(CNN) Getting old is inevitable, but scientists at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) may be one step closer to being able to delay the aging process. A team of scientists studied aging in yeast -- chosen because its cells are easily manipulated -- to try to understand if different cells age at the same rate, and for the same reason. Even cells made of the same genetic materials and within the same environment aged in "strikingly distinct ways," according to the scientists, who published their findings in the journal Science. About half of the yeast cells aged because of a gradual decline in the nucleolus, a round body located in the nucleus of a cell, the scientists learned, by using techniques including microfluidics and computer modeling. However, the other half aged because of a dysfunction of mitochondria, which produce a cell's energy.

Source: CNN July 21, 2020 17:37 UTC