Who volunteers to have sex in a laboratory?

I was struck by this question when reading about an experimental study of ideal sexual positions for men with back pain.

For the purpose of the research, couples were filmed using motion capture and infra-red technology while they had sex.

The researchers were in a separate booth where they could hear, but not see, the participants. Electrodes were used to record muscle activity in certain parts of the body, to get an idea of force.

In a recent study, "Spatiotemporal isolation of attosecond pulses in the soft X-ray water window " published in Nature Communications by the Attoscience and Ultrafast Optics Group, led by ICREA Professor at ICFO Jens Biegert, the generation of isolated attosecond pulses at the carbon K-edge at 284 eV (4.4 nm), within the water window range, was achieved.

Carbon is one of the most abundant elements in the Universe and the building block of life on earth. It is a fundamental element for both organic compounds, such as cells, lipids, carbohydrates, as well as inorganic compounds, such as those used to fabricate carbon nanotubes, graphene, organic electronics and light harvesting devices.

An examination of over 3,600 postmortem brains has concluded that the progression of dysfunctional tau protein drives the cognitive decline and memory loss seen in Alzheimer's disease. That means amyloid, the other toxic protein that characterizes Alzheimer's and builds up as dementia progresses is not the primary culprit.

There has been an ongoing debate about the relative contributions of amyloid and tau to the development and progression of cognitive dysfunction in Alzheimer's but the findings suggest that halting toxic tau should be a new focus for Alzheimer's treatment, 

New research published in Diabetologia shows that in women who have developed gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) during pregnancy, being obese before the pregnancy and putting on more weight after it massively increases the risk of later developing type 2 diabetes (T2D).

Research has shown that the health of immigrants is generally better than that of citizens of their host country, at least on their arrival and for some time afterwards. But a team of researchers in Montreal has found that this is not true of all groups of immigrants; children and older people, for example, may be exceptions. "Our analysis suggests that immigrant health policies should not be 'one size fits all' in type, and that they need to take account of immigrants' ages and the indicators of the health problems they are vulnerable to", according to Zoua Vang, Professor of Sociology at McGill University and Alain Gagnon, Director of the Demography Department at the University of Montreal.

In Latin America, consensual (common-law) unions are traditionally associated with poorer or indigenous populations. But recent research is turning this conventional wisdom on its head, finding that that in the past 30 years or so consensual unions have become increasingly popular throughout Latin America, including in higher-income groups. In certain countries, such as Panama, common-law partnerships are now as widespread as in Quebec.

Effective tuberculosis control in India needs political will and commitment. Unless this happens, TB will continue to be India's silent epidemic and a death sentence for poor people, warns consultant physician and public health specialist, Zarir Udwadia in BMJ.

20 years ago it was widely believed that India was successfully on its way to controlling its alarming tuberculosis (TB) epidemic yet India still has 2.2 million new cases and more than 300,000 deaths each year. Economic numbers are a guess at best but in the article he claims losses of $23 billion. At the heart of this crisis is the failure of India's Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program (RNTCP) to engage and monitor the country's large and unregulated private sector, argues Udwadia. 

A team that developed an algorithm capable of automating the analysis of plankton populations – a critical step in measuring ocean health - has won the inaugural National Data Science Bowl.

A 10 year project to observe and analyze regular data about ocean circulation and how it impacts on Britain’s climate has provided new insight into Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a major system of currents in the North Atlantic.

10 years is too short a time to be meaningful but it is an important milestone. Since 2004, the project team has been monitoring the AMOC at 26.5N degrees, near where it carries its maximum heat, using instruments moored at 30 locations across the Atlantic between the Canary Islands and the Bahamas - so-called fixed arrays. The arrays’ instruments measure the temperature, salinity and pressure of the ocean, from which the AMOC’s strength and structure can be calculated.

In politics, all parties have their own 'fact-checking' and supposedly non-partisan organizations debunking each other, so they can't really be trusted. But in science true neutral fact-checking is actually possible.