This is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science. I'm Steve Mursky. Got a minute?

Telemeres are parts of chromosomes that protect the ends of the chromosomes.

They're often likened to the aglates at the that protect the ends of the chromosomes,

they're often likened to the aglots at the ends of shoelaces.

And like aglots eventually crack,

telomeres tend to get shorter over time

with each division of the cell, but they can be topped off again by an enzyme called

telomerase reverse transcriptase. Various age-related diseases are associated with shortened telomeres.

Elizabeth Blackburn won a Nobel Prize for her discoveries about telomeres and the telomerase

enzyme.

She recently did a Google hangout with Scientific American editor-in-Chief Marriott-Christina, which included taking questions

from attendees via social media.

Can Teilavirs actually grow longer in response to exercise?

Well, we don't know if Telemiers actually grow with

exercise but what is known is I'll give you a great example of this study we didn't

do it.

Twins, so they looked at twins.

This is a big study.

And they said of the twins who actually does exercise,

the one who did exercise and the one who didn't, so you'd be able to find a lot of twins, it turns out, in that situation.

They said, who's got the longer telomeres?

And it was the twins who had some exercise, but the one who didn't had shorter Telemres.

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