Category: Lifestyle

Waking up briefly throughout the night may do more than leave you feeling grumpy and tired in the morning. Disrupted sleep may actually increase your odds of dying early from heart disease or any other cause, and women seem to be harder hit by these effects than men. “The data underscores all the more reasons […]

Fast reactions to future events are crucial. A boxer, for example, needs to respond to her opponent in fractions of a second in order to anticipate and block the next attack. Such rapid responses are based on estimates of whether and when events will occur. Now, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics […]

A minimally invasive retinal reattachment procedure that can be done in an ophthalmologist’s office leads to better long-term integrity and structure of the retina’s photoreceptors—cells that allow us to see—compared with more invasive operating room procedures, according to new research published April 22. The study, published in JAMA Ophthalmology and led by researchers at St. […]

A new study has highlighted that while much is known about the ever increasing uptake of antidepressant medications around the world, there is very little evidence on safe and effective approaches to discontinuing treatment. In 2020 there were 78 million prescriptions for antidepressants in England and about half of patients treated have taken them for […]

Not all cancerous tumors are created equal. Some tumors, known as “hot” tumors, show signs of inflammation, which means they are infiltrated with T cells working to fight the cancer. Those tumors are easier to treat, as immunotherapy drugs can then amp up the immune response. “Cold” tumors, on the other hand, have no T-cell […]

Skeletal muscles enable voluntary movements and are controlled by a special type of neurons called motor neurons, which make direct contact with skeletal muscles through so-called neuromuscular junctions (NMJs). It is through NMJs that skeletal muscles receive signals making them contract or relax. In certain neurodegenerative diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), NMJs are […]

In two landmark studies, researchers have used cutting-edge genomic tools to investigate the potential health effects of exposure to ionizing radiation, a known carcinogen, from the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine. One study found no evidence that radiation exposure to parents resulted in new genetic changes being passed from […]