Mice who received treatment had more energy better vision and longer lives Researchers hope the blood of the young could contain the key to longer life after finding that a substance circulating in the veins of juvenile mice delayed death and kept disease at bay US researchers led by the University of Washington found that one compound which is abundant in the blood of young mice an enzyme known as eNampt extended lifespan by 16 per cent when transferred to older rodents We have found a totally new pathway towards healthy ageing said Dr Shin-ichiro Imai who was a senior author of the study published in the journal Cell That we can take eNampt from the blood of young mice and give it to older mice and see that the older mice show marked improvements in health including increased physical activity and better sleep is remarkable Created with Sketch Science news in pictures Show all 20 Created with Sketch Created with Sketch Created with Sketch Science news in pictures 1 20 Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years an international study has found It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017 Reuters 2 20 Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A Gennari 3 20 Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed before vanishing completely Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species However as the animal gets full a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson 4 20 Giant bee spotted Feared extinct the Wallaces Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years An international team of conservationists spotted the bee that is four times the size of a typical honeybee on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt 5 20 New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History 6 20 Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine University of Maryland 7 20 Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty 8 20 Final warning to limit climate catastrophe The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 15 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty 9 20 Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty AFP 10 20 Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers Arthur Ashkin L was awarded for his optical tweezers which use lasers to grab particles atoms viruses and other living cells Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters AP 11 20 Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa Recently discovered by a team of international scientists it was the largest land animal of its time weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet In Sesotho the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered its name means a giant thunderclap at dawn Viktor Radermacher SWNS 12 20 Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESOs Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70 The planet stands clearly out visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star ESO A Müller et al 13 20 New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium These compartments are found beneath the skin as well as lining the gut lungs blood vessels and muscles and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong flexible proteins Getty 14 20 Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs José Iriarte 15 20 One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine and those who had encountered it indirectly Getty 16 20 Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiters great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth has been swhirling for 350 years The images colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth Pictures by Tom Momary 17 20 A 3D reconstruction of an African grey parrot post euthanasia Included in Wellcome Image Awards this 3D image of an African grey parrot shows the highly intricate system of blood vessels Scott Birch Wellcome Images 18 20 Baby Hawaiian bobtail squid Another Wellcome Images Award winner this time of baby Hawaiian bobtail squid The black ink sac and light organ in the centre of the squids mantle cavity can be clearly seen Macroscopic Solutions Wellcome Images 19 20 Skeletons of 5 000-year-old Chinese giants discovered by archaeologists The people are thought to have been unusually tall and strong The tallest of the skeletons uncovered measured at 19m YouTube 20 20 Nasa discovers 75 000 mile-wide hole in the Sun Sunspots are caused by interactions with the Suns magnetic field and are cooler areas on the stars surface Nasa 1 20 Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years an international study has found It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017 Reuters 2 20 Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A Gennari 3 20 Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed before vanishing completely Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species However as the animal gets full a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson 4 20 Giant bee spotted Feared extinct the Wallaces Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years An international team of conservationists spotted the bee that is four times the size of a typical honeybee on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt 5 20 New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History 6 20 Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine University of Maryland 7 20 Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty 8 20 Final warning to limit climate catastrophe The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 15 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty 9 20 Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty AFP 10 20 Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers Arthur Ashkin L was awarded for his optical tweezers which use lasers to grab particles atoms viruses and other living cells Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters AP 11 20 Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa Recently discovered by a team of international scientists it was the largest land animal of its time weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet In Sesotho the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered its name means a giant thunderclap at dawn Viktor Radermacher SWNS 12 20 Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESOs Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70 The planet stands clearly out visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star ESO A Müller et al 13 20 New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium These compartments are found beneath the skin as well as lining the gut lungs blood vessels and muscles and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong flexible proteins Getty 14 20 Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs José Iriarte 15 20 One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine and those who had encountered it indirectly Getty 16 20 Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiters great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth has been swhirling for 350 years The images colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth Pictures by Tom Momary 17 20 A 3D reconstruction of an African grey parrot post euthanasia Included in Wellcome Image Awards this 3D image of an African grey parrot shows the highly intricate system of blood vessels Scott Birch Wellcome Images 18 20 Baby Hawaiian bobtail squid Another Wellcome Images Award winner this time of baby Hawaiian bobtail squid The black ink sac and light organ in the centre of the squids mantle cavity can be clearly seen Macroscopic Solutions Wellcome Images 19 20 Skeletons of 5 000-year-old Chinese giants discovered by archaeologists The people are thought to have been unusually tall and strong The tallest of the skeletons uncovered measured at 19m YouTube 20 20 Nasa discovers 75 000 mile-wide hole in the Sun Sunspots are caused by interactions with the Suns magnetic field and are cooler areas on the stars surface Nasa The researchers gave each group of mice either an oral dose of the enzyme or a control of saline solution and differences were dramatic between the groups Animals receiving the treatment produced insulin more effectively had healthier eyes performed better in memory tests spent longer on their wheel and grew thicker shinier fur the authors said While none of the control group lived beyond 24 years one of the mice treated with eNampt was still alive as the paper was being written 28 years later This extra lifespan could be directly predicted by measuring levels of eNampt in the blood The findings could offer another hopeful avenue in a wave of research into anti-senolytic treatments These work by aiming to mop up old zombie cells which can contribute to conditions of old age like sight loss heart disease diabetes and cancer Scientists claim breakthrough shows ageing process could be reversed Because it is so fundamental to every living thing evolution has developed a host of support process to ensure adequate levels of ingredients needed to turn sugars and oxygen into the energy molecule ATP In the case of eNampt it helps produce a chemical called NAD which is part of this cycle While eNampts effects havent been studied in people human trials are already underway for another chemical which performs a similar role and helps rejuvenate the construction of new blood vessels We think the body has so many redundant systems to maintain proper NAD levels because it is so important Dr Imai said Our work and others suggest it governs how long we live and how healthy we remain as we age Since we know that NAD inevitably declines with age whether in worms fruit flies mice or people many researchers are interested in finding anti-ageing interventions that might maintain NAD levels as we get older