Sophie Raworth talks about the need for exercise as we get older.
Sophie Raworth: ‘I hope I can still run in my 80s’
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Category Archives: Wellness Live
Scientists restore memory by blocking a single Alzheimer’s protein
Alzheimer’s disease is often described in numbers, with millions of people affected, cases rising quickly, and costs reaching into the trillions. For families, however, the experience is deeply personal. “It’s a slow bereavement,” says Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Nicholas Tonks, whose mother lived with Alzheimer’s. “You lose the person piece by piece.”
A major focus in Alzheimer’s research has been the buildup of plaque in the brain. This plaque consists of amyloid-β (Aβ), a peptide that forms naturally but can accumulate and cluster together over time. These deposits are widely believed to play a key role in driving the disease.
Targeting PTP1B To Improve Memory
Tonks, along with graduate student Yuxin Cen and postdoctoral fellow Steven Ribeiro Alves, has identified a new potential strategy. Their research shows that blocking a protein known as PTP1B can improve learning and memory in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease.
Tonks first discovered PTP1B in 1988 and has spent decades studying its role in health and disease. In this latest work, his team found that PTP1B interacts with another protein called spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK). SYK helps control microglia (the brain’s immune cells), which are responsible for clearing debris such as excess Aβ.
“Over the course of the disease, these cells become exhausted and less effective,” says Cen. “Our results suggest that PTP1B inhibition can improve microglial function, clearing up Aβ plaques.”
Links to Metabolism and Disease Risk
Alzheimer’s disease is also strongly associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes, both of which are recognized risk factors. These conditions are thought to contribute to the growing global burden of Alzheimer’s. Because PTP1B is already considered a therapeutic target for metabolic disorders, this connection strengthens the case for exploring it in Alzheimer’s treatment as well.
Toward More Effective Alzheimer’s Treatments
Current therapies for Alzheimer’s disease largely focus on reducing Aβ buildup, but their benefits are often limited for many patients. “Using PTP1B inhibitors that target multiple aspects of the pathology, including Aβ clearance, might provide an additional impact,” says Ribeiro Alves.
The Tonks lab is now collaborating with DepYmed, Inc. to develop PTP1B inhibitors for several medical applications. For Alzheimer’s disease, Tonks envisions combining these inhibitors with existing approved drugs. “The goal is to slow Alzheimer’s progression and improve quality of life of the patients,” he says. With PTP1B emerging as a promising target, this approach could help move closer to that goal.
‘Amazing’ moment for communities given right to buy for the first time
Ministers say the new law in England gives power to local people who want to help others.
Scientists reveal the best exercise for knee arthritis pain relief
A large study published in The BMJ suggests that aerobic activities such as walking, cycling, and swimming are the most effective exercises for people with knee osteoarthritis. These activities were found to provide the greatest improvements in pain, physical function, walking ability, and overall quality of life.
Researchers note that while other types of exercise can still help, they should be used alongside aerobic activity rather than replacing it as the primary approach.
What Causes Knee Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis develops when the cartilage that cushions the ends of bones gradually breaks down. This leads to pain, swelling, and difficulty moving the joint. Although it can affect different parts of the body, the knees are especially vulnerable. Nearly 30% of adults over 45 show signs of knee osteoarthritis on x-rays, and about half of them experience severe symptoms.
Exercise is widely recommended as a key part of treatment, but current guidelines often lack clear advice on which specific types work best for knee osteoarthritis.
Large Review of 217 Clinical Trials
To address this gap, researchers carried out a comprehensive analysis of exercise therapies. They reviewed 217 randomized trials conducted between 1990 and 2024, involving a total of 15,684 participants. These studies compared several forms of exercise, including aerobic, flexibility, strengthening, mind-body, neuromotor, and mixed programs, against control groups.
Although the quality of the trials varied, the researchers used the recognized GRADE system to evaluate how reliable the evidence was.
Measuring Pain, Function, and Quality of Life
The analysis focused on key outcomes that matter most to patients. These included pain levels, physical function, gait performance, and quality of life. Results were examined at short term (four weeks), mid-term (12 weeks), and long term (24 weeks) follow up.
Across these measures, aerobic exercise consistently ranked as the most effective option among all exercise types studied.
Aerobic Exercise Shows the Strongest Results
Evidence with moderate certainty showed that aerobic exercise reduced pain in both the short and mid-term. It also improved physical function across short term, mid-term, and long term timeframes. In addition, it enhanced walking ability and quality of life in the short and mid-term.
Other forms of exercise also delivered meaningful benefits. Mind-body approaches likely improved short term function, while neuromotor training likely boosted short term gait performance. Strengthening and mixed exercise programs appeared to improve function at mid-term follow up.
Exercise Is Safe and Widely Beneficial
Importantly, none of the exercise types were linked to a higher risk of adverse events compared with control groups. This supports the idea that exercise is a safe and reliable treatment option for knee osteoarthritis.
The researchers did point out some limitations. Many of the comparisons were indirect, some outcomes lacked long term data, and smaller studies may have influenced early results.
Clear Guidance for Treatment
Despite these limitations, the study offers one of the most thorough and up-to-date evaluations of exercise for knee osteoarthritis. The findings can help guide clinicians in choosing the most effective therapies for their patients.
Based on the results, the researchers recommend aerobic exercise “as a first line intervention for knee osteoarthritis management, particularly when the aim is to improve functional capacity and reduce pain.” They also note that if aerobic exercise is not suitable due to individual limitations, “alternative forms of structured physical activity may still be beneficial.”
Meryl Streep Turned Down The Devil Wears Prada 2 Until Bosses ‘Doubled’ Their Offer
Meryl Streep has admitted that she came close to turning down the chance to reprise one of her most iconic roles in the new Devil Wears Prada film.
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Appearing on The Today Show to promote the movie, Meryl claimed that once she read The Devil Wears Prada 2 script, she knew immediately that it was “going to be a hit”, so seized an opportunity.
“I thought, it’s a great script. And they called me up and made an offer and I said, ‘No, I’m not gonna do it’,” Meryl recalled.
On how she wound up back in the role of Miranda Priestly, she continued: “I knew it was gonna be a hit, and I wanted to see if I doubled my ask, and they went right away and said, ‘Sure’.”
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via Associated Press
Meryl went on to share that it took her a long time to “understand that I could do that” and that “you can ask for what you want”.
“I was sure it would be a hit, and they needed me,” she added. “I wanted it, but if they didn’t want to do that, I was OK because I’m old. I was ready to retire.
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“But that was a lesson. That was a great way to start, so I was in a good mood when we began.”
Alongside the returning faces from the original Devil Wears Prada film, Meryl is joined in the new follow-up by the likes of Bridgerton’s Simone Ashley, Justin Theroux, Lucy Liu and a wave of celebrity cameos.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 arrives in cinemas on Friday 1 May. Check out HuffPost UK’s review of the film here.
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This AI knew the answers but didn’t understand the questions
Psychologists have long debated whether the human mind can be explained by a single, unified theory or if different functions such as attention and memory must be studied separately. Now, artificial intelligence (AI) is entering that debate, offering a new way to explore how the mind works.
In July 2025, a study published in Nature introduced an AI model called “Centaur.” Built on standard large language models and refined using data from psychological experiments, Centaur was designed to simulate human cognitive behavior. It reportedly performed well across 160 tasks, including decision-making, executive control, and other mental processes. The results drew widespread attention and were seen as a possible step toward AI systems that could replicate human thinking more broadly.
New Research Raises Doubts
A more recent study published in National Science Open challenges those claims. Researchers from Zhejiang University argue that Centaur’s apparent success may come from overfitting. In other words, instead of understanding the tasks, the model may have learned to recognize patterns in the training data and reproduce expected answers.
To test this idea, the researchers created several new evaluation scenarios. In one example, they replaced the original multiple-choice prompts, which described specific psychological tasks, with the instruction “Please choose option A.” If the model truly understood the task, it should have consistently selected option A. Instead, Centaur continued to choose the “correct answers” from the original dataset.
This behavior suggests that the model was not interpreting the meaning of the questions. Rather, it relied on learned statistical patterns to “guess” answers. The researchers compared this to a student who scores well by memorizing test formats without actually understanding the material.
Why This Matters for AI Evaluation
The findings highlight the need for caution when assessing the abilities of large language models. While these systems can be highly effective at fitting data, their “black-box” nature makes it difficult to know how they arrive at their outputs. This can lead to issues such as hallucinations or misinterpretations. Careful and varied testing is essential to determine whether a model truly has the skills it appears to demonstrate.
The Real Challenge: Language Understanding
Although Centaur was presented as a model capable of simulating cognition, its biggest limitation appears to be in language comprehension. Specifically, it struggles to recognize and respond to the intent behind questions. The study suggests that achieving true language understanding may be one of the most important challenges in developing AI systems that can model human cognition more fully.
Donald Trump Once Again Sides With Vladimir Putin Over The Ukraine War
Donald Trump has once again sided with Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine war – and appeared to take another sly dig at Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The US president insisted Russia’s leader “was ready to make a deal a while ago” to end the conflict.
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But in an apparent reference to Zelenskyy, he claimed “some people made it difficult for him”.
His comments, in the Oval Office on Wednesday, came as the deadlock in the war continues more than four years after Putin started it by ordering his troops to invade Uklraine.
Repeated attempts by Trump to end the conflict have failed after Ukraine rejected Russian demands to hand over territory which they have failed to take by force.
Speaking about his most recent phone conversation with the Russian president, Trump said: “I said before you help me I want to end your war. We had a good talk, I’ve known him a long time.
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“I think he was ready to make a deal a while ago. I think some people made it difficult for him to make a deal.”
Trump has regularly repeated Kremlin talking points about the war since being re-elected president in 2024.
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Most notably, he has claimed that Ukraine, rather than Russia, actually started the conflict.
Speaking last year, the president said: “Russia is a powerful military nation.
“You know, whether people like it or not, it’s a powerful nation. It’s a much bigger nation. You don’t do that. You don’t take on a nation that’s 10 times your size.”
He also said Ukraine provoked the war by trying to get too close to Nato and the West.
“It was always a no-no, you could not. Russia said, ‘We don’t want the so-called opponent or the enemy,’ let’s use that term, ‘We don’t want them on our border.’ And they were right.”
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