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By discovering how a type of smooth muscle—which is essential for mechanical aspects of absorbing fats from food—forms in the gut, Cornell scientists have opened doors to making Artificial Muscle, Repairing muscle following gut surgeries, and treating inflammatory bowel disease and obesity.

The findings, published in a study in Developmental Cell, reveal that intestinal smooth muscle originates in embryos and forms by the same process that is a hallmark of creating scar tissue when a wound heals.

The smooth muscle sits inside tiny finger-like projections called villi, which absorb fats—also known as li...

In new research, Aric N. Rogers, Ph.D., who studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms of aging at the MDI Biological Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, has discovered that muscle may be a protected tissue under conditions of dietary restriction, or DR.

Dietary restriction, in which calories are restricted without malnutrition, is one of the most robust anti-aging interventions. When confronted with a scarcity of nutrients, an organism conserves resources by lowering the translation, or production, of proteins, which is one of the most energetically expensive processes in the cell. Proteins serve as the building blocks for tissues and organs and perform vital physiological functions.

The conservation of cellular resources through red...