Your handgrip strength is an excellent marker of general strength and health. We produced the world’s largest set of handgrip muscle strength norms using data on over 2.4 million adults from 69 countries and regions. We found that handgrip strength improved a little in early adulthood, peaked between age 30 and 39, and then dropped off as people aged, especially in late adulthood. These norms have utility for global peer-comparisons, health screening, and surveillance.

Plants produce special molecules that act like natural pesticides to help defend themselves against pests. Unfortunately, they don’t make enough of these molecules, leaving plants vulnerable to pests such as the Colorado potato beetle, which can result in damaged crops and economic losses for farmers.

Now, researchers at the University of Missouri may have found a solution.

In a recent study, scientists discovered that a scaffold protein — a protein that helps organize and regulate other proteins — acts as the plant’s unsung hero to help facilitate the production of these protective molecules.

The brain extracellular matrix plays a critical role in synaptic plasticity, including experience/adaptive-based changes in brain function. This suggests an inherent malleability in ECM structure, and although changes in certain other ECM molecules contribute to ECM remodeling, the underlying mechanisms that enable ECM plasticity are still unknown. To help uncover some of these mechanisms, the National Institute on Aging recently awarded a two-year R21 grant to Gail Cornwall, Ph.D., from the TTUHSC School of Medicine.