Circuit That Controls Overeating Found in the Brain
Posted on October 16, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 552 words
| Arica Deslauriers
When a particular circuit in the brain is stimulated, it causes mice to voraciously gorge on food even though they are well fed, and deactivating this circuit keeps starving mice from eating, a new study shows.
The findings suggest that a breakdown within this neural network could contribute to unhealthy eating behaviors, the researchers said, although more work is needed to see whether the findings are also true of people.
[Read More]Da Vinci's Forgotten Design for the Longest Bridge in the World Proves What a Genius He Was
Posted on October 16, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 719 words
| Patria Henriques
Leonardo da Vinci was truly a Renaissance man, impressing both his contemporaries and modern observers with his intricate designs that spanned many disciplines. But although he's best known for iconic works such as "Mona Lisa" and "Last Supper," in the early 16th century, da Vinci designed a lesser-known structure: a bridge for the Ottoman Empire that would have been the longest bridge of its time. Had it been built, the bridge would have been incredibly sturdy, according to a new study.
[Read More]Elderly Don’t Need As Much Sleep, Study Finds
Posted on October 16, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 770 words
| Trudie Dory
Old people are known to be lousy sleepers, but a new study suggests it might all be in their heads, at least for many of them.
Medications, poor health, bad bedtime habits (such as watching a movie or drinking coffee or booze), circadian rhythms, and too much or too little in their personal "sleep bank" have all taken the blame for seniors' common complaints of insomnia.
Elizabeth Klerman of Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard Medical School set out to clear it up once and for all with a controlled study of 18 subjects ages 60 to 76 and 35 younger subjects, ages 18 to 32, all healthy and not on medication that might affect sleep.
[Read More]Mysterious 'kick' just after the Big Bang may have created dark matter
Posted on October 16, 2022
| 5 minutes
| 1006 words
| Patria Henriques
One of the lingering mysteries of the universe is why anything exists at all.
That's because, in the universe today, matter and its antimatter counterpart should form in equal amounts, and then these two oppositely charged types of matter would annihilate each other on contact. So all the matter in the universe should have disappeared as soon as it formed, canceling itself out on contact with its antimatter counterpart.
But that didn't happen.
[Read More]One Breath Into This Breathalyzer Can Diagnose 17 Diseases
Posted on October 16, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 567 words
| Arica Deslauriers
A single breath into a newfangled breathalyzer is all doctors need to diagnose 17 different diseases, including lung cancer, irritable bowel syndrome and multiple sclerosis, a new study found.
Researchers invited about 1,400 people from five different countries to breathe into the device, which is still in its testing phases. The breathalyzer could identify each person's disease with 86 percent accuracy, the researchers said.
The technology works because "each disease has its own unique breathprint,"
[Read More]Penis-Snatching Panics Resurface in Africa
Posted on October 16, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 792 words
| Fernande Dalal
In a recent issue of "Pacific Standard" magazine, Louisa Lombard, an anthropologist at the University of California at Berkeley, described visiting a small town in the Central African Republic where she encountered two men who claimed that their penises had been stolen.
It seems that the day before, a traveler visiting the town had shaken hands with a tea vendor who immediately claimed he felt a shock and sensed that his penis had shrunk.
[Read More]Probiotics May Help Prevent Infant Gut Disorders
Posted on October 16, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 633 words
| Fernande Dalal
Providing probiotics, or "good bacteria," to healthy infants shortly after they're born may reduce the development of gastrointestinal disorders and prolonged crying episodes later in life, a new study from Italy suggests.
In the study, newborns that received a daily dose of the probiotic Lactobacillus reuteri had fewer episodes of inconsolable crying (colic), constipation and regurgitation (reflux) at age three months compared to newborns given a placebo.
Use of probiotics also had benefits in terms of reducing health care expenses, such as money spent on emergency department visits, or money lost when parents took time off work.
[Read More]Spies & Secrets: 4 True Stories From Tom Clancy's Novels
Posted on October 16, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 683 words
| Fernande Dalal
Sometimes truth may be stranger than fiction, but for best-selling author Tom Clancy, the two are often more closely paralleled.
Clancy died Tuesday (Oct. 1) at the age of 66, but his thrilling, espionage and military-inspired novels helped him become one of the most well-known American authors.
From a dramatic Soviet-era defection to a high-profile assassination plot, here are four true stories from Clancy's novels.
The Hunt for Red October
[Read More]Study: Unplanned Pregnancies Common in Women in their 20s
Posted on October 16, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 382 words
| Patria Henriques
More than two-thirds of pregnancies in unmarried 20-something women between 2001 and 2008 were unplanned, a new study finds.
In 2008 alone, nearly 10 percent of unmarried women ages 20 to 29 experienced an unintended pregnancy. About half of unintended pregnancies in this age group end in abortion, according to the study released Tuesday (April 24) by the non-profit Guttmacher Institute.
The study pulled data on unplanned pregnancy, abortion and miscarriage rates from a multitude of national sources, including the National Center for Health Statistics, the National Survey of Family Growth and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[Read More]This Ice Is Nearly As Hot As the Sun. Scientists Have Now Made It on Earth.
Posted on October 16, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 706 words
| Trudie Dory
It's both solid and liquid, it's 60 times denser than ordinary water ice, and it forms at temperatures almost as hot as the sun's surface.
It's superionic ice — and for the first time, scientists have made it in the lab.
This high-pressure form of water ice has long been thought to exist in the interiors of Uranus and Neptune. But until now, its existence was only theoretical.
"Our work provides experimental evidence for superionic ice and shows that these predictions were not due to artifacts in the simulations, but actually captured the extraordinary behavior of water at those conditions,"
[Read More]