A new study appearing in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health has found that infants with a higher intake of processed foods during the first three years of their lives had lower IQs. More surprising is the discovery that the cognitive effects relating to these eating habits in early childhood appear to persist into […]
In order understand the evolution of complex societies; researchers are sequencing the genomes of social insects to decipher which genes might be responsible for the division of labor and reproduction, two crucial characteristics that are important to the evolution of social structure. Published in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study focuses on […]
Some of the mysteries of human mating behavior could now be explained thanks to a new study that shows that certain genes become activated in fruit flies when they interact with the opposite sex. Understanding why and how these genes become activated within social contexts may also lead to insights into disorders such as autism, […]
Antioxidants are a popular dietary supplement but we still don’t have a complete understanding of how they act in our bodies. Now, new research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences warns about a possible unexpected side effect of antioxidants: they may cause fertility problems in females. Common antioxidants include vitamins C and […]
Optogenetics researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have achieved unparalleled control over the brain circuits in laboratory animals by exciting and inhibiting their genetically modified mechano-sensory and locomotion neurons with colored light. The researchers, reporting on their work inNature Methods, used red, green and blue lights from a projector to activate light-sensitive microbial proteins […]
Breastfeeding appears to confer advantages well beyond infancy, with European researchers reporting significant differences in muscle strength and aerobic capacity when comparing teenagers who were breastfed as infants with others who were not breastfed. “Until now, no studies have examined the association between breastfeeding and future muscular aptitude,” noted researcher García Artero, from the University […]
