Culture
BOSTON - (October 10, 2018) - Type 2 diabetes is driven by many metabolic pathways, with some pathways driven by amino acids, the molecular building blocks for proteins. Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center now have shown that one amino acid, alanine, may produce a short-term lowering of glucose levels by altering energy metabolism in the cell.
Young people in England aren't just drinking less alcohol - a new study published in BMC Public Health shows that more of them are never taking up alcohol at all, and that the increase is widespread among young people.
Researchers at University College London analysed data from the annual Health Survey for England and found that the proportion of 16-24 year olds who don't drink alcohol has increased from 18% in 2005 to 29% in 2015.
In preparation for more tools that detect and measure the biology associated with Alzheimer's and other dementias earlier and with more accuracy, an Alzheimer's Association-led Workgroup has published appropriate use criteria (AUC) for lumbar puncture (spinal tap) and spinal fluid analysis in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.
The AUC is available online by Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association as an article in press, corrected proof.
For three and a half centuries, astronomers have pondered a mystery: What did the French monk and astronomer Père Dom Anthelme see when he described a star that burst into view in June 1670, just below the head of the constellation Cygnus, the swan?
Strategic investment in 15 promising technologies could help make the world better prepared and equipped to prevent future infectious disease outbreaks from becoming catastrophic events.
New research on autism has found, in a mouse model, that drug treatment at a young age can reverse social impairments. But the same intervention was not effective at an older age.
European Union funded researchers have launched the first international network to identify and understand problems associated with Internet use, such as gambling, pornography, bullying, excessive social media use. The Manifesto for a European Research Network into Problematic Usage of the Internet is published today in the peer-reviewed journal, European Neuropsychopharmacology1.
Researchers have used a combination of social media and transport data to predict the likelihood that a given retail business will succeed or fail.
Using information from ten different cities around the world, the researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, have developed a model that can predict with 80% accuracy whether a new business will fail within six months. The results will be presented at the ACM Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp), taking place this week in Singapore.
It has been known for some time that it is better to transfer a single embryo to a woman's womb during assisted reproduction treatment (ART) rather than several embryos in order to avoid a multiple pregnancy and the risks associated with it such as foetal deaths, miscarriage, premature delivery and low birthweight. However, even when single embryo transfer (SET) is performed, some women still become pregnant with twins or even triplets.
The first "fine-grained" analysis of local authority budgets across Britain since 2010 has found that the average reduction in service spending by councils was almost 24% in England compared to just 12% in Wales and 11.5% in Scotland.
While some areas - Glasgow, for example - experienced significant service loss, the new study suggests that devolved powers have allowed Scottish and Welsh governments to mitigate the harshest local cuts experienced in parts of England.
Consuming too much vitamin A may decrease bone thickness, leading to weak and fracture prone bones, according to a study published in the Journal of Endocrinology. The study, undertaken in mice, found that sustained intake of vitamin A, at levels equivalent to 4.5-13 times the human recommended daily allowance (RDA), caused significant weakening of the bones, and suggests that people should be cautious of over-supplementing vitamin A in their diets.
Individual arm movements are represented by neural activity in both the left and right hemispheres of the brain, according to a study of epilepsy patients published in JNeurosci. This finding suggests the unaffected hemisphere in stroke could be harnessed to restore limb function on the same side of the body by controlling a brain-computer interface.
The right side of the brain is understood to control the left side of the body, and vice versa. Recent evidence, however, supports a connection between the same side of the brain and body during limb movement.
A neuroimaging study of human participants watching the 1994 film Forrest Gump and Alfred Hitchcock's 1961 television drama Bang! You're Dead suggests an important role for the hippocampus in segmenting our continuous everyday experience into discrete events for storage in long-term memory. The research, published in JNeurosci, is among the first to investigate hippocampal function during a natural experience.
Researchers from Keele University have worked with an international team of astronomers to find for the first time that a white dwarf and a brown dwarf collided in a 'blaze of glory' that was witnessed on Earth in 1670.
Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile observed the debris from the explosion
This is the first time such an event has been conclusively identified
The dual rings of dust and gas - the debris from the explosion - resemble an hourglass
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with collaborators across the country, report that people who participate in dementia prevention trials are primarily motivated by altruism and pleased to help.
The findings are published in the October 5 issue of Alzheimer's & Dementia.