Category: Health

Exercise may help teens sleep longer, more efficiently

Tom Patriot

Getting more exercise than normal — or being more sedentary than usual — for one day may be enough to affect sleep later that night, according to a new study led by Penn State. In a one-week micro-longitudinal study, the researchers found that when teenagers got more physical activity than they usually did, they got to sleep earlier, slept longer and slept better that night. Specifically, the team found that for every extra hour of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, the teens fell asleep 18 minutes earlier, slept 10 minutes longer and…

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Embryo stem cells created from skin cells

Tom Patriot

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) have found a way to transform skin cells into the three major stem cell types that comprise early-stage embryos. The work (in mouse cells) has significant implications for modelling embryonic disease and placental dysfunctions, as well as paving the way to create whole embryos from skin cells. As published in Cell Stem Cell, Dr. Yossi Buganim of HU’s Department of Developmental Biology and Cancer Research and his team discovered a set of genes capable of transforming murine skin cells into all three of…

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Children who walk to school less likely to be overweight or obese

Tom Patriot

Children who regularly walk or cycle to school are less likely to be overweight or obese than those who travel by car or public transport, a new study suggests. Based on results from more than 2000 primary-age schoolchildren from across London, the researchers found that walking or cycling to school is a strong predictor of obesity levels, a result which was consistent across neighbourhoods, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. The results are reported in the journal BMC Public Health. The study, led by researchers from the University of Cambridge, is the first…

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Working to the beat: How music can make us more productive

Tom Patriot

Music makes us happy. Listening to music produces dopamine — nature’s happy pill — in the brain. And music also makes us sad. Listening to Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle,” Johnny Cash’s version of “Hurt” or just about anything by Hank Williams produces tears. In fact, music can evoke every emotion known to man. But can music also make us productive? Yes, if it’s the right music, according to Kathleen R. Keeler, a doctoral student, and Jose M. Cortina, Ph.D., a professor in the Virginia Commonwealth University School of…

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How sleeping mammary stem cells are awakened in puberty

Tom Patriot

Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers have discovered how the growth of milk-producing mammary glands is triggered during puberty. Sleeping stem cells in the mammary gland are awoken by a protein dubbed FoxP1, according to the research that was published today in the journal Developmental Cell. The research expands our knowledge of how the mammary gland — a component of the human breast — develops from stem cells, underpinning a better understanding of how defects in this process lead to breast cancer. The research was led by Dr Nai Yang Fu,…

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