COVID-19 lockdowns were an important tool in mitigating risks of acquiring the disease and putting those with comorbidities at higher risk, but objective epidemiologists questioned the value of lockdowns beyond three weeks. Some areas exceeded SAR and R0 models by months or, in states like California, years.
The value of public education over home-schooling or private has been touted by proponents as social adjustment, so there was also concern about how children might be stunted by not having access to anything except close family and device screens.
A new study finds that even in urban environments, trees make a terrific contribution to offsetting carbon dioxide emissions in cities, while grass is less valuable.
Soil respiration of grass exceeds photosynthesis so grassy areas release more carbon dioxide than they bind, making them a source of CO2 rather than mitigation, whereas on summer days, tree absorption can cover the emissions from Munich's urban car traffic and even exceed them at times.
A new paper says the way to lower your risk of acquiring type 2 diabetes is not losing weight and exercising more, but sleeping 7 hours and 18 minutes every night.
You can't multiply that by seven days and catch up by sleeping more on the weekend and it also means if you just sleep less, you are out of luck. That is why like all epidemiological correlation, this is only EXPLORATORY. Science has not confirmed this and the correlation arrows could easily go the other way; insulin misfires may make you sleep less.
A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial tested a four-day oral supplement, “FoTv,” which is made from the mycelium — the root-like network — of two types of mushrooms: Fomitopsis officinalis and Trametes versicolor (FoTv).
Participants began taking the supplement on the same day they received their vaccine and the authors reported that the supplement acted as a natural immune regulator and decreased vaccine side effects while preserving or increasing antibody levels and helping vaccine protection last longer. They say it could replace synthetic immune adjuncts which help the body produce a stronger antibody response - but have been linked to side effects such as fever, chills, fatigue and muscle aches.
A new study examining regional snow cover trends across the Northern Hemisphere found seasonal shifts in snow - and a lot less of it.
The authors used the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab Northern Hemisphere Weekly Snow Cover Extent Data Record to determine whether snow cover across the Northern Hemisphere is increasing or decreasing. Then their two-state Markov chain model with periodic dynamics was used to analyze snow cover and found that significantly more areas are losing snow cover than gaining it.
And the seasons were changing.
Central Park in New York City. Credit: Mary Pollitz
A bad liver today currently means a replacement, but having enough transplant organs is challenging when families worry their loved ones' skeletons could be sold to middle schools and end up immortalized in prank photos. The future will involve replacements made with a patient's own stem cells, no immunosuppressive drugs or waiting lists needed.
A cohort analysis of preschoolers in Canada has led the authors of the paper to call for bans on so-called "ultraprocessed" foods, charging that it will lead to long-term mental health and well-behaved children.
For four decades, a controversial idea has shaped how autism is understood by researchers, healthcare professionals and the public: the claim that autistic people are “mind blind”. The phrase suggests an inability to grasp what others think or feel. It is simple, memorable – and wrong.
The claim rests on a concept called “theory of mind”. In everyday terms, theory of mind is the ability to recognise that other people’s thoughts, beliefs and emotions may differ from your own. This idea explains why someone understands that a joke can fall flat, that a promise can be broken, or that a friend can be mistaken without lying. It is often presented as the key to how people make sense of one another.
The gut bacterium Bacteroides fragilis has long presented researchers with a paradox. It has been associated with colorectal cancer, yet it also lives quite happily in most healthy people. A new study from a Danish research team offers a possible clue. When they looked beyond the bacterium itself and into its genome, they found a previously unknown virus embedded within it – one that was significantly more common in cancer patients.
By this time 26 years ago, the "Dot-Com Bubble" was ready to burst. People who wanted to raise investor money claimed that they could sell anything affordably on a website; three companies were devoted just to pet food and buying ad space on broadcast television.
So-called AI is enjoying a similar frenzy. Though they are still just Large Language Models (LLMs), and the best analogy for that is a fancy autocomplete, they are attracting huge levels of financial investment partly because of the potential and then primarily because people want to make money on stocks, not companies.
