Transgender people have an elevated risk for chronic conditions versus their cisgender counterparts, according to a report published in the September issue of Health Affairs. Landon Hughes, from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues compared the rates of selected chronic conditions for transgender people enrolled in private insurance using claims from 2001 to 2019 and a matched cisgender cohort. The researchers found that disparities were documented between transgender and cisgender people across most conditions, with an elevated risk...
Researchers have shown that the reduced stem cell function upon aging is due to changes in their epigenome, reports Medical Xpress. They were able to reverse these changes in isolated stem cells by adding acetate. This fountain of youth for the epigenome could become important for the treatment of diseases such as osteoporosis. Aging researchers have been looking at epigenetics as a cause of aging processes for some time. Epigenetics looks at changes in genetic information and...
Children are often delighted to find that they can ask Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa to play their favourite songs or call Grandma. But does hanging out with Alexa or Siri affect the way children communicate with fellow humans? Probably not, according to a recent study led by the University of Washington that found that children are sensitive to context when it comes to these conversations. The team had a conversational agent teach 22 children...
An antioxidant drug reverses atherosclerosis and could be used to prevent heart attacks and strokes due to clots, according to research funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Atherosclerosis is the build-up of fatty deposits in the arteries. When a type of fat called LDL cholesterol becomes oxidized and builds up to form plaques in the artery walls, inflammation and damage increase which can...
A study of 61,000+ Microsoft employees found that working from home causes workers to become more siloed in how they communicate, engage in fewer real-time conversations, and spend fewer hours in meetings. The study, published Sept. 9 in the journal Nature Human Behaviour and co-authored by Berkeley Haas assistant professor David Holtz, made use of data from before and after Microsoft imposed a company-wide work-from-home mandate in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings suggest that a...
U.S. pediatric COVID hospitalizations have surged since Delta became predominant, but a new study suggests that fears the variant causes more severe disease are unfounded, reports Medical Xpress. The health agency analysed hospital records from across an area covering around 10 percent of the U.S. population between March 1, 2020, and August 14, 2021. This covered the period before the emergence of Delta, the most contagious strain to date, and after it became dominant, from...
Scientists have simulated the transition of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein structure from when it recognizes the host cell to when it gains entry, according to a study published today in eLife. The research shows that a structure enabled by sugar molecules on the spike protein could be essential for cell entry and that disrupting this structure could be a strategy to halt virus transmission. An essential aspect of SARS-CoV-2's lifecycle is its ability to attach to host...
Online gamers under the age of 18 will only be allowed to play for one hour on weekends and holidays, China's video game regulator has said. The National Press and Publication Administration told state-run news agency Xinhua that game playing would be allowed only between 8 and 9 p.m., the BBC reports. It instructed gaming companies to prevent children playing outside these times. Earlier this month, a state media outlet branded online games "spiritual opium". Inspections of online...
Researchers at University of Geneva in Switzerland have carried out a study investigating how the brain selects memories that will be reprocessed during sleep. Their findings, presented in a paper published in Nature Communications, suggest that the brain tends to prioritize the consolidation of memories or life experiences with high motivational relevance, namely those associated with rewards, reports Medical Xpress. "From an evolutionary perspective, individuals must retain information that promotes survival, such as avoiding dangers, finding food, or...
Researchers have discovered the universal mathematical formula that can describe any bird's egg existing in nature. Egg shape has long attracted the attention of mathematicians, engineers, and biologists as large enough to incubate an embryo, small enough to exit the body in the most efficient way, not roll away once laid, structurally sound enough to bear weight, and be the beginning of life for 10,500 species that have survived since the dinosaurs. The egg...
