A small pilot study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research finds that using smartphone reminders to prompt people to get moving may help reduce sedentary behavior.

Prior papers have corrolated sedentary time to increased risk of breast, colorectal, ovarian, endometrial, and prostate cancers as well as weight gain, higher BMI, and obesity. Still, we love our phones. Surveys finds that adults in the U.S. report spending an average of about 8 waking hours per day being sedentary. 

In the water above natural oil seeps in the Gulf of Mexico, where oil and gas bubbles rise almost a mile to break at the surface, scientists have discovered something unusual: phytoplankton, tiny microbes at the base of the marine food chain, are thriving.

The oil itself does not appear to help the phytoplankton, but the low concentration of oil found above natural seeps isn't killing them, and turbulence from the rising oil and gas bubbles is bringing up deep-water nutrients that phytoplankton need to grow, according to a new study appearing in the latest issue of Nature Geoscience. The result: phytoplankton concentrations above oil seeps are as much as twice the size of populations only a few kilometers away.

Evolution likes to borrow. It can take an already-successful biological structure and alter it until it serves a new function. Two independent groups studying the proteins that organize gut microvilli now suspect that this may have been the case in the development of inner ear hair cell stereocilia. While functionally very different, the protein complexes that organize microvilli and stereocilia have striking parallels. Both papers appear January 25 in Developmental Cell.

Children who participate in collaborative group work to learn about significant social issues become better decision-makers than their peers who learn the same curriculum through teacher-led discussions, a new study finds.

More than 760 fifth-grade students were involved in the study, which compared the efficacy of collaborative group work with conventional direct instruction at promoting students' ability to make reasoned decisions and apply those skills in a novel task.

In older adults, declining health is a major reason they stop driving. But when they stop driving, what impact does this have on their subsequent health and well-being?

A new review of published studies indicates that driving cessation in older adults may contribute to a variety of health problems, especially depression.

A high proportion of older adults entering long-term care homes in Ontario are B12 deficient, with more developing deficiencies over the course of their first year in residence, according to research from the University of Waterloo. There is a connection between B12 deficiency and several serious health conditions.

Researchers found that almost 14 per cent of study participants were B12 deficient at the time of admission to a long-term care home, while another 38 per cent had only slightly better levels. Over the course of one year, an additional four per cent developed B12 deficiencies. However, those receiving supplements had better B12 levels.