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.
A large-scale international study involving 700,000 participants has revealed 83 genetic variations controlling human height.
CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology, a way to generate very precise gene knock-out kits, has now been used to produce cows with resistance to bovine tuberculosis.Bovine TB, caused by Mycobacterium bovis, can be transmitted from livestock to humans, primarily if raw milk is consumed (just one reason to embrace post-1860 science about food, namely pasteurization), and even other animals.
A primitive, non-photosynthesizing microbe, Methanospirillum hungatei, which is thought to have existed since before the development of photosynthesis, possess genes similar to those that play a role in photosynthesis, finds a new study.Photosynthesis, creating oxygen and carbohydrates such as glucose from solar energy, water, and CO2, is indispensable for many species on this planet. However, it is unclear exactly how or when organisms evolved the ability to photosynthesize. A team has discovered an evolutionary model for the biological function that creates CO2 from glucose in photosynthesis.
Though scant progress has been made in treating or understanding Alzheimer's disease in the last 100 years, one thing is known; there are declines in glucose levels in the hippocampus early on. What has remained unclear is whether that is a cause or consequence.
Mitochondrial dysfunction, which leads to rare genetic disorders in children, some forms of heart disease, and most likely some cases of Parkinson’s disease, is bewildering in the variety and complexity of problems it can cause. Mitochondria are, after all, the energy factories contained inside most of our cells, they convert the diverse food we consume into a common energy type. No energy, no life.
After being only theorized for 80 years, Harvard scientists claim they have succeeded in creating the rarest - and potentially one of the most valuable - materials on the planet.
The number of theoretically possible fatty acids with the same chain length but different structures can be determined with the aid of the famous Fibonacci sequence.The ability to calculate the number of possible fatty acids is of great importance for their chemical analysis (‘lipidomics’) and a new paper states the number of possible fatty acids with increasing chain length rises at each step by a factor that agrees with what is called the ‘Golden Ratio’. The Golden Ratio is essentially a ratio that is the midpoint between asymmetry and symmetry, when "the whole is to the larger as the larger is to the smaller". In numerical terms, it is 1.618.
A new analysis finds that youths who hold off on trying marijuana until age 17 do better on cognitive tests and drop out of school at a lower rate than those who start by age 14. Obviously negative health behavior in alcohol and cigarettes are linked in the same ways, but those two have not gotten the health halo that marijuana has gotten, thanks to politicians who have turned a blind eye to health concerns in the interest of generating more revenue.
In computer science, the classic Turing test evaluates a machine's ability to mimic human behavior, and therefore is a measure of determining how close a machine can come to artificial intelligence. To pass, a computer must fool the tester into thinking it is human -- typically through the use of questions and answers. What about for single-celled organisms? They can't communicate with words but they still communicate, and that means the search is on to create artificial ones that do just. IN ACS Central Science, researchers demonstrate that certain artificial cells can pass a basic laboratory Turing test by 'talking' chemically with living bacterial cells.
America is a car culture. The saying goes, in Europe 100 miles is a long distance whereas in America 100 years is a long time.With a heritage of continental exploration and frontier expansion, it is no surprise that Americans embraced the automobile in a way no one else did. It inhabits our movies, our music. Everyone except millennials has a road trip soundtrack. Life is a highway, Route 66, and more.
Expectant and new parents are under a great deal of pressure; every action is scrutinized by those around them, and food marketers and activist groups exploit their fear by telling them one food process will lead to higher grades in school while another food process will lead to obesity, cancer, endocrine disruption and anything else environmental fundraisers can dream up.It takes no time to make such claims and exploit people for money but far longer to do studies to show if the claims are real.
A chronic inflammatory process that may trigger cardiovascular problems could be solved by what's in a cup of coffee, according to a recent paper.Using survey data, medical and family histories and blood samples of over 100 human participants in the Stanford-Ellison cohort, a long-term program begun 10 years to study the immunology of aging(1), has revealed a fundamental inflammatory mechanism associated with human aging and implicates this inflammatory process as a driver of cardiovascular disease and increased rates of mortality overall. Metabolites, or breakdown products, of nucleic acids — the molecules that serve as building blocks for our genes — circulating in the blood can trigger this inflammatory process, the study found.
