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By Sandee LaMotte, CNN

(CNN) — People who have razor-sharp minds in their 80s and 90s — known as “SuperAgers” — produce twice the number of young neurons as cognitively healthy adults and 2.5 times as many as people with Alzheimer’s disease, a new study found.

“This shows the aging brain has the capacity to regenerate — that’s huge,” said study coauthor Dr. Tamar Gefen, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Mesulam Institute for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

While a mature neuron is stable, a young neuron is the most adaptable and plastic type of brain cell, with an enhanced ability to grow, integrate and “wire itself into a brain,” said Gefen, who helps lead the Northwestern SuperAging Program. Researchers there have been studying elderly men and women with superior memories for 25 years.

“SuperAgers are showing the preservation of immature neurons with heightened excitability — they are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to fire,” she said. “That is a more youthful brain.”

In addition, the study found SuperAger brains contained more robust support systems in the hippocampus — the part of the brain responsible for memory — that nurture youthful neurons much like a young sapling is nourished when planted in nutrient-rich dirt.

“This research shows SuperAgers have a unique cellular environment in their hippocampus which supports neurogenesis,” Gefen said. “This is biological proof SuperAgers have more plastic brains.”

Neurogenesis, which is the birth and survival of new neurons, enhances brain plasticity — the ability of the brain to repair itself to maintain good cognitive function in the face of injury and the process of aging.

In fact, the brains of SuperAgers contained more newly developed neurons than younger adults in their 30s and 40s, said senior author Orly Lazarov, a professor of neuroscience and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia Training Program at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

“The profile of neurogenesis in the SuperAgers shows resilience,” Lazarov said in an email. “So they are able to cope with the ravages of time.”

SuperAgers may have a genetic advantage, but research shows that people who practice good brain health may also prevent cognitive decline, said Alzheimer’s prevention researcher Dr. Richard Isaacson, director of research at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Florida, who was not involved in the study.

“Our studies have found lifestyle changes including diet, exercise, reducing stress and optimizing sleep, along with managing vascular risk factors with certain prescribed medications, can also grow brain areas including the hippocampus, and reduce telltale signs of Alzehimer’s such as tau tangles and amyloid plaques,” Isaacson said.

“I was certainly never taught in medical school that it’s possible for brain cells to grow, but we’ve now seen compelling evidence of this on serial MRI scans in people who continually make brain-healthy choices,” he said.

What is a ‘SuperAger’?

To be a “SuperAger,” a person must be older than 80 and undergo extensive cognitive testing that assesses the limits of their ability to recall information, Emily Rogalski, a professor of neurology at the University of Chicago, told Read more

By Harmeet Kaur, CNN

(CNN) — Weather forecasters at the National Weather Service, The Weather Channel and this very news organization had a name for the kind of storm that upended daily life for residents of the Northeast US this week: It was a nor’easter.

A “nor’easter,” or “northeaster,” is a kind of coastal storm featuring strong winds that blow in from the Atlantic Ocean. The storms typically develop offshore between Georgia and New Jersey and then move up the coast, bringing blustery winds and lots of snow in the winter (or heavy rain in other seasons), CNN Meteorologist Mary Gilbert explains. Though these particular storms occur only along the East Coast, a “nor’easter” gets its name not from where it strikes, but from what direction the wind blows — coming out of the northeast as the seaborne storm rotates counterclockwise, sending its wind into the land.

This week’s storm was also described, in meteorological terms, as a “bomb cyclone” and a “blizzard.” Gilbert says all three words accurately capture aspects of this particular storm, though the latter two have even more serious meanings: A “bomb cyclone” is a rapidly intensifying storm in which air pressure drops at least 24 millibars in 24 hours or less; a “blizzard” is a snowstorm with sustained winds or frequent gusts of at least 35 mph and visibility for one-fourth of a mile or less — those conditions must last for at least three consecutive hours for meteorologists to officially consider a storm a blizzard.

“If it meets certain other criteria, then you can add the ‘bomb cyclone’ label or the ‘blizzard’ label,” Gilbert says. “But as a catchall … ‘nor’easter’ for me is the way to go.”

The phenomenon of a wet, rotating oceanic system pummeling the Northeast produced such legendary storms as the Ash Wednesday storm of 1962, the Blizzard of ‘78 and 1993’s Storm of the Century. These historic storms were all “nor’easters,” but they weren’t necessarily discussed as such at the time. Despite the archaic look of the word, with its folksy apostrophe, the widespread adoption of “nor’easter” is a relatively recent trend.

The contemporary enthusiasm for “nor’easter” seems to have emerged from a perfect storm of historical, linguistic and journalistic forces. Originally, it was neither meteorologically nor geographically specific. The Oxford English Dictionary’s first citation of the word is from an 1837 translation of Aristophanes by the scholar Benjamin Walsh (“Slack your sheet! A strong nor’-easter’s groaning.”), but “nor’easter” appeared at least a decade earlier in the English newspaper “The Hull Packet and Humber Mercury.”

The dictionary entry for “nor’east,” as a direction, contains examples dating as far back as 1592. (“North, northeast, Northeast, Nore nore and by Nore-east. I shall never do it,” a character in John Lyly’s play “Gallathea” says in frustration while learning compass points. “Nor’east” also appears in John Davis’ 1595 navigation manual “The Seaman’s Secrets:” “Noreast by North raiseth a degree in sayling 24 leagues.”)

It’s unclear how exactly “nor’east” gave way to “nor’easter,” and whether it was a sailor or a writer who coined the term. At some point in the mid-19th century, “nor’easter” began appearing in US newspaper articles, though a scan of newspaper archives from the time period indicates that “northeaster” was the more common term. Google Ngrams, which charts the frequency of a term across a corpus of books, Read more

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By Manu Raju, CNN

(CNN) — The Department of Homeland Security may again suspend TSA PreCheck by prioritizing “standard” security lanes at the airport amid the partial government shutdown, Secretary Kristi Noem told CNN.

It comes after the department walked back its decision over the weekend to pause TSA PreCheck, which allows travelers to get through airport security more quickly, amid an ongoing DHS shutdown. Customs and Border Protection’s Global Entry program remains paused.

“As we go forward and without funding for DHS, if we end up in a situation where these TSA officers have to go get other jobs and provide for their families, we’ll have to prioritize where the most travelers go through their security checkpoints,” Noem told CNN.

“We prioritize security lanes as we can staff them. So the ones that use the most travelers, which is the standard lanes, will be prioritized because most of the traveling public goes through those lanes,” she added.

Meanwhile, Noem denied that the department reversed its decision on halting PreCheck, saying, “We never reversed the decision. We just talked about it. What priorities we’d have to make if we had the situation where call outs went high.”

TSA PreCheck and Global Entry were not paused during last year’s government shutdown, which lasted 43 days.

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