Culture
Exercise intensity appears to make no difference to risk of mortality among older adults, suggests a randomised controlled trial from Norway published by The BMJ today.
Physical activity has been highlighted as one of the most important actions people of all ages can engage in to improve health, and data from observational studies show that early death is significantly reduced in physically active compared with inactive individuals.
Pregnancy complications such as miscarriage, pre-eclampsia, diabetes in pregnancy (gestational diabetes) and pre-term birth are linked to a heightened risk of heart disease in later life, suggests an overarching (umbrella) analysis of data published by The BMJ today.
Several other factors related to fertility and pregnancy also seem to be associated with subsequent cardiovascular disease, say the researchers, including starting periods early, use of combined oral contraceptives, polycystic ovary syndrome, and early menopause.
Neanderthal babies were born with the characteristic barrel-shaped rib cage shape previously identified in adult specimens, according to an analysis of digitally reconstructed rib cages from four Neanderthal infants. The findings suggest that Neanderthals' rib cages were already shorter and deeper than that of modern humans at birth, rather than shifting their shape later in development.
Symptoms for pregnant women with COVID-19 can be prolonged, lasting two months or longer for a quarter of the women who participated in a national study led by UC San Francisco and UCLA.
In the largest study to date of COVID-19 among non-hospitalized pregnant women, researchers analyzed the clinical course and outcomes of 594 women who tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus during pregnancy.
Teenagers who receive a depression diagnosis during their school career show a substantial decline in attainment in Year 11, new King's College London research has found.
The researchers suggest that targeted educational support for children struggling with depression might particularly benefit boys and those from deprived backgrounds, who were especially vulnerable subgroups in this study, although all children with depression might benefit from such support.
An international research team including the University of Adelaide has found further evidence that rare gene mutations can cause cerebral palsy, findings which could lead to earlier diagnosis and new treatments for this devastating movement disorder.
In the study published in the journal Nature Genetics researchers employed gene sequencing to examine the DNA of 250 cerebral palsy families, and compared this to a control group of almost 1800 unaffected families. They then demonstrated the impact rare gene mutations can have on movement control using a fruit fly model.
Cell senescence is a state of permanent cell cycle arrest that was initially defined for cells grown in cell culture. It plays a key role in age-associated organ dysfunction and age-related diseases such as cancer, but the in vivo pathogenesis is largely unclear.
A research team led by Professor Makoto Nakanishi of the Institute of Medical Science, the University of Tokyo, generated a p16-Cre ERT2 -tdTomato mouse model (*1) to characterize in vivo p16 high cells (*2) at the single-cell level.
It is assumed that the brain has homeostatic mechanisms to prevent the depletion of cellular energy, required for all cellular activities. For example, the blood flow increases, and oxygen and glucose are actively delivered in the brain region in which neural firing activity occurs. Besides, the cerebral blood flow and glucose uptake into the cells fluctuate accompanying the variations of cellular activities in the brain across the sleep-wake states of animals.
Adaptive radiation - the rapid evolution of many new species from a single ancestor - is a major focus in evolutionary biology. Adaptive radiations often show remarkable repeatability where lineages have undergone multiple episodes of adaptive radiation in distant places and at various points in time - implying their extraordinary evolutionary potential.
Humans are exposed continuously to the menace of viral diseases such as those caused by the Ebola virus, Zika virus and coronaviruses. Such emerging/re-emerging viral outbreaks can be triggered by cross-species viral transmission from wild animals to humans.
New international research into the Moon provides scientists with insights as to how and why its crust is magnetised, essentially 'debunking' one of the previous longstanding theories.
Australian researcher and study co-author Dr Katarina Miljkovic, from the Curtin Space Science and Technology Centre, located within the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin University, explained how the new research, published by Science Advances, expands on decades of work by other scientists.
Millions of people plant pollinator gardens in an effort to provide monarch butterflies with food along their annual migration route from overwintering sites in the highland forests of central Mexico to summer breeding grounds in the United States and southern Canada. For the first time, entomologists studied how effective native milkweed cultivars in small gardens are at attracting and supporting monarchs - their results suggest that this can be a valuable additional food source.
Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases. It is caused by a malfunction in brain cells and is usually treated with medicines that control or counteract the seizures.
Scientists from the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen and Rigshospitalet have now identified the exact neurons that are most affected by epilepsy. Some of which have never been linked to epilepsy before. The newfound neurons might contribute to epileptogenesis - the process by which a normal brain develops epilepsy - and could therefore be ideal treatment targets.
A mathematician from Cardiff University has developed a new method for processing large volumes of COVID-19 tests which he believes could lead to significantly more tests being performed at once and results being returned much quicker.
Dr Usama Kadri, from the University's School of Mathematics, believes the new technique could allow many more patients to be tested using the same amount of tests tubes and with a lower possibility of false negatives occurring.
Diamonds have a firm foothold in our lexicon. Their many properties often serve as superlatives for quality, clarity and hardiness. Aside from the popularity of this rare material in ornamental and decorative use, these precious stones are also highly valued in industry where they are used to cut and polish other hard materials and build radiation detectors.