Category Archives: Immortality Medicine

The moment will come, we know, when we're whisked off life's stage.

But when? It's a mystery that has haunted humans since the dawn of civilization. If it's soon, we can cancel that dental appointment, quit the job and take a dream vacation. If not, plan for decades of decrepitude.

For me, a clue -- perhaps -- arrived in my e-mail from a Menlo Park company, Telomere Diagnostics. Its tests measure the length of a protective cap at the end of each strand of DNA, the genetic blueprint of life. These caps are called telomeres, and mine are shrinking right now. So are yours. Every time a cell divides, the telomeres shorten. Their shrinking serves as a kind of clock that counts off a cell's life span. They tell us: Time's running out.

These tiny telomeres are so important to human biology that their discovery earned three American scientists the 2009 Nobel Prize.

So I leapt at the chance to have my telomeres measured -- and get paid $50 per test -- in Telomere Diagnostics' yearlong study to identify normal telomere lengths and rates of change. A telomere test is not yet -- and will likely never be -- life's crystal ball. There are other theories to explain aging, such as damaged cell membranes and mutated DNA.

But a fast-growing body of research is finding that telomere length in leukocytes, the white blood cells of the immune system, reliably predicts age-related disease -- and can be affected by genetics, chronic stress and health behaviors, such as exercise and diet.

Since then, several testing companies have been founded by respected scientists, such as Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn of UC San Francisco and George M. Church, director of Harvard University's Molecular Technology Group.

They're part of the flourishing fields of retail genomics and personalized medicine, drawing on tools built for the Human Genome Project, where companies like Mountain View-based 23andMe offer a tour of your genes. The proliferation of these "lab developed tests," with companies marketing complex automated assays originally intended only for research purposes, is a growing concern among federal regulators.

The promise, though, is irresistible: For the first time in humanity's long search for immortality, it's possible to see how our cells are holding up against the ravages of time. Telomere science is inching us closer toward Weirdsville, where a simple blood test, not gray hair and creaky joints, measures aging.

"Telomere length is a biomarker of overall health status," according to the research consent form, "and thought to reflect physiological age ... It is an 'integrator' of a broad range of current and lifelong factors that impact health, including genetics, diet, fitness, toxins and chronic stress."

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Testing for mortality: A way to measure our bodies' risk of disease

Photo by Courtney Elaine Frederick.

This winter, Yale has one more reason to consider itself a second Hogwarts.

This week, Harry Potters World an exhibit about Renaissance science, magic and medicine in J.K. Rowlings celebrated series debuted at the Yale School of Medicine. The exhibit is on loan from the U.S. National Library of Medicine until Feb. 28, 2015. Given the popularity of the subject matter, the library has waited several years for the exhibit to become available. A lecture series is slated to complement the material covered in the six-panel exhibit.

Its exciting that Harry Potter can be used to get people excited about medical history, said Elizabeth Bland, who curated the exhibit at the National Library of Medicine. Especially given that rare books are not as immediately accessible.

The exhibit is centered around six themes: potions, monsters, herbology, magical creatures, fantastic beasts and immortality. Each panel focuses on the themes appearance in Harry Potter, how it relates to Renaissance magic and medicine, and how it manifests itself in centuries-old texts.

University Clinical Support Librarian Denise Hersey, who chaired the working group responsible for organizing Yale events associated with the traveling exhibit, said the Medical Historical Library and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library own many of the Renaissance-era texts cited in the panels. But because the exhibit is not housed in an environment suitable for display of the rare books, they are only available on request, she said.

Bland said Rowlings fascination with alchemists led her to borrow from historical figures in alchemy when creating her characters. She said that Paracelsus, who is featured on the Chocolate Frog card a popular piece of Harry Potter paraphernalia pioneered medical treatments during the Renaissance. In addition, Nicolas Flamel, who is responsible for creating the philosophers stone in the book series, had a posthumous reputation as an alchemist and was rumored to be immortal.

[Rowling] tried to create a physical, visceral world based on both fictional and real people, Bland said.

In conjunction with the exhibit, the library will host lectures concerning elements of Renaissance science found in the world of Harry Potter such as pharmaceuticals and immortality.

Exhibition Registrar of the National Library of Medicine Jill Newmark said the exhibit has been traveling to libraries and universities around the world since 2009. Bland said she was originally inspired to curate the exhibit because she wanted to explore parallels between some of the ethical issues presented in the novels and the challenges encountered by real historical figures.

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Med school hosts Harry Potter exhibit

Drugs that block cell-immortalizing ALT pathway may help treat glioblastoma, osteosarcoma

Researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center and Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have identified the first potential treatment targeting a pathway by which several aggressive tumors maintain their ability to proliferate. Treatment with a small molecule that blocks a key step in that pathway - the alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) pathway - was able to inhibit the growth and survival of ALT-positive tumor cells.

"Identification of genetic markers that predict cancer cell vulnerabilities and new drugs to exploit such vulnerabilities is a focal point of cancer research today," says Lee Zou, PhD, associate scientific director of the MGH Cancer Center, senior and co-corresponding author of the report in the Jan. 16 issue of Science. "Cancer cells must rely on either the telomerase enzyme or the ALT pathway to bypass the normal processes of cell aging and death. Our findings may provide a new direction for the treatment of ALT-positive cancers - which include osteosarcoma, glioblastoma and certain pancreatic tumors."

Telomeres are repetitive DNA sequences that sit at the ends of chromosomes and serve a protective function to make sure cells do not lose valuable genetic information each time they divide. When telomeres have been eroded to a critically short length, they send out a signal to the cell telling it to stop dividing, ensuring that the genetic information remains intact but limiting the cell's lifespan. Cancer cells have evolved to overcome this constant attrition by continuously extending those eroded telomeres, promoting cellular immortality.

There are two major pathways for telomere elongation in cancer cells. The more common pathway relies on the enzyme telomerase to extend telomeres. The less understood ALT pathway lengthens telomeres through recombination with DNA sequences from other chromosomes.

In their investigations, the researchers studied how the action and expression of several key proteins is altered in cancer cells that use the ALT pathway. Focusing on a protein called ATR, a master regulator of DNA repair and recombination, the investigators verified that the protein also plays a crucial role in regulating the ALT pathway. They found that the ATR inhibitors VE-821 and AZ20 selectively eliminated ALT-positive osteosarcoma and glioblastoma cells from panels of cancer cell lines, suppressing their ability to extend their telomeres though recombination and leading to the cells' death.

Co-corresponding and lead author Rachel Flynn, PhD, assistant professor of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics and Medicine at BUSM, explains, "This study suggests that inhibiting ATR may be a novel and important strategy in treating cancers that rely on the ALT pathway, including up to 60 percent of osteosarcomas and 40 to 60 percent of glioblastomas. Such targeted treatments would only affect cancer cells and have little effect on the surrounding healthy tissue, potentially minimizing the harsh and debilitating side effects experienced with traditional cancer therapies." Flynn began the project as a postdoctoral fellow in Zou's MGH Cancer Center lab and completed the investigation after joining the faculty at BUSM.

While clinical trials of telomerase inhibitors for the treatment of cancer are currently underway, the up to 10 percent of tumors that do not use the telomerase pathway would not respond to such drugs. "Testing tumors for their use of telomerase or the ALT pathway is not yet routine," Flynn says. "If VE-821 or other ATR inhibitors are clinically successful, it would support such testing and may lead to more personalized and targeted therapeutic regimens for several cancers refractory to traditional chemotherapeutics."

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In addition to Zou, who is a professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, co-authors of the Science article include Daniel Haber, MD, PhD, and Cyril Benes, PhD, of the MGH Cancer Center and Neil J. Ganem PhD an assistant professor in Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics at BUSM. Funding for the study includes Wellcome Trust grant 102696 and National Institute of Health grants GM076388 and CA166729. Flynn is supported by the Karin Grunebaum Cancer Research Foundation and the Foster Foundation, and Zou is a Jim and Ann Orr Massachusetts General Hospital Research Scholar and a senior scholar of the Ellison Medical Foundation.

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Study identifies new targeted treatment strategy for some aggressive cancers

The average human lifespan has nearly doubled over the past two centuries. How does that affect how people feel about death?

If the prevalence and commonality of death has had any positive side effect on Louisianawhich has one of the lowest life expectancies in the U.S.its that residents have attuned themselves to its context. Early on, I got some sense of history and how ages compare, and how one of the responsibilities we face in this age is to be conscious of whats unique to it, says author Anne Rice, one of New Orleanss most famous daughters. If youre aware that in 1850 people starved to death in the middle of New Orleans or New York, thats a dramatic difference between past and future.

Rices classic novelsInterview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned, and many morepredate the current vampire craze. Her oeuvre still stands above most of the genre, however, because it represents a unique approach not replicated even decades after many of the books first appeared: New Orleans framed Rices perspective as she grew up there. Modern metropolises have transformed their environs into finely tuned systems of order, but the Crescent City teems with a charmingly antiquated natural chaos. The city offers a living, breathing reminder of the pastand, therefore, of how far humanity has come.

The failure of most vampire literature is that the authors cant successfully imagine what its like to be 300 years old. I try really hard to get it right, Rice says. I really love taking Lestather most famous characterinto an all-night drugstore and having him talk about how he remembers in 1789 that not a single product there existed in any form that was available to him as a young man in Paris. He marvels at the affluence and the wealth of the modern world.

To a caveman, modern humans might appear not unlike Lestat and his vampire kin. We dont necessarily consume blood to live, nor can we transform into bats, wolves, or mist, but we do have a host of seemingly superhuman powers. Chief among those, to the primitive human, would be our ability to live long lives.

If a caveman were exceptionally lucky, he might have made it to his 40s, but he more than likely would have succumbed to pneumonia, starvation, or injury before his early 20sif he survived infancy in the first place, that is. Life expectancy for humans more than 10,000 years ago was short and didnt improve much for a long time. In ancient Rome, the average citizen lived to only about age 24. But most counted themselves fortunate to get even that far; more than a third of children died before their first birthday. A thousand years later, expectations looked much the same.

Over the course of the next 800 years, people in the more advanced parts of the world added only 15 years to their life expectancy. An average American in 1820 could expect to see 39. Lifespans started to pick up in the early 19th centuryaround the same time that vampire myths were proliferating in Europeand really sped up in the 20th thanks to a decline in infant mortality and improvements to health in general. By 2010, the average U.S. life expectancy had nearly doubled from two centuries prior, at 78 years, with similar results in other developed countries. To a caveman, or an average Roman, that would seem like an eternity.

Rice recognizes this perspective. Even with Louisianas comparatively low life expectancy, she and others from the Pelican state are still far better off than most people at any point in history. I would be dead if we were in the 19th century, says the septuagenarian. But were living in the most wonderful age. Never before has the world been the way it is for us. Theres never been this kind of longevity and good health.

* * *

One question that inevitably arises when talking about living longer is, are we living better? A person might live to 100 today, but whats the quality of those later years?

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Living Longer, Dying Differently

All my writings are a dedication.

In the recent past a scientist discovered a miracle medicine that increases mans lifespan labeled immortality. Are these scientists capable of recognizing immortality when it comes? Of course they have to limit themselves to matter that can be touched and seen and I am certain that they do not think of themselves as God. They have never created life; they only discovered something they did not discover earlier. That means that God created IT first and consented to mans' discovery at a time fixed by God. So if man did not find the medicine earlier it means God did not consent to it till now. God created to destroy and destroyed to create.

I really wonder how these scientists who feel the sun everyday on their bodies cannot get close enough to touch it, convince themselves and others like them with ideas of becoming immortal with a medicine that still does not allow their bodies to get close to the sun. It is only the body's lifespan that the medicine increases not the souls'. I cannot imagine how the scientists cannot see the immortal within their own souls'? I guess one has to knock on many outer worlds to reach the innermost.

When scientists cannot create the living particle in each cell in his/her own body, how can they get immortal by just lengthening the lifespan of an already existing cell?

In India, in the olden days, astrologers suggested old men could marry young teenage girls to increase their lifespan for they feared death or the unknown. In fact the politicians presently ruling Tamil Nadu has its founder in this category. Now a medicine is being made to do the same. Men really have not come out of their old ideas or fears. They have only succeeded in dressing old fears with new make up. How can anyone live in fear and want to lengthen that life of fear? Why do men not accept the inevitable?

If youthfulness has an increased lifespan, then incidents of oppression will be on the rise. Men are not equipped to handle their own fears then how can they think of women and children? Their intolerance will be lengthened and they would want more. Maybe that is why babies can now be born from the discovery of using 2 cells from a woman's body alone. Maybe more women will try to break free from men and speak out. Truly God is the only one who cares for all She created - women children men good bad ugly etc.

Bhuvaneswari Calambakkam

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The Immortal Medicine - EzineMark

At its widest point, the Lingzhi is three ft (107cm) in diameter and weighsa staggering 16.4lbs (7.45kg) It has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for 2,000 years and isknown as 'immortality mushroom' Studies claim it can prolong life, boost immunity, lower blood pressure, curb allergies and even treat cancer There is no fixed price for the mushrooms, with price depending on quality, processing methods and size however, based on the price for a 'basic' bag, the giant mushroom could be worth around US$894 (592)

By Rachel Reilly and Sarah Griffiths for MailOnline

Published: 12:40 EST, 12 January 2015 | Updated: 13:18 EST, 12 January 2015

An enormous mushroom has been discovered in China.

At its widest point, the Lingzhi is 3ft (107cm) wide and weighs a staggering 16.4lbs (7.45kg).

The oval fungus, popularly known as the 'immortality mushroom,' is believed to possess many health giving benefits.

Fantastic fungi: This enormous mushroom measures three ft (107cm) wide and weighs a staggering 16.4lbs (7.45kg).The oval fungus, popularly known as the 'immortality mushroom,' is believed to possess many health giving benefits.There is no fixed price for the mushrooms, with price depending on quality and size, but based on the price for a 'basic' bag, the giant mushroom is worth around US$894 (592)

Store owner Wei Fangning showed off the giant mushroom - also known as ganoderma lucidum - at his shop in Hezhou city, in China's south-west Guangxi province.

The Lingzhi has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for more than 2,000 years.

It is very distinctive looking as it is flat, with a conspicuous red-varnished, kidney-shaped cap and, depending on a caps's age, is white with brown pores underneath.

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METRE-WIDE 'immortality' fungus discovered in China

Bodybuilder Ernestine Shepherd, 78, attributes her youthful looks to diet and exercise. But scientists now say they will soon be able to do much more with drugs. Photograph: Lynn Goldsmith/Rex

In Palo Alto in the heart of Silicon Valley, hedge fund manager Joon Yun is doing a back-of-the-envelope calculation. According to US social security data, he says, the probability of a 25-year-old dying before their 26th birthday is 0.1%. If we could keep that risk constant throughout life instead of it rising due to age-related disease, the average person would statistically speaking live 1,000 years. Yun finds the prospect tantalising and even believable. Late last year he launched a $1m prize challenging scientists to hack the code of life and push human lifespan past its apparent maximum of about 120 years (the longest known/confirmed lifespan was 122 years).

Yun believes it is possible to solve ageing and get people to live, healthily, more or less indefinitely. His Palo Alto Longevity Prize, which 15 scientific teams have so far entered, will be awarded in the first instance for restoring vitality and extending lifespan in mice by 50%. But Yun has deep pockets and expects to put up more money for progressively greater feats. He says this is a moral rather than personal quest. Our lives and society are troubled by growing numbers of loved ones lost to age-related disease and suffering extended periods of decrepitude, which is costing economies. Yun has an impressive list of nearly 50 advisers, including scientists from some of Americas top universities.

Yuns quest a modern version of the age old dream of tapping the fountain of youth is emblematic of the current enthusiasm to disrupt death sweeping Silicon Valley. Billionaires and companies are bullish about what they can achieve. In September 2013 Google announced the creation of Calico, short for the California Life Company. Its mission is to reverse engineer the biology that controls lifespan and devise interventions that enable people to lead longer and healthier lives. Though much mystery surrounds the new biotech company, it seems to be looking in part to develop age-defying drugs. In April 2014 it recruited Cynthia Kenyon, a scientist acclaimed for work that included genetically engineering roundworms to live up to six times longer than normal, and who has spoken of dreaming of applying her discoveries to people. Calico has the money to do almost anything it wants, says Tom Johnson, an earlier pioneer of the field now at the University of Colorado who was the first to find a genetic effect on longevity in a worm.

In March 2014, pioneering American biologist and technologist Craig Venter along with the tech entrepreneur founder of the X Prize Foundation, Peter Diamandis announced a new company called Human Longevity Inc. It isnt aimed at developing anti-ageing drugs or competing with Calico, says Venter. But it plans to create a giant database of 1 million human genome sequences by 2020, including from supercentenarians. Venter says that data should shed important new light on what makes for a longer, healthier life, and expects others working on life extension to use his database. Our approach can help Calico immensely and if their approach is at the middle of everything.

In an office not far from Googles headquarters in Mountain View, with a beard reaching almost to his navel, Aubrey de Grey is enjoying the new buzz about defeating ageing. For more than a decade, he has been on a crusade to inspire the world to embark on a scientific quest to eliminate ageing and extend healthy lifespan indefinitely (he is on the Palo Alto Longevity Prize board). It is a difficult job because he considers the world to be in a pro-ageing trance, happy to accept that ageing is unavoidable, when the reality is that its simply a medical problem that science can solve. Just as a vintage car can be kept in good condition indefinitely with periodic preventative maintenance, so there is no reason why, in principle, the same cant be true of the human body, thinks de Grey. We are, after all, biological machines, he says.

His claims about the possibilities (he has said the first person who will live to 1,000 years is probably already alive), and some unconventional and unproven ideas about the science behind ageing, have long made de Grey unpopular with mainstream academics studying ageing. But the appearance of Calico and others suggests the world might be coming around to his side, he says. There is an increasing number of people realising that the concept of anti-ageing medicine that actually works is going to be the biggest industry that ever existed by some huge margin and that it just might be foreseeable.

Since 2009, de Grey has been chief scientific officer at his own charity, the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (Sens) Research Foundation. Including an annual contribution (about $600,000 a year) from Peter Thiel, a billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and money from his own inheritance, he funds about $5m of research annually. Some is done in-house, the rest sponsored at outside institutions. (Even his critics say he funds some good science.)

De Grey isnt the only one who sees a new flowering of anti-ageing research. Radical life extension isnt consigned to the realm of cranks and science fiction writers any more, says David Masci, a researcher at the Pew Research Centre, who recently wrote a report on the topic looking at the scientific and ethical dimensions of radical life extension. Serious people are doing research in this area and serious thinkers are thinking about this .

Although funding pledges have been low compared to early hopes, billionaires not just from the technology industry have long supported research into the biology of ageing. Yet it has mostly been aimed at extending healthspan, the years in which you are free of frailty or disease, rather lifespan, although an obvious effect is that it would also be extended (healthy people after all live longer).

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Live forever: Scientists say theyll soon extend life well beyond 120

Luckey has the look of a teenage gamer who hasnt ventured outside in a while. He has a mop of dark brown hair that looks as if it has never been professionally cut and a rather pale complexion. He is dressed in a work uniform only really permissible if your office is in California, you are considered a genius and are worth several billion dollars: a crumpled Hawaiian shirt, khaki board shorts and leather flip-flops.

I had read that he never wears shoes and ask him why. We invented shoes to protect our feet from the harsh environment, he says, but I live in modern-day California. Its pretty safe here. Nothings going to happen if I take them off. Also, it puts you in better touch with the world. You know what the world is like under your feet. He is sipping on coconut water, a drink he says he hates. Try it though; this one doesnt taste like crap, he says as he hands me the bottle. And its good for you.

Palmer Luckey was born on September 19 1992. He had an unexceptional childhood in Long Beach. The eldest of four siblings, he was homeschooled by his mother, Julie, and his father, Donald, who was a travelling car salesman. He spent much of his childhood inside, building PCs and crafting mutated video-game consoles from Nintendo GameCube parts. While his siblings were outside playing, Luckey made pocket money repairing and selling iPhones. He remembers the feeling of being different to his siblings. My parents knew it too, he says. But they encouraged me; they were just like, Dont shoot your eyes out, kid.

He was a voracious reader, obsessed with the science fiction of Neal Stephenson and Anne McCaffrey, and mid-1990s Japanese anime. But it was after watching the 1999 film The Matrix in which the computer programmer Neo learns the truth about his simulated reality before organising a rebellion against the machines that put him there that the seed for Oculus Rift was planted. Luckey wanted to make The Matrix a reality. Or at least a virtual reality.

An attendee at last Junes E3 gaming conference, in Los Angeles, tries out

the Oculus Rift. PHOTO: Getty Images

With his iPhone-repairs income, he bought half a dozen cut-price 3D monitors and head-mounted displays from government auctions. At the age of 15 he put these parts together to create his first headset. It wasnt very good, he says. It wasnt at all a true virtual-reality experience. He redoubled his efforts, committed to overcoming the flaw that had historically torpedoed virtual-reality developers: engineers could not smooth the head-tracking latency in the googles, which induced an unbearable, nauseating lag every time users turned their head. Luckey cracked it in months. He combined stereoscopic 3D, 360-degree visuals to widen the field of view with embedding more sensitive sensors in the monitor to ensure the image moved seamlessly with the wearers head. He had come up with a way of hacking the visual cortex, tricking it into believing the created world was a reality. The result was the first truly immersive experience.

When Luckey posted prototype pictures of the headset on the gamers message board Meant to Be Seen, he explained the thinking behind its name. I based it on the idea that the HMD [head-mounted display] creates a rift between the real world and the virtual world, he wrote on the forum, though I have to admit that it is pretty silly. 🙂

John Carmack a hero of Luckeys and the founder of id Software, which created the concept of 3D gaming began championing the Rift. In 2012 he demonstrated a prototype for a group of select journalists at E3, the gaming industrys flagship conference. Within days Luckey had dropped out of university and founded Oculus VR with another precocious dropout, his friend Brendan Iribe. The pair immediately took to the online crowdfunding site Kickstarter, aiming to raise $250,000 for prototype development costs and to produce a few hundred units for sale at $300. More than 9,500 people committed a total of $2.4 million. Andreessen Horowitz then led a round of angel funding that generated $75 million.

In March 2014 Mark Zuckerberg visited Oculus VRs offices in Irvine, California. Luckey was not keen on selling the company, but within weeks he had agreed to Zuckerbergs offer of more than $2 billion for a product in an industry that had been dormant for decades. It was already dead, Luckey says. Im not sure whether I he stops, before saying more resolutely, No, I did, I saved it from dying, brought it back from the dead. But it wasnt that I was the best at what I was doing; I was just one of the only ones that persevered. Nobody had actually managed to pull this off. Then, bam.

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Oculus Rift's Palmer Luckey: 'I brought virtual reality back from the dead'

For the people who complain rock is dead, pop is done, and there's been no good music since Nirvana or Woodstock or the death of Marvin Gaye, I present the Top 214 Songs of 2014!!!

(Because not everybody loves Spotify -- thanks Taylor Swift! -- I've embeded links to songs not on the streaming service. Click, listen and enjoy.)

1. Stay With Me, Sam Smith The song matters most. Everything else is artifice. Smith's hit reconfirms this and hits me like Tired of Being Alone, One More Try and Someone Like You. The fact that blunt-but-beautiful songwriting can still succeed in 2014 Stay With Me is up for three Grammys needs to be celebrated. If it isn't, Katy Perry will be what's left of pop.

2. Uptown Funk, Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars Tell me this doesn't equal any chart topper from James Brown's '60s, Chic's '70s or Prince's '80s ? Go on, listen again, I'll wait. See, told you so.

3. Die Pretty, Ruby Rose Fox Oh, Katy, you think that's a roar? Miss Fox howls like an animal (an animal! an animal!) over a half Motown, half Horses sweaty stomp of a song. In a city with talent for days, most nights I think she's the best thing we have: voice, lyrics, looks, style and swagger.

4. Back to the Shack, Weezer Interpreted as cheeky, Back to the Shack strikes me as an honest pledge of allegiance to rock. We belong in the rock world/There is so much left to do/If we die in obscurity, oh well/At least we raised some hell. Sometimes a rock song is just a rock song.

5 & 6. Tie Me Up and Mama Was a Teenage Rocker, Animal Talk Young bands use new wave to get dark (Interpol) or dance-y (La Roux), Animal Talk use it to rock. Like maybe only the Cars before them, the Boston four-piece see new wave (and disco) as flavors of rock. Funky, flashy, so-fun-it-makes-me-giddy Tie Me Up crashes into the freaky, climatic knockout punch of Mama Was a Teenage Rocker. The best seven minutes of the year.

7. Sheezus, Lily Allen Allen skewers the regicide the music industry forces female pop singers to engage in: Second best will never cut it for the divas/Give me that crown (expletive) I wanna be Sheezus. The perfect comeback for a songwriter whose triumphs mock celebrity culture and contain cheeky self-deprecation.

8. Take Me To Church, Hozier See Stay With Me re: the power of the song. Bonus points for worshiping at the same alter Marvin Gaye and Al Green did in '73 (read: the bedroom).

9. Break Free, Ariana Grande My jam! My justification: An obvious Max Martin production with a catchy Zedd hook, Break Free succeeds because Grande doesn't blow the song out with squeaks and squeals Mariah Carey would kill the song with affections; Britney or Katy wouldn't have the chops to elevate the song. (OK, now trash me for like pap pop.)

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Your New Year's Eve Super Sonic Binge: The Top 214 Songs of 2014

Models Miranda Kerr and Rosie Huntington-Whitely swear by superfoods Nutritionist explains health and beauty benefits of the exotic ingredients Popular Japanese algae supplement could prevent hangover symptoms

By Bianca London for MailOnline

Published: 04:44 EST, 29 December 2014 | Updated: 04:58 EST, 29 December 2014

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As New Year's Eve approaches, so does the prospect of the dreaded next-day hangover.

But from Victoria Beckham's bee pollen smoothies to Miranda Kerr crediting South East Asian noni juice for her flawless complexion, it seems there is more to treating a delicate head and sensitive stomach than relying on a fry-up and hair of the dog.

We've asked holistic nutritionist Nikki Baker to sort the quinoa from the chaff and talk us through the new superfoods expected to be big in 2015 - and how they'll help us on the morning after.

Models like Miranda Kerr, left) and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley add superfood ingredients to their green juices

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Moringa, chaga and sacha inchi are celebrities' top superfoods for 2015