Scientists publish a blueprint to apply artificial intelligence to extend human longevity

The thought of eating insects is stomach turning for many, but new Edith Cowan University (ECU) research is shedding light on allergy causing proteins which could pose serious health risks for those suffering from shellfish allergy. The research, published in the journal Food Chemistry, identified 20 proteins found in cricket food products which could cause serious allergic reactions. The project was led by Professor Michelle Colgrave from ECU's School of Science and the CSIRO. Professor Colgrave said crickets and other insects could be the key to feeding ...

DALLAS (January 26, 2021) - Many people believe that they can't change their brains, or that their brain health will inevitably decline as they age. But the Strategic Memory Advanced Reasoning Tactics (SMART) training protocol, created by researchers and clinicians at the Center for BrainHealth®, has been demonstrated over the past two decades to improve cognitive function and psychological well-being in laboratory participants. Recent research suggests that SMART can even make long-lasting improvements to people's brain health when given outside of the lab in short, informal training sessions. A paper detailing these findings was recently published in Military Medicine. The research was a collaboration between Leanne R. Young, PhD, of Applied Research Associates, ...

The widespread use of cashless payments including credit cards, debit cards, and mobile apps has made transactions more convenient for consumers. However, results from previous research have shown that such cashless payments can increase consumers' spending on unhealthy food. "Why Do Cashless Payments Increase Unhealthy Consumption? The Decision-Risk Inattention Hypothesis," a newly published article in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, explains this phenomenon by showing how changes in bodily responses to cashless payments influence consumers responses. Authors Joowon Park, Clarence Lee, and Manoj Thomas propose that cash and cashless payments elicit different levels of negative arousal when making shopping ...

The development of small hydropower dams is widespread throughout Brazil and elsewhere in the world, vastly overshadowing large hydropower projects. The proliferation of these smaller dams is a response to growing energy and security needs. Their expansion, however, threatens many of the remaining free-flowing rivers and biodiverse tropical regions of the world -- interrupting the migrations of freshwater fishes, on which millions of peoples' livelihoods depend. A new University of Washington paper published Jan. 11 in Nature Sustainability quantifies these tradeoffs between hydroelectric generation capacity and the impacts on river connectivity ...

Popular folklore and anecdotal evidence suggest that people in a hypnotic or suggestible state can experience sensory hallucinations, such as perceiving sounds and sights that are not actually there. Reliable scientific evidence of these experiences, however, has been notoriously challenging to obtain because of their subjective nature. New research published in the journal Psychological Science provides compelling evidence that hypnotic suggestions can help highly susceptible people "see" imaginary objects, equipping them with the missing details needed to solve an otherwise challenging visual puzzle. "Hypnosis holds intriguing effects on human behavior," said Amir Raz, a researcher at McGill University and coauthor on the paper. "The careful, systematic study of hypnotic phenomena can ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. - A new study led by a University at Buffalo researcher has identified how specific communication among different brain regions, known as brain connectivity, can serve as a biomarker for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The research relied on a deep architecture using machine-learning classifiers to identify with 99% accuracy those adults who had received a childhood diagnosis of ADHD many years earlier. "This suggests that brain connectivity is a stable biomarker for ADHD, at least into childhood, even when an individual's ...

Amid a sharp economic downturn in 2008, police departments around the United States experienced budget shortfalls that required them to enact cutbacks. A new study examined the effects on crime of budget shortfalls in two New Jersey cities--one of which laid off more than 10 percent of its police force while the other averted layoffs. The study found that the police layoffs were associated with significant increases in overall crime, violent crime, and property crime. The study, by researchers at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Rutgers University, appears in Justice Evaluation Journal, a publication of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. "Our study suggests that sudden and drastic reductions in the size of a police force via layoffs of police officers ...

A new machine learning algorithm based on mammograms can estimate the risk of breast cancer in women more accurately than current risk models, according to a study from Adam Yala and colleagues. The algorithm, which was tested with datasets from three large hospitals located worldwide, could help clinicians design guidelines for breast cancer screening that meet the need for early detection while reducing false-positives, test costs, and other issues associated with overscreening. Mammograms are the most common method to screen for breast cancer, as more than 39 million procedures are performed in the U.S. annually. However, their widespread adoption has not gone without ...

Working to develop new treatments for osteoarthritis, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have genetically engineered cartilage to deliver an anti-inflammatory drug in response to activity similar to the bending of a knee or other motions that put stress on joints. Among the early symptoms of osteoarthritis is pain in response to such movements -- motions that involve the so-called mechanical loading of a joint. Joint pain that accompanies bending or lifting can make it difficult to perform normal activities. But by altering genes in cartilage cells in the laboratory, the researchers have been able to program them to respond to the mechanical stress associated with movement and weight-bearing ...

The blog "Ladyplanet. Natürlich Frau sein" is quite certain: "Our cycle is linked to that of the moon. The most obvious connection is the length of the two cycles," it says. The newspaper "Berliner Tagesspiegel" comes to the opposite conclusion: "The length of women's menstrual cycles is an average value, for some it lasts longer, for others it is shorter. Even one and the same woman can have cycles of different lengths. If they really were connected to the lunar cycle, all women would have their fertile days at the same time," the paper's knowledge section reads. So what is true? A team led by Würzburg chronobiologist Charlotte Förster has now used scientific methods to examine the connection between ...