Author: healthadmin
Please don’t call this an “obesity pandemic.” That one-size-fits-all label no longer captures the diverse trajectories of weight gain around the world, a new report claims. Obesity rates are slowing or even trending downward in some countries, and the trend is highly correlated with a country’s wealth. Instead, looking at speed to see how far obesity is increasing, or not, reveals that rates continue to rise in most low- and middle-income countries, have plateaued in most high-income countries, and may be declining in some wealthier regions. “An increase is inevitable,” Majid Ezzati, professor of public health at Imperial College London…
People returned to the British Isles around 15,200 years ago after the last major ice sheet began to retreat, according to new research. That timeline is nearly 500 years earlier than previous estimates suggested. The return of humans appears to have coincided with a sharp rise in summer temperatures in southern Britain. At the time, Britain was still connected to mainland Europe, allowing people and animals to move across the landscape more easily. Early humans likely followed herds of reindeer and horses north to newly opened grasslands that could support herbivores. These hunting opportunities, combined with warmer conditions, may have…
Mike Smith was a U.S. fighter pilot for more than a decade before leaving the Navy in what he described as a “terrible transition.” He decided to trade a life of deployment, fighter jets, and cruise missile operations for a life of tree planting and sustainability. Although he didn’t realize it at the time, the seeds for that change in pace and course were planted when he was just 9 years old and watched a huge fire burn through the forest near his home in central Idaho. The Lowman Fire wasn’t huge by today’s standards, but to a boy who…
Recent studies mapping the human brain have revealed that our perception of time does not happen all at once, but rather unfolds over a series of different physical processing stages. As visual information moves from the back of the brain to the front, different groups of neurons process specific parts of the timing process, ultimately creating a subjective experience of how long an event lasts. These findings were published in the journal PLOS Biology. For decades, researchers have mapped out the extensive network of brain regions that activate when humans estimate how much time has passed. Studies in both animals…
Several hospitals have received federal grand jury subpoenas regarding the provision of gender-affirming care to minors, a move that suggests the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation, NYU Langone said in a statement. An investigation into New York University’s records sent last week by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas directs the hospital to submit information about the minors it treated between 2020 and 2026, the clinicians who examined them, and other parties involved. “What we are seeing from NYU and other institutions that have received similar subpoenas is very different from the Department of…
Reinforced rubber is one of the most important materials in modern life. It helps car and airplane tires withstand tremendous stress, keeps industrial machinery running, and is used in everything from medical equipment to garden hoses. Despite being used for nearly a century and supporting the global tire industry worth around $260 billion, scientists still don’t fully understand why it becomes so powerful when mixed with carbon black particles. Now, researchers at the University of South Florida have announced that they have finally solved the mystery. A team led by engineering professor David Simmons has revealed how tiny carbon black…
For decades, regulatory agencies have built marine monitoring programs primarily around pesticides and pharmaceuticals, treating them as major chemical threats to ecological and human health. This assumption has left much larger categories of compounds, such as industrial chemicals incorporated in packaging, furniture, and everyday personal care products, largely unexplored. The chemicals were found to be widely distributed. And now they can be found in places that some people would consider to be pristine, such as the coral reefs of the Caribbean Sea. These compounds are biologically active and some interfere with microbial metabolism. natural earth sciencethey could be changing the…
Unpack the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2025-2030: stricter sugar limits clash with visuals promoting saturated fats and higher protein without source distinction. Evidence-based insights for dietitians and researchers.
Recent research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences It suggests that our pre-existing beliefs deeply influence how we learn new information in everyday life. By tracking eye movements and decision-making during a simulated news rating game, scientists found that people learn easily from rewards that are consistent with their existing views, but struggle to adapt when rewards go against their preconceptions. These findings provide evidence of cognitive pathways that allow misinformation to persist in modern digital environments. This dynamic explains why simply presenting factual corrections is not enough to change minds. People are increasingly relying on social…
The ‘forever chemicals’, previously linked to multiple health hazards, are actually ubiquitous, with a new US study finding them in 98.8 percent of 10,566 blood samples tested.Technically, the timeless chemicals are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), of which more than 15,000 are known to toxicologists. The nickname “eternal” refers to its resistance to breaking and tenacity in the environment.These chemicals have been widely used in a variety of manufacturing processes for decades, making their way into our food, water supply, and Earth’s ecosystems.We already knew that PFAS could enter the human body. In this new analysis, researchers at NMS Labs,…