Interspecies Recording? Many secrets arrive with the night. Recently researchers at Universite de Rennes 1 in France decided to hook up microphones to listen to dolphins. No one seemed to know what sounds they made – especially in sleep. The dolphins made a lot of noise. However, 1% of their vocalizations sounded nothing like their […]
Noisy, sleepless hospitals (and how to rest in them – 1/25/12)
When You’re Ill You Really Need Rest Rest is as necessary to life as food. Without it the body does not restore and regenerate. Hospitals don’t seem to fully understand that connection. A new study of noise in hospital rooms, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, was not good news. The average hospital room […]
A different way to Diabetes (1/23/12)
Food or Sleep? Paula Deen may be getting the headlines, but diabetes is a threat to America’s health – and to our economy. If present trends continue – in some ways things are getting worse – perhaps one third of Americans will become diabetic by 2030. Diabetes means that our main fuel source – glucose […]
What you eat changes your genes – quickly (12/28/11)
Food Just Got a Lot More Complicated – Which Is a Good Thing Food changes gene expression – directly. Eat a bowl of rice and you can turn off genes controlling cholesterol synthesis. Right out of the pot. You’ve been eating genetic information – probably all your life. The data come from China, from Lin […]
To win the game you stay in the game – football and flexibility (12/27/11)
Preventing Injury Football can be a brutal, even lethal sport. But you can’t win games if players get injured. Which happens all the time. The results are obvious in high school and college teams – “take out” a key opposing player through injuries and you have a much easier time winning. Yet NFL players know […]