“I hate earthquakes. Earthquakes took my mother and my aunt away,” five-year-old Khin Yadanar told the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), after both her mother and aunt were killed when a brick wall collapsed on them. Around 6.5 million children were already in need of humanitarian assistance before the earthquake, which compounded existing vulnerabilities resulting from the […]
What are the keys to “successful” or optimal aging? A new study followed more than 7000 middle aged and older Canadians for approximately three years to identify the factors linked to well-being as we age. They found that those who were female, married, physically active and not obese and those who had never smoked, had […]
Wearable sensors styled into t-shirts and face masks Imperial researchers have embedded new low-cost sensors that monitor breathing, heart rate, and ammonia into t-shirts and face masks. Potential applications range from monitoring exercise, sleep, and stress to diagnosing and monitoring disease through breath and vital signs. Spun from a new Imperial-developed cotton-based conductive thread called […]
New research published in Current Biology on September 13 demonstrates the importance of carrying crying infants rather than simply holding them. Led by Kumi Kuroda at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) in Japan, the study details how crying babies are physiologically affected by being held, carried, and laid down. The data yield a simple but […]
Adolescents who sleep less than eight hours a night are more likely to be overweight or obese compared to their peers with sufficient sleep, said a new study presented at ESC Congress 2022. Shorter sleepers were also more likely to have a combination of other unhealthy characteristics including excess fat around the middle, elevated blood […]
1 in 12 people over age 65 take prescription sleep medications, which carry health risks for older people, U-M/AARP National Poll on Healthy Aging finds. Sleep doesn’t come easily for nearly half of older Americans, and more than a third have resorted to some sort of medication to help them doze off at night, according […]
Adults in the UK who have poor sleep patterns are more likely to be overweight and obese and have poorer metabolic health, according to a new study. The findings showed that people who were sleeping an average of six hours a night had a waist measurement that was 3 cm greater than individuals who were […]
Choosing between sex or sleep presents a behavioral quandary for many species, including the fruit fly. A multi-institution team has found that, in Drosophila at least, males and females deal with these competing imperatives in fundamentally different ways, they report July 28 in the journal Nature Communications. “An organism can only do one thing at […]