Compound Found In Red Wine Improves Metabolism Fights Aging

In yet another study of the benefits of red wine, Harvard Medical School researchers have reported that increasing the levels of sirtuin genes protects against aging by similar mechanisms in both very simple organisms like yeast, and in mammals. “This is the first potentially fundamental, root cause of aging that we’ve found,” said professor of pathology David Sinclair in a Harvard press release. “There may very well be others, but our finding that aging in a simple yeast cell is directly relevant to aging in mammals comes as a surprise.” When stimulated by the red wine chemical resveratrol, or by caloric restriction, sirtuins seem to have positive effects on aging and health, according to Sinclair’s research. Sirtris Pharmaceuticals is working with these results to create a pill that targets Diabetis and other diseases related to aging, as discussed in the following ScienCentral clip.

A nice gift for the wine geek.

If you have a wine lover who's also a tech geek I'm sure they will be appreciative of this little USB thumb drive from bewineconnected.com. Not only is it shaped like a wine bottle but it's packed with wine related info, ringtones for your cellphone, and an application for managing your wine cellar! At 35 Euro it's a little pricey for a thumb drive, but considering the information provided it may well be worth the purchase. The Open Cellar application is available here for free, but package it all up nicely in a cute little thumb drive and I'm sure your wine collector will love it. Thanks to Emmanuel Etcheparre for sending me this link.

Have a glass of wine and call me in the morning

Researchers have in the past suggested that moderate consumption of beer and wine have a variety of health benefits ranging from lower risk of heart disease and certain cancers. The U.K.'s Telegraph reports here that Italian researches are finding that wine, red or white, "could make a good antibacterial mouth wash to fight tooth decay and a sore throat". The study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry showed that wine was effective in inhibiting the growth of several strains of streptococci bacteria that are involved in tooth decay, and some cases of sore throat. Red wine was more active than white but both had positive affect. Sounds good to me, but is it a coincidence that the researchers were from Italy?

Wine bottles going high tech

I enjoy a nice glass of wine from time to time, and my purchases generally range from $15 to $35 a bottle. I'm not in the same league as the real collectors who will think nothing of dropping hundreds or thousands of dollars for a single bottle, and I tend to consume my purchases as opposed to putting them in the cellar! So it has never occurred to me that wines might be the target of counterfeiters much like fine art, but apparently this is enough of a problem to warrant the vintners to turn to tech companies for help. As this Globe and Mail article describes, the industry is experimenting with RFID chips in corks and anti-counterfeiting techniques for the labels similar to those used in currency. Some big players such as Eastman Kodak Co. are developing technologies to assist the wine makers.

By the way, here is my wine recommendation. Enjoy!