Recap

The results fit with research at the cellular level showing that “taurine is a protector of cells and it promotes their survival”, says Herminia Pasantes, a biologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. She praises the study for exploring this principle in living organisms. However, she warns that ageing is complex, and that taurine by itself, or a lack of it, is not what induces or drives the process.

How anti-ageing drugs could boost COVID vaccines in older people

Another point of concern for Pasantes is that the mice in the experiment were given high doses of taurine relative to their body weight — levels that might far exceed the recommended safe consumption limits if extrapolated to humans. Yadav says that variables other than body weight should be considered when calculating doses, such as an animal’s use of oxygen, caloric expenditure and blood volume. The team fed the mice between 15 and 30 milligrams of taurine per day depending on their age. “Approximately, these doses will be equivalent to 3 to 6 grams of taurine for an 80-kilogram body weight,” says Yadav, which is within safe limits according to European Food Safety Authority recommendations. A typical energy drink contains around 1 gram of taurine.

Steven Karpowicz, a biochemist at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, points out that although the animal studies suggest that taurine is associated with ageing, there is no direct observation of cause and effect. “There may be one or more metabolites related to, or derived from, taurine that are associated with the molecular mechanisms of ageing,” he says.

The authors acknowledge that the chemical mechanisms by which taurine actually influences cells at a molecular level are not fully understood. At the press conference, Yadav said they would not recommend that people consume over-the-counter taurine supplements to try to preserve health or slow ageing.

“We are looking at what are the initial events that taurine elicits in the cells and in different organs,” Yadav said. “Only then will we be able to target specific mechanisms.”

Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, OM, PRS, HonFRSE[4] (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a Nobel Prize winning New Zealand physicist who was a pioneering researcher in both atomic and nuclear physics.[5] Decsribed as "the father of nuclear physics", and "one of the greatest scientists of all time", he spent a substantial amount of his career abroad, in both Canada and the United Kingdom.

In 1898, Rutherford moved to Canada and joined McGill University, in Montreal, where he discovered the concept of radioactive half-life, the radioactive element radon,[6] and differentiated and named alpha and beta radiation.[7] For this work he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908 "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances".[8] He was the first Oceanian Nobel laureate, and the first to perform the awarded work in Canada.

Rutherford moved in 1907 to the Victoria University of Manchester (today University of Manchester) in the UK, where he and Thomas Royds proved that alpha radiation is helium nuclei.[9][10] In 1911, although he could not prove that it was positive or negative,[11] he theorized that atoms have their charge concentrated in a very small nucleus,[12] and thereby pioneered the Rutherford model of the atom, through his discovery and interpretation of Rutherford scattering by the gold foil experiment of Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden.

He performed the first artificially induced nuclear reaction in 1917 in experiments where nitrogen nuclei were bombarded with alpha particles. As a result, he discovered the emission of a subatomic particle which, in 1919, he called the "hydrogen atom" but, in 1920, he more accurately named the proton.[13][14]

Rutherford became Director of the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in 1919. Under his leadership the neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932 and in the same year the first experiment to split the nucleus in a fully controlled manner was performed by students working under his direction, John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton.

After his death in 1937, he was buried in Westminster Abbey near Charles Darwin and Sir Isaac Newton. Encyclopædia Britannica considers him to be the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday (1791–1867).[5] The chemical element rutherfordium (element 104) was named after him in 1997.

BTS (Korean: 방탄소년단; RR: Bangtan Sonyeondan; lit. Bulletproof Boy Scouts), also known as the Bangtan Boys, is a South Korean boy band formed in 2010. The band consists of Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jungkook, who co-write or co-produce much of their material. Originally a hip hop group, they expanded their musical style to incorporate a wide range of genres, while their lyrics have focused on subjects including mental health, the troubles of school-age youth and coming of age, loss, the journey towards self-love, individualism, and the consequences of fame and recognition. Their discography and adjacent work has also referenced literature, philosophy and psychology, and includes an alternate universe storyline.

BTS debuted in 2013 under Big Hit Entertainment with the single album 2 Cool 4 Skool. BTS released their first Korean and Japanese-language studio albums, Dark & Wild and Wake Up respectively, in 2014. The group's second Korean studio album, Wings (2016), was their first to sell one million copies in South Korea. By 2017, BTS had crossed into the global music market and led the Korean Wave into the United States, becoming the first Korean ensemble to receive a Gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for their single "Mic Drop", as well as the first act from South Korea to top the Billboard 200 with their studio album Love Yourself: Tear (2018). In 2020, BTS became one of the few groups since the Beatles (in 1966–1968) to chart four US number-one albums in less than two years, with Love Yourself: Answer (2018) becoming the first Korean album certified Platinum by the RIAA; in the same year, they also became the first all-South Korean act to reach number one on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard Global 200 with their Grammy-nominated single "Dynamite". Follow-up releases "Savage Love", "Life Goes On", "Butter", and "Permission to Dance" made them the fastest act to earn four US number-one singles since Justin Timberlake in 2006.

As of 2023, BTS is the best-selling artist in South Korean history according to the Circle Chart, having sold in excess of 40 million albums.[2] Their studio album Map of the Soul: 7 (2020) is the best-selling album of all time in South Korea, as well as the first in the country to surpass both four and five million registered sales. They are the first non-English-speaking and Asian act to sell out concerts at Wembley Stadium and the Rose Bowl (Love Yourself World Tour, 2019), and were named the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's (IFPI) Global Recording Artist of the Year for both 2020 and 2021. The group's accolades include multiple American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, Golden Disc Awards, and nominations for five Grammy Awards. Outside of music, they have addressed three sessions of the United Nations General Assembly and partnered with UNICEF in 2017 to establish the Love Myself anti-violence campaign. Featured on Time's international cover as "Next Generation Leaders" and dubbed the "Princes of Pop", BTS has also appeared on Time's lists of the 25 most influential people on the internet (2017–2019) and the 100 most influential people in the world (2019), and in 2018 became the youngest recipients of the South Korean Order of Cultural Merit for their contributions in spreading the Korean culture and language.

On June 14, 2022, the group announced a scheduled pause in group activities to enable the members to complete their mandatory South Korean military service, with a reunion planned for 2025. Jin, the oldest member, became the first to enlist, on December 13, 2022.