A ripe old age. And we take a dive under the polar icecap where researchers have made a disturbing discovery. A caravan of shrews the young animals hang on to one another to keep from getting lost their Little Hearts beat around a thousand times a minute an incredible mess of pottage feet thats why shrews have to eat pretty much nonstop otherwise they would quickly stump theyve been gulped down up to twice their body weight in food in a single day. And thats far from their only unusual characteristic. Its nine in the morning outside the Max Planck Institute in the heart of cell in south western germany have a lot sorrow is on the lookout for some furry friends. The. Biologists are set up seventy traps. But so far only one creature has been captured. And. Shrews are pretty elusive animals although they might look like mice these small mammals arent rodents in fact that distantly related to moles. And they have amazing qualities. I like shoes theyre a cute theyre a somehow excel take hes not an animal that you usually see when youre walking in the field and from there from the same defect point of view of the day are very interesting in winter food becomes harder to come by many animals get around this problem by going into hibernation but the shrewd has developed a quite different survival strategy something thats potentially of interest to humans this is one that previously ended up in lazzaros trap. And had a chip inserted under its skin for tracking purposes. The zorro has discovered that shrews can change that bone structure to find out more about this ability he puts the little animal under general anaesthetic for a few minutes. Then he takes x. Rays. He has to be quick. The images show that the shrew is smaller in the winter than it was in the summer its skull shrinks by around twenty percent. Thats probably an Energy Saving measure their metabolism works so quickly that the Little Creatures would normally starve if they didnt eat for a few. I was. But smaller bodies require less food so for a shrew it makes sense to shrink in winter. And then come spring their bones grow back to their full size. Usually their normal grows a longer lifespan mostly their bones are not so flexible that they can shrink and regrow again so in issue seems that their bones allees their scalp can its rincon then its reversible its a reversible process and hes massive its not just like a little reason want to but up to twenty percent. Of shrews bones are no different in terms of structure than that of other mammals so how can they shrink in winter and grow in the woman months and how might that benefit human beings the Max Planck Institute is researching this together with bones specialists from the medical department of getting in university. Dr hans wolf and his team have discovered bone atrophy in c. T. Scans the resembles osteoporosis in humans a condition that cant currently be cured thats an. Interesting thing here is that the process is reversible so basically these creatures undergo a kind of reversible osteoporotic process in the winter months. And the shrew spine and the back of its skull a most affected by the seasonal loss in bone density. Maybe this research on sure use could give us clues about how to treat human osteoporosis. What. To do that scientists have to study the inside of the shrews bones more closely. Through the first plaster needed by soaking them for weeks in a transparent plastic substance and then sectioned into millimeter thin slices. As the bone specialist analyzed the sections painstakingly under the microscope. Their conclusion osteo sites cells within the bones are what controls the shrinking or growth of the shrew skeleton when winter comes they trigger the release of minerals from the bones the result can be clearly identified along the sutures of the skull where a gap can now be seen by some or it has disappeared again the osteo sites have restored the minerals in the bone. And there have also if we find out how its all controlled and can intervene in these processes using certain substances that would be really great its something exciting to look forward to in the future. Will humans one day be able to learn how to read grow that bones thanks to the shrew have a lives are oh well have to lay a lot more traps before that can be found out but this downsize winter shrew has already done its bit for science. Research in medicine have to increase life span in the last few decades compared to the one nine hundred sixty s. People now have twenty years longer on average. The oldest people on the planet now regularly make it to one hundred twenty some biologists say that points to a natural limit is that true and if it is can we have a candidate. Prolonging life under Laboratory Conditions its possible here at the Max Planck Institute for the biology of aging and cologne researchers are finding out how diet can prolong the lives of fruit flies. The fruit flies in the test tubes on the left or give a normal feed the flies on the right are the same age but have been given a special diet from day one they crawl up the glass faster than the other ones and they also live longer. Its not just about the number of calories protein plays a crucial role if you give the fruit flies less protein then they live longer and they remain healthier as they age. In the Lab Next Door gerontologist martin is finding out how to prolong the lifespan of around. He feeds them with an active substance that occurs naturally in animal cells its called mean added to the worms feed that prevents age related neurodegeneration. Without glucose i mean the round worms become increasingly stiff and unflexible. With it they stay active much longer and they also live longer. When they experimented with killie fish dario villains are nose team made a further intriguing discovery they collected the feces of junk kill a fish and fed them to alder kill a fish thereby transferring the young ones intestinal bacteria the result was unexpected to say the least. The researchers monitored the fitness levels of older killa fish in the labs test pool and were able to identify that fish fed with a gut bacteria of young fish were a lot more active and lived up to thirty percent longer than those in the comparison group. The scientists have also succeeded in influencing the lifespan of months the rodents on the right are simply given less feed not only are they slimmer they also live longer given that mice are mammals this is significant. Experiments with mice prove that its possible to extend life spans with medication or by adjusting diets so these findings could also apply to humans. His colleagues at the live nets institute and begged to differ the aging process and humans as highly complex. Its possible to optimize a mechanism so that it functions longer like with a car you can improve the engine but there might come up point when the clutch goes or the bodywork falls apart there will always be something that puts a spanner in the works so ultimately we dont expect well be able to extend lifespans beyond one hundred twenty. But in the future will people be living into their hundreds and remaining in good shape these zebrafish might have the answer they have the extraordinary ability to sell for a new. The researchers in are looking for the genes responsible for Organ Development in the fish larvae. Even when the organism is old the genes involved in the formation of the kidneys and the larvae will still be capable of completely repairing the organ if its damaged. Researchers still dont fully understand how zebrafish can bring new their organs but they hope the phenomenon can shed light on the regeneration of human organs. Goal here and this applies to gerontology in general its not so much to extend the human lifespan. The natural limit is around one hundred twenty give or take the goal is to maintain good health as long as possible what we want to do is extend our health spends this way to get on the or the english spend this would you be filling a void of that. I believe there is a biological limit at the moment were debating if that limit may be one hundred twenty but i wouldnt want to nail it down i can imagine that we might exceed that in future. In that future how long will humans live there are no clear answers to that but researchers hope that before too long theyll have found ways to slow down the aging process. The average lifespan worldwide is now of around seventy two on facebook we asked whether if they wasnt a mortality pill you take it here are some of you were on says. Here in a rare a says he take a pill for eternal youth well theyre not just want to be immortal. Stump an egg us would be happy to take two. Kids on the other hand explains he wouldnt take one piece too curious about what happens after we die. While the teen accompanies it says shed be happy to take a poll that promised to keep her healthy. Stance with those comments keep them coming. One good way to lengthen your lifespan is to exercise regularly like hiking in the mountains but make sure to take enough clothing along because the high you go the cold it gets comes heating do the from kenya couldnt figure that out he said to his wife. Why is it that the higher you go the colder it gets. Everyone knows that when you climb a mountain it can start off warm but at the top the climbers often greeted by icy wins. High youre closer to the sun so shouldnt it be warmer. The sun is one hundred fifty million kilometers from the earth the few kilometers covered by the climber dont make much of a difference so why is it colder on the peak. The real reason has to do with the air specifically air pressure that reflects the density of gas molecules in the atmosphere around us at sea level air pressure is relatively high that means there are lots of molecules that are moving around and colliding with one another and exchanging thermal energy. But at higher altitudes the air expands and cools the molecules move more slowly on average and collide less often. You can observe the opposite effect one pumping up the tire pumping compresses the air raising its temperature in the process. In addition air masses absorb more heat when theyre close to the ground because warmer air takes up more moisture and humid air in turn absorb still more heat another reason why its warmer at sea level than high up in the mountains. If outlet is right why arent latin even if you do you have a science question that youve always wanted answered were happy to help out send it to us as a video text or boy smile if we answer it on the show well send you a little surprise as a thank you. Come on just us. Youll find us at d. W. Dot com slash science or drop us a line at d w under school site tech on facebook d w just science. Humans have always been a restless species weve spread out all over the globe one period of mass migration was between the third and six centuries of the current era and many of those migrants were women as revealed by an archaeological site in bavaria. Researchers there have been looking at some skulls dating back fifteen hundred years. This unusually elongated skull has a fascinating story to tell about the early middle ages. A small number of skulls displaying this feature have been found all of them female but what is behind this deformity. Bones from a number of medieval graveyards in bavaria is being studied at munich state collection of anthropology and paleo anatomy. And International Study has been able to unlock some of the skull secrets. Teams from mines and munich have been investigating the bones at the genome level. The hamptons because and we studied six burial grounds in total all the deformed skulls that come from them know back to around the year five hundred from one. Girls probably had their heads down when they were still infants a custom still practiced in congo in the one nine hundred fifty s. To determine the origin of this cranial modification the researchers looked at d. N. A. Evidence for i mean your a number of years ago we realized that we need to patrol part of the temporal bone the inner part of the skull which contains a lot of d. N. A. Weve been able to get lots of information from it. Its a nice name that first we take a sample of bone from the skull and try to extract d. N. A. From it we then use a special process to copy the d. N. A. In the past we could only see four hundred base pairs but with new socalled next Generation Sequencing we can now see five million. Thats a huge amount of information. In form of c. One hundred thousand surely under this goal found in book finding belong to a woman who died aged around forty. Thanks to the new technology we were able to examine the fragments of d. N. A. That she inherited from her ancestors and what we found was that she might have had an ancestor from asia. But the rest came overwhelmingly from around the mediterranean area. And was found going on but. It had long been suspected that the woman had migrated from china not so it turns out rather she was from South Eastern Europe and had integrated into a socially mixed Village Community study manna buildings of that protection and there was likely a place for tribunals provided its diverse origins the community was well organized. The d. N. A. Shows that the women with normal skulls have ancestors from central and Northern Europe while those with the elongation skulls all come from elsewhere. As a for instance of how about ash you know i mean the surprising thing for us was to discover that the women the ones with the different scoldings came according to their genetic data from southeastern europe. So we have these women who really covered a great distance to arrive here in bavaria where they died and were buried that. Its possible that gated skulls were a female status symbol in southeastern europe. Perhaps the marriage of women from that area to men in various cemented diplomatic relations. What is certain is that these women stood out from the rest. Of these new methods allow us to determine hair and eye color an interesting way we can tell that these women really were different in appearance you had no they tended to have dark eyes and a darker complection while the local population were more likely to have. Despite their different origins it does appear that these Migrant Women assimilated quickly and were well integrated in the new society. How medicine far we havent found much that is different or exotic in the way that these women were buried and if nothing that would suggest that they came from far away which leads us to believe that they were well integrated into this society and had adopted the local rites and customs. The early middle ages were a time of great mobility for many including the migrants from southeastern europe be a long day should skull show that varia was a melting pot with in most cases a peaceful confluence of different peoples. Youll find other members of our species in every corner of the planet including the arctic. But the garbage reproduce is even more mobile than we are. The apparently pristine nature here is not nearly as untouched as it appears. It was only recently that researches found life forms under the ice sheet of the north pole chris stations deep water sponges and completely unexpectedly corals. Yet this newly discovered habitat is under threat just slightly further south another group of scientists from the alfred vegan institute captured these images of plastic pollution and other waste for fifteen years Melanie Batman has been observing the spread of plastic deborah in the arctic ocean its a depressing development. Moving bits of mess of a salt used in industrial fishing this also looks like its use in fishing this is some unspecified plastic fragment. And we see a lot of this sort of thing on the seabed two point five kilometers under the surface so i hope to meet up i thought here for. In one thousand nine hundred ninety the scientists began conducting Long Term Research in an area that spans over ten thousand square kilometers its. Almost every year Melanie Batman and her colleagues survey the sea bed with the ocean floor observation system. Attached to a steel cable the device scans the ocean floor from a distance of about a meter taking High Resolution photos and videos. The researches have compared images from different years and reached. Some devastating conclusions. Yes. There is now twenty times more waste in the northern zone is increased from about two point five chunks of plastic in an area the size of a football pitch to sixty of fifty ton a pool with profit pushing and death in an arctic region thats completely remote found funny little sent home. That would mean the polar seabed is in fact one of the worlds most polluted marine regions on a par with the mediterranean. Yes but not really disappointing of course we take these images because were searching marine life on the sea floor and theres all this Plastic Waste their fortune on and its not what you want to see the interest. One cause of the worsening pollution in the arctic ocean could be the gulf stream. It carries litter from southern regions north which then gets stranded as the current sinks deeper. More and more deborah is a riving in the arctic ocean disastrously its become a dead end for plastics and the plastic litter thats visible is only part of the problem. Melanie bagman demonstrates the effect of the elements on plastic litter it decomposes into micro plastic particles. In recent years the researches have taken regular samples from the seabed and examined them from my crypt last takes. This year for the first time the results were deeply worrying. I am gyno the demand for the hours that i just would feel this is a sample of sediment from the arctic ocean from a depth of two point five kilometers yes i will analyze it in our lab on heligoland id like our analysis last year revealed approximately one thousand to one thousand five hundred micro plastic particles which is really quite considerable but you wouldnt let this go on to give me. And tell relatively recently the researches were unaware of the extent of the problem because they didnt have a fission diagnostic tools today its possible to filter individual particles out of the deep sea mud and to document. Not a pretty sight. Never be able to get rid of these tiny particles theyll end up in the food chain plastics are in the bed in the oceans. Yeah to me it was born plastic tubes are. These days scientists find plastics in motion or in life where it can lead to infections and poisoning. Bad news not just for this feed creatures. That monoid to these days when you eat seafood such as mussels the shrimp is a fair assumption that you are consuming micro plastics to make this. Doesnt only affect lifeforms on the deep. Its an environmental disaster that affects us. Thats all for now next week we join the crowds at the worlds biggest beer bash why are people so drawn to mass events find out next time on tomorrow today see you there. 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News live from berlin the far right candidate gyre valsin r o wins the first round of brazils president ial election the former soldier tapping into growing anger at corruption crime will face left wing cowed the fernando had dogs in the run off in three weeks adonis warned voters are also naro is a threat to democracy also coming up were going to go before me and my son will always together what have i went he was always with me why did we get separated that day. We follow one fan