease damages the brain years before symptoms appear, raising the possibility that treatments should be focused on this early phase if there’s a hope of slowing or reversing the disease, the WSJ reports.

Read the full article in The Wall Street Journal