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.
Over the course of evolutionary history, Greenlanders have benefited from a genetic variation that offers an incredible advantage; two copies of a gene variant make it so that they absorb sugar differently than other people do.A new study finds that up to 3 percent of Greenland residents, based on analyzed data from 6,551 adult Greenlanders, have the sucrase-isomaltase variant, and experiments on mice may fill in reasons why those with the variant have lower BMI, weight, fat percentage, cholesterol levels and are generally significantly healthier.For those that do, more sugar is not less healthy.
Popular imagery is that dinosaurs were a bland color, but most birds are have bland color palates as well. Then you have parrots or peacocks. In between the extremes of bland and flamboyant, there are pink pigeon feet, red rooster combs and yellow pelican pouches.That may have been the case for dinosaurs as well. There’s a good chance that extinct dinosaurs rocked pops of color on similar body parts and may have flashed their colors to entice mates, just as birds do today, according to a study
in the journal Evolution led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.
A new study finds that what once were just alcohol-related car crashes have now involved marijuana as the former illegal drug has been legalized and normalized in the last 20 years.
Fatal car accidents involving alcohol have remained relatively constant over the last two decades, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, with 2019 reaching the lowest levels since 1982.
The Little Ice Age, lasting from early 15th to mid-19th centuries, was one of the coldest periods of the past 10,000 years - since the last real Ice Age ended.Why it happened is one of the persistent questions in historical climatology.The cold spell set in around 600 years ago and was responsible for crop failures, famines and pandemics throughout Europe, resulting in misery and death. A sudden change from very warm conditions in the late 1300s switched to unprecedented cold conditions only 20 years later.
There is a saying that goes 'lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice' but it was never wise to bet your life on it. What it means is that getting hit at all is rare, for a human well over a 1 in 1,000,000 chance, but even if only 300 people are hit and under die, it still happens a lot to other things. The Empire State building in New York City gets hit 25 times each year.
A recent study finds that chewing gum laced with a plant-grown protein named ACE2 serves as a “trap” for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, reducing viral load in saliva and potentially tamping down transmission.Vaccinations for COVID-19 have begun to stamp out the pandemic but even people who are fully vaccinated can still become infected with SARS-CoV-2. Scientists are on the hunt for new ways to neutralize the virus before it can harm people with co-morbidities.
People age differently but it is unclear why. Some argue it is mitochondria while others contend it is equally nebulous epigenetics - a broad umbrella term for changes in genes that don't impact DNA but have been correlated to everything from probiotic yogurt to homeopathy.Because so-called “epigenetic clocks” occur at different times in different people they don't seem like clocks at all. There is little use for a clock that only gives you subjective time. A new study hopes to change that, and argues that one such clock, named “GrimAge”, might be a predictor of lifespan and health.
An examination of undergraduate textbooks commonly used for linguistics courses and another of over 1,000 articles published in linguistics journals finds persistent gender bias.Gender bias is subjective, which makes it both ironic and ideal for a linguistics paper. The authors rely on the scourge of evidence-based thinking, implicit bias, which controversially contends everyone is biased, it is just how biased that needs to be determined. Even when you are conscious of implicit bias you are still doing it, the belief goes.
Oymyakon, Russia is the coldest town on earth - but that doesn't stop fires.According to Accuweather, the temperature in Delyankir, Russia, about 300 miles (483 km) to the north of the Sea of Oshkosh, fell to 75 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (59.2 degrees below zero Celsius), the lowest temperature there since January 2014. The entire region is known for its extreme cold but Oymyakon, located about 90 miles (145 km) to the southwest of Delyankir, is the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth. In 1933, it claimed a record low of 90 below zero F - 67.8 below zero C.
Do you know people who just can't help themselves when it comes to buying things or engaging in behavior you and they know they will regret later?Deemed “negative urgency,” a clinical form of impulsivity, it is linked to depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorders, self-harm, bipolar disorder and ADHD. A new test believes such pathological impulsivity can be predicted based on how fast you react to stimulating visuals, especially disturbing ones.Negative urgency is traditionally measured with a self-report questionnaire, but to provide a more reliable measure, researchers developed what they call an “emotional stop-signal task.”
The ancient relative to modern humans Australopithecus sediba walked like a human, but climbed like an ape, filling in a gap in the fossil record long posited by biologists, finds a new analysis.The recovery of new lumbar vertebrae from the lower back of a single individual of the human relative, Australopithecus sediba, and portions of other vertebrae of the same female from Malapa, South Africa, together with previously discovered vertebrae, form one of the most complete lower backs ever discovered in the early hominid record and give insight into how this ancient human relative walked and climbed.
In a new epidemiology paper, men taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs had different prostate cancer screening results than non-users - in statin users, screening did not increase the incidence of prostate cancer as it did in other men.The data came from the Finnish Prostate Cancer Screening Trial which started in 1996–1999. A total of about 80,000 men were included in the study, of whom just under 32,000 were screened with the PSA test every four years.
