Science fiction/fantasy author. I love dogs, horses, and reading.
Colorado
Joined May 2011
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Courtney Farrell retweeted
Whenever you're sad, remember there are tiny kinesin proteins trying their best for your happiness
Courtney Farrell retweeted
Scientists made 50-year-old skin cells behave like they’re 20 again.
Researchers at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge have developed a groundbreaking method to reverse the biological aging of human skin cells by approximately 30 years, all while keeping them as fully functional adult skin cells.
The team used a carefully controlled, short-term version of the Nobel Prize-winning Yamanaka reprogramming technique. By exposing adult skin fibroblasts to a specific set of reprogramming factors (the Yamanaka factors) for just 13 days—and then stopping the process early—they successfully “reset” many molecular markers of aging without pushing the cells all the way back to a stem cell state.
After this brief treatment, the rejuvenated cells displayed a dramatically younger profile: their epigenetic clock (a measure of chemical tags on DNA that tracks biological age) and their gene expression patterns (the transcriptome) closely resembled those of cells from much younger individuals.
Even more impressively, the cells behaved younger too. The treated fibroblasts produced significantly higher levels of collagen—the protein essential for skin firmness, elasticity, and wound healing—and they migrated faster to close an artificial “wound” in laboratory dishes compared to untreated older cells.
The researchers also observed reversal of age-related changes in genes associated with diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cataracts, suggesting the technique could have broader therapeutic implications.
While this work is still in its early stages and the precise mechanisms remain under investigation, the findings open exciting possibilities: one day, scientists may be able to selectively rejuvenate aging cells in the body to enhance tissue repair, improve healing, and potentially slow or mitigate some effects of age-related diseases—without the risks associated with fully reprogramming cells into stem cells.
[Gill, D., Parry, A., Santos, F., Okkenhaug, H., Seale, M., Dobbs, L. J., Reik, W., & Ocampo, A. (2022). Multi-omic rejuvenation of human cells by maturation phase transient reprogramming. eLife, 11, e71624. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.71624]
Courtney Farrell retweeted
The best memory of 2020 was how animals returned to the streets while humans were in quarantine
Courtney Farrell retweeted
A drone filmed a volcano erupting from above and it makes ground footage look useless 🌋
Courtney Farrell retweeted
"The Congo Basin is the world's largest net carbon sink among tropical forests — absorbing up to 6x more CO₂ annually than the Amazon in some estimates. Yet it receives a fraction of the attention and funding. Africa’s green lung needs the world’s support NOW." #CongoBasin
Courtney Farrell retweeted
Baby chimpanzee and baby gorilla form an unlikely friendship after being orphaned in the wild
In 2007, photographer Michael Poliza captured photos of the two young primates bonding at a sanctuary after they were rescued separately, despite belonging to different species.
Courtney Farrell retweeted
Last night, the sky recreated something ancient humans may have stood frozen watching thousands of years ago. 🌙✨
A razor-thin crescent Moon appeared between brilliant Venus and giant Jupiter directly above Stonehenge — one of Earth’s oldest mysteries.
Just ancient stones beneath a perfectly timed celestial alignment.
For a few moments after sunset, the same sky once watched by forgotten civilizations returned above England.
And somehow…
we’re alive to witness it too. 🌌
[United States]
Courtney Farrell retweeted
Amazon + Congo = 2/3 of Earth’s tropical rainforest.
Together they:
✅ Store 250B tons of carbon
✅ Drive rainfall for 4 continents
✅ House 20% of all species
We’re logging both for short-term cash.
What’s the long-term price? 👇
Courtney Farrell retweeted
The Alaskan winter is absolutely insane.🌬️🤍
It is absolutely mind-blowing to think that this isn't a sculpture carved by human hands, but a living masterpiece designed by wind, water, and time. ❄️🌿
The sheer geometric perfection of the canopy—with thousands of branches perfectly frosted and reaching out in unison—is a humbling reminder that nature is the world's greatest architect.
Courtney Farrell retweeted
Deforestation is not “development.”
It is ecocide,turning carbon sinks into carbon bombs,wiping out gorillas, elephants,and thousands of species, & triggering droughts that hit farmers hardest.
In 2025 the Congo Basin primary forest loss hit records.The science is screaming.
ALT Giant forests
Courtney Farrell retweeted
A team of astronomers has identified what appears to be a completely new class of exoplanet.
The planet, known as L 98-59 d and located about 35 light-years away, initially seemed to fit into familiar categories such as a rocky planet with a hydrogen atmosphere or a water-rich ocean world.
However, observations from the JWST, combined with detailed computer simulations, revealed a different internal structure: a vast, long-lived ocean of molten rock beneath the surface that stores large amounts of sulfur and continuously interacts with the planet’s atmosphere.
This molten interior helps explain several otherwise puzzling features, including the planet’s unusually low density and the presence of sulfur-bearing gases like hydrogen sulfide in its atmosphere.
Rather than being a thin surface layer, the magma appears to extend deep into the planet, acting as a reservoir that traps and slowly releases gases over billions of years, stabilizing a thick, hydrogen-rich atmosphere that would otherwise be lost to space.
The models suggest that L 98-59 d may have formed as a larger, more gas-rich planet and gradually evolved into its current state, retaining enough heat and atmospheric pressure to keep much of its interior molten for nearly five billion years.
This implies that what astronomers are seeing is not just an exotic outlier, but potentially a missing category of planet shaped by the interplay between magma, sulfur chemistry, and atmospheric evolution.
The discovery indicates that current classification schemes for exoplanets may be too simplistic and that many worlds previously interpreted as familiar types could hide very different internal structures.
Although such a planet is far too extreme to support life, it provides a rare window into early planetary evolution, since many rocky planets, including Earth, likely passed through magma-ocean stages that later solidified.
Finding a world where that state persists offers a way to study processes that are otherwise inaccessible, and suggests that similarly molten, sulfur-rich planets may be more common in the galaxy than previously assumed.
👉 share.google/CMXjhs5JUNkvgG3…
Courtney Farrell retweeted
Deforestation is not “development.”
It is ecocide,turning carbon sinks into carbon bombs,wiping out gorillas, elephants,and thousands of species, & triggering droughts that hit farmers hardest.
In 2025 the Congo Basin primary forest loss hit records.The science is screaming.
ALT Gorilla