No less than four article this month, which makes for a good store of reading materials:

• The Guardian has an article on yet another anti-ageing breakthrough. This one focuses on a compound called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide which apparently restores the communications system between the mitochondria of a cell and its nucleus. The dramatic results of trials with mice were that two-year old mice which were given the compound had their ageing indicators reversed to that of six-month old mice. As usual, this is just a very narrow result that has been vastly generalized for popular news consumption since the ageing process involves many more factors and it looks like this applies only to muscle cells. But it’s still one more step in the fight against mortality.
• It is well known that humans have specialized brain structures for facial recognition. This article from The Independent showcases research which suggests that dogs not only have similar skills to recognize the faces of other dogs, they may also be capable of recognizing the faces of their human owners. The results were based on the usual metrics of observing which images dogs’ eyes were focused on and how long their attention lingered on each image. Especially notable is the observation that dogs still preferred looking at the faces of other dogs rather than the faces of their owners.
• The Scientific American has an article that has immediate, practicable use to anyone who uses social networking. It details research on something called the cheerleader effect which causes faces shown in images to be perceived as being more attractive when they are presented in a group. In other words, you look better in a photo when you are surrounded by other people compared to when you alone in a photo. An associated effect is that the impression that viewers have on the group as a whole influences the perception of any individual who is part of the group. This means that if you want to cultivate a specific impression on other people, it would be useful to have photos taken of you in the company of other people who can convey the image you want.
• The placebo effect is something that most readers of this blog should be familiar with and it is an essential element that needs to be taken into account when considering the efficacy of drugs and medical treatment. This article from The Wall Street Journal talks about fake knee surgery seems to be work just as well as real surgery to reported pain and other symptoms in some patients suffering from torn knee cartilage. The trials involved patients who underwent the actual procedure and control patients who did not undergo the procedure, but efforts were made to make it seem like they did, for example by pressing instruments against their skin and keeping them in the operation theatre for the exact same length of time. They found that those who underwent the real procedure had slightly better short-term results but there was no difference between the two groups after one year had passed, suggesting that natural healing worked just as well.