Intermittent fasting, and fasting in general, has been a popular fad health gimmick, but the science isn't on its side. Instead, proponents believe mice are little people so if mice weaned on starvation diets lived longer, people would also.
Senckenberg scientist Ingmar Werneburg, together with an international team, re-examined the An examination of the skull structure of Tyrannosaurus rex using “anatomical network analysis” found that the carnivorous dinosaur had an extremely flexible skull structure. Tyrannosaurus rex – the “King of the Tyrant Lizards” – owes its name in part to its impressive teeth and skull. Researchers compared the skull of T. rex with the skull construction of modern terrestrial vertebrates to examine which skull bones are connected to each other and found that different bone modules led to a highly flexible muzzle that aided in tearing apart prey animals.
Wildlife is abundant in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, found a month-long camera study which found 10 mammal and five bird species scavenging fish carcasses placed on the shoreline of rivers and canals there. Among the species were white-tailed eagles, American mink and river otter.A previous study also found abundant gray wolves in this ecological zone of about 1,000 square miles that was abandoned by humans after the 1986 nuclear accident which made the name Chernobyl famous. The new results provide evidence that aquatic nutrient resources can flow to terrestrial landscapes and become available to terrestrial as well as semiaquatic wildlife, like otter and mink.
Statins are cholesterol lowering drugs that are widely prescribed to patients at increased risk of heart attacks or strokes. Though evidence from randomized trials has shown that statin therapy reduces absolute risk among a wide range of individuals there has been uncertainty about their benefits in older people, along with uncertainty about how big a risk factor cholesterol is.In the past, trials that looked at the effect of statin therapy reported statistically valid cardiovascular risk reductions in the 65-70 age group but statin therapy is often discontinued in patients 75 and older in part because of this question around risk (e.g. myopathy) and benefit.
Exercise is good for you but some people worry there can be too much of a good thing, especially for middle-aged athletes. Extreme running and high-endurance exercise were a concern to some doctors but a study using coronary calcium scanning, an imaging test that helps physicians classify patients without cardiac symptoms as low, intermediate, or high risk for heart attack, show the fear is unfounded.
Through our evolutionary history, change is the one constant. 99.9999% of species that have ever existed are extinct and new ones emerged that adapted to constantly changing environments. Baboons, with six species widespread in sub-Saharan Africa, are a modern example of adaptation and well studied when it comes to morphology, behavior and ecology. but less is known about their evolutionary history. That is why they are the subject of a new study on how speciation by lineage splitting, speciation by hybridization and associated gene exchange occurred.
If you read media accounts, Republicans deny global warming and evolution while Democrats deny vaccines and GMOs. Republicans hate immigrants and Democrats hate unborn babies.Yet such simple 'us' and 'them' narratives aren't true, even if it makes for compelling framing, according to a new paper.
Rembrandt van Rijn was a master of light and shadow and a characteristic plasticity generated by a technique called impasto. A new study shows he was also something of a chemist. An analysis of impasto layers in some of Rembrandt's paintings show they contain a very rare lead mineral called plumbonacrite, which means Rembrandt used a unique paint recipe.
Plumbonacrite is extremely rare in historic paint layers. The only other notable occurrence was linked to degradation of the red lead (minimum) pigment in a Van Gogh painting.
Though our guts contain a trillion bacteria in various compositions, it's become popular to claim any detectable change is a bad thing. Unless it is to sell yogurt, where no detectable change is regarded as a probiotic good thing.Now even at the nano- level. A new study claims ultra-small particles adhere to intestinal microorganisms, thereby affecting their life cycle as well as cross talk with the host. Nanoparticles’ binding inhibits the infection with Helicobacter pylori, a pathogen implicated in gastric cancer and the authors hope this could the development of potential 'probiotic' nanoparticles for food. Homeopaths are cheering.
Like " I had insomnia last night" and "I am so OCD", medical terms often become colloquial. So it is with people who say they had a "stomach flu." There are stomach virusus, but what many people commonly call “stomach flu” isn’t flu at all. "Flu" is short for influenza, and that is respiratory so it involves lungs, not the stomach. What people call a stomach flu is instead viral gastroenteritis. It could be rotavirus, norovirus, adenovirus or something else, and could have been through tainted food.
Chicken eggs are already used for growing viruses that are used as vaccines, such as the flu jab but science is going one better; chickens that are genetically modified to produce human proteins in their eggs as part of the egg white.A new study found the drugs work at least as well as the same proteins produced using existing methods and high quantities of the proteins can be recovered from each egg using a simple purification system and there are no adverse effects on the chickens themselves, which lay eggs as normal.
One to two percent of people have celiac disease, and the first thing they will tell you is that it is not a fad diet, no matter how many books or Dr. Oz segments tout gluten-free. To celiac patients, it is like poison and the replacements for gluten often contain extra sugar, extra fat, hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose and xanthan gum.Science may soon be able to help. Gluten is a mixture of glutenin and gliadin proteins, which build a network that gives wheat bread itsproperties and quality. Most gliadins and part of the glutenins contain immunogenic epitopes, which are the actual trigger of the immune reaction.
When a sneeze happens, around 100,000 contagious germs for things like the common cold, influenza and tuberculosis move through the air at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. It sounds scary, but there are numerous environmental factors that impact the actual transmission of disease, and a new study sought to determine those right down to the level of a single aerosol particle and a single bacterium.
