DARIEN, IL – A new study of older men found a link between poor sleep quality and the development of cognitive decline over three to four years.

Results show that higher levels of fragmented sleep and lower sleep efficiency were associated with a 40 to 50 percent increase in the odds of clinically significant decline in executive function, which was similar in magnitude to the effect of a five-year increase in age. In contrast, sleep duration was not related to subsequent cognitive decline.

Consuming foods grown in urban gardens has become a big fad, and those foods might even offer health benefits, unless a lack of knowledge about the soil used for planting poses a health threat to both consumers and gardeners. 

A new paper the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF), researchers identifies a range of factors and challenges related to the perceived risk of soil contamination among urban community gardeners and found a need for clear and concise information on how best to prevent and manage soil contamination. 

DNA is the molecule that encodes the genetic instructions enabling a cell to produce the thousands of proteins it typically needs. The linear sequence of the A, T, C, and G bases in what is called coding DNA determines the particular protein that a short segment of DNA, known as a gene, will encode.

In many organisms, there is much more DNA in a cell than is needed to code for all the necessary proteins. This non-coding DNA was often referred to as "junk" DNA because it seemed unnecessary. But in retrospect, we did not yet understand the function of these seemingly unnecessary DNA sequences.

Wounds may heal more quickly if exposed to low-intensity vibration, report researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The finding, in mice, may hold promise for the 18 million Americans who have type 2 diabetes, and especially the quarter of them who will eventually suffer from foot ulcers. Their wounds tend to heal slowly and can become chronic or worsen rapidly.

Timothy Koh, UIC professor of kinesiology and nutrition in the UIC College of Applied Health Sciences, was intrigued by studies at Stony Brook University in New York that used very low-intensity signals to accelerate bone regeneration.

"This technique is already in clinical trials to see if vibration can improve bone health and prevent osteoporosis," Koh said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued another report, following up on the Working Group I report in October of 2013.

The controversial final draft, with verbage negotiations encompassing 100 countries and with some resignations by scientists over the tone, says the effects of climate change are already occurring on all continents and across the oceans and that the world is ill-prepared for risks from a changing climate. 

Exploding stars, random impacts involving comets and meteorites, and even near misses between two bodies can create regions of great heat and high pressure and researchers have developed a method for analyzing the pressure experienced by tiny samples of organic material that may have been ejected from dying stars before making a long journey through the cosmos.

They investigated a type of aromatic hydrocarbon called dimethylnaphthalene, which should enable them to identify violent events in the history of the universe.