Culture

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have learned that the effect of exercise may differ depending on the time of day it is performed. In mice they demonstrate that exercise in the morning results in an increased metabolic response in skeletal muscle, while exercise later in the day increases energy expenditure for an extended period of time.

We probably all know how important a healthy circadian rhythm is. Too little sleep can have severe health consequences. But researchers are still making new discoveries confirming that the body's circadian clock affects our health.

Fossils of a giant new species from the long-extinct group of sea creatures called trilobites have been found on Kangaroo Island, South Australia.

The finding is adding important insights to our knowledge of the Cambrian 'explosion', the greatest diversification event in the history of life on Earth, when almost all animal groups suddenly appeared over half-a-billion years ago.

Cooking vegetables in the sofrito (sauté) with extra virgin olive oil favours the absorption and release of bioactive compounds of its traditional ingredients (garlic, onion and tomato), according to the study conducted by a research team of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences at the University of Barcelona (UB), from the Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition Networking Biomedical Research Centre (CIBERobn) and the Diabetes and Associated Metabolic Diseases Networking Biomedical Research (CIBERDEM), led by the tenure lecturer Rosa M. Lamuela.

Reproducing in a fearful world is tricky. How do rodents get information of prevailing risk of death, and how do they respond to the information? A research team of evolutionary biologists from University of Jyväskylä, Finland and University of Vienna, Austria reported that rodent mothers are more likely to become pregnant after smelling odors produced by conspecific males frightened by predators. The study was published on 7th of June 2019 in the open access journal Ecosphere.

The dentate gyrus (DG) is the input region of the hippocampus and plays an important role in learning and memory. Although emerging evidence suggested that abnormal expression of the polycomb repressive complex 2 protein (PRC2) might cause neurological disease, the underlying molecular mechanisms had not been explored until recently.

Researchers in Japan present an organic catalyst for carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction that is inexpensive, readily available and recyclable. As the level of catalytic activity can be tuned by the solvent conditions, their findings could open up many new directions for converting CO2 to industrially useful organic compounds.

Over a quarter of adults aged 50+ are deficient in vitamin D according to researchers from Trinity College Dublin who announced their findings today (Thursday, June 13th). Over half (57%) had inadequate serum vitamin D levels, of which 26% were classed as vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D has a known role in bone health, with growing evidence for beneficial effects on muscle strength and other non-skeletal outcomes. The study was recently published in the international, peer-reviewed journal Nutrients.

HERSHEY, Pa. -- Smokers may be at a higher risk for developing hypertension, and an overactive response to normal drops in blood pressure may help explain why, according to researchers.

"The human body has a buffering system that continuously monitors and maintains a healthy blood pressure," said Lawrence Sinoway, director of the Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute. "If blood pressure drops, a response called muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) is triggered to bring blood pressure back up to normal levels."

Chemicals produced by healthy bacteria could be used to assess the health of the gut microbiome and help identify critically-ill children at greatest risk of organ failure, a study published in Critical Care Medicine has found.

A team of researchers from Jülich in cooperation with the University of Magdeburg has developed a new method to measure the electric potentials of a sample at atomic accuracy. Using conventional methods, it was virtually impossible until now to quantitatively record the electric potentials that occur in the immediate vicinity of individual molecules or atoms.

Nestled within this field of bright foreground stars lies ESO 495-21, a tiny galaxy with a big heart. ESO 495-21 may be just 3000 light-years across, but that is not stopping the galaxy from furiously forming huge numbers of stars. It may also host a supermassive black hole; this is unusual for a galaxy of its size, and may provide intriguing hints as to how galaxies form and evolve.

ANN ARBOR--A new University of Michigan study challenges a popularized view about what's causing the growing gap between the lifespans of more- and less-educated Americans--finding shortcomings in the widespread narrative that the United States is facing an epidemic of "despair."

Some influential studies have argued that growing life expectancy inequality is driven by so-called "deaths of despair," suggesting that economic stagnation has induced less-educated Americans to turn to drugs, alcohol and suicide.

AMES, Iowa - Forty million Americans, including 6.5 million children, are food insecure, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which means they do not have enough food for an active, healthy life.

Many rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) - the largest food assistance program for low-income families - to help make ends meet. Still, 51.2 percent of households receiving SNAP benefits, commonly known as food stamps, were food insecure in 2016.

A machine-learning method discovered a hidden clue in people's language predictive of the later emergence of psychosis -- the frequent use of words associated with sound. A paper published by the journal npj Schizophrenia published the findings by scientists at Emory University and Harvard University.

The researchers also developed a new machine-learning method to more precisely quantify the semantic richness of people's conversational language, a known indicator for psychosis.

The use of Bitcoin causes around 22 megatons in CO2 emissions annually - comparable to the total emissions of cities such as Hamburg or Las Vegas. That is the conclusion of the most detailed analysis to date of the cryptocurrency's carbon footprint. For their study, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) analyzed such data as the IPO filings of hardware manufacturers and the IP addresses of Bitcoin "miners".