The 'mind-muscle connection'. Ancient lore for bodybuilders, latest buzz for Instragram fitness followers, or more for aesthetes than athletes?

A new analysis in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living suggests that to lift heavier, or longer, it is better to focus on moving the weight itself - not your muscles.

It's a mystery why humans would go to a place even colder during an ice age, and live on giant rats. Yet they did. Most people don't associate Africa with mountain living today, but Ethiopians moved to the Bale Mountains during the Palaeolithic period 45,000 years ago.

At around 4,000 meters above sea level, the Bale Mountains in southern Ethiopia are inhospitable region. There is a low level of oxygen in the air (making activist protests against astronomy by claiming sacred heritage on Mauna Kea in Hawaii even more silly, since it's higher) temperatures fluctuate sharply, and it rains a lot.

Restless Legs Syndrome is a condition that causes an overwhelming urge to move the legs. Patients complain of unpleasant symptoms such as tingling, burning and painful cramping sensations in the leg and more than 80 people of people who report restless legs syndrome say they experience their legs jerking or twitching uncontrollably, usually at night.

Palaeontologists have discovered the world's largest parrot, standing up to 1m tall with a massive beak able to crack most food sources, and given it the name Heracles inexpectatus to reflect its Herculean myth-like size and strength and the unexpected nature of the discovery.

Being a giant in a country like New Zealand, well known for giant birds, is common. Moa dominated avifaunas but giant geese and adzebills shared the forest floor, while a giant eagle ruled the skies. But a giant extinct parrot? That is special. 

Mammals living in diverse types of environments, from ocean swimmers to mountain dwellers, have a diverse variety of protective skins adapted to the elements and now one of the largest comparative genomic studies to help determine the key molecular and evolutionary origins of mammalian adaptations seen in skin proteins found which genes, among the dozens of mammalian keratin genes, are required for living on land or in the sea.

The products of these keratin genes assemble to form the girders of the cytoskeleton in skin cells, called keratinocytes, that maintain a tight barrier between the body and the outside world.

In a small pilot study consume who consumed a natural dietary supplement called nicotinomide riboside (NR) daily showed signs of mimicking caloric restriction, which in mice has been linked to health benefits.

Caloric restriction is a starvation diet. When lower level organisms such as fruit flies, roundworms, rodents are raised on such a diet from birth, slashing of caloric intake by about a third has health benefits and, in some cases, extended lifespan. No humans have done that, it would be a human rights violation to wean a baby on a starvation diet, and claims about benefits in adults who took it up have too many confounders to be anything more than anecdotes.