Tag Archives: ScienceAlert

The passage of time may be linear, but the course of human aging is not. Rather than a gradual transition, your life staggers and lurches through the rapid growth of childhood, the plateau of early adulthood, to an acceleration in aging as the decades progress. Now, a new study has identified a turning point at which that acceleration typically takes …

Octopuses can be fooled into thinking a fake arm is actually their own. When scientists in Japan pinched an artificial appendage during experiments, octopuses recoiled in defense – swimming away, suddenly changing their color, or retracting their arms, as if they’d really been hurt. The reaction is not proof that cephalopods are dim-witted or easily tricked – quite the contrary. …

A fear of needles is a common reason for avoiding vaccines, even among many adults. Now researchers have come up with a rather clever alternative: dental floss. Led by a team from Texas Tech University, the researchers first identified an often overlooked surface in the mouth as an entry point for vaccines: the junctional epithelium (JE), which sits where the …

The most commonly taken analgesic worldwide – and one of the most consumed drugs in the US – could be doing a lot more than just pain relief. Acetaminophen, also known as paracetamol and sold widely under the brand names Tylenol and Panadol, may also increase risk-taking, according to research from 2020 that measured changes in people’s behavior when under …

The devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic may have left a significant mark on our brains, even if we didn’t get sick. Fatal cases of COVID-19 look scarily like old age in the brain, and now, new research suggests that the mental, social, and financial stresses of the pandemic may have aged our brains as well. A team led by researchers …

Children with a restrictive eating disorder show recognizable changes in brain structure, according to a new study. Identifying the causes of these changes could help researchers understand how these conditions relate to other neurodevelopmental disorders and how they might be better treated. Magnetic resonance imaging scans of 174 children aged under 13 who had been diagnosed with an early-onset restrictive …

Pregnant mice exposed to the base ingredient of most vape ‘juices’ develop babies with smaller, narrower skulls, a new study has found. It’s a concerning find, especially given the ‘vapor’ in this experiment contained none of the other chemicals usually found in vapes, not even nicotine. It suggests that even nicotine-free vapes may not be safe, especially if you’re pregnant. …

Over the years, the guidance on eating eggs has been wildly inconsistent, with some studies suggesting that the popular breakfast choice is deleterious to one’s health, while other studies prop them up as an excellent source of protein and other nutrients. Well, a new study adds its voice to the growing body of evidence that eggs are actually really good …

Not content with a diet of old leaves, some worm species actually eat bones. A new study has now traced the ancient ancestors of these bone-burrowers back through 100 million years of evolution. Deep in the ocean, bone-eating worms from the genus Osedax feast on the carcasses of whales, sucking up fats and proteins from the skeletons. And it looks …

Children whose mothers had higher vitamin D levels during pregnancy scored better on tests of memory, attention and problem-solving skills at ages 7 to 12 compared with those whose mothers had lower levels. That is a key finding of a new peer-reviewed study that my colleagues and I published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. While vitamin D has …