Healthy

For years scientists have been saying there's not much evidence to recommend vitamin supplements for most people, with a growing body of research suggesting most of the pills are useless and don't necessarily make us any healthier.  Yet the message has not been getting through. Over half of US adults regularly take dietary supplements, fueling an industry worth some US$50 billion annually.Enough is enough, researchers say. In the latest repudiation of vitamin supplements, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF)…

Founded by Julia Somerdin in 2017, the startup Labby has created MilKey, a way to help dairy farmers monitor the health of their cows. Credit: MIT NewsStartup company has developed an optical milk scanner based on materials-sensing technology that dairy farmers can use to measure the health of their cows.Around the world, dairy farmers have an information problem. To get the most accurate measurements of cow health and milk quality, many have to ship milk samples to labs or wait for a technician to come to the farm to…

According to new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, vitamins and nutritional supplements are a waste of money for most Americans.Vitamins and Supplements Are a “Waste of Money” for Most AmericansThere’s no ‘magic set of pills to keep you healthy.’ Diet and exercise are key.Drawn to the allure of multivitamins and dietary supplements filling nutritional gaps in their diet, people spent close to $50 billion on vitamins and dietary supplements in 2021 in the United States.But Northwestern…

While yoga has become immensely popular across the globe, most of us – whether in India or abroad – think of it in terms of a series of asanas designed primarily to make us more flexible. We think of it as a practice that confers dexterity and physical well-being. However, Patanjali, the compiler of the foundational text on yoga, the Yoga Sutra, was at least as interested in mental wellness as in physical health. In fact, King Bhoja, who wrote a commentary on the Yoga Sutra, thanks Patanjali for using yoga to “remove the…

Greene at a press conference outside the Capitol on April 28.Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call (AP)Stop worrying, everyone! Carbon dioxide is actually good for us, and climate change is making our planet safer. That’s according to noted nutjob and QAnon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia).During an hour-plus-long (oy) conversation this week with host Brian Glenn on the conservative Right Side Broadcasting Network, Greene confidently laid out some extremely scuzzy science to support her claim that climate change…

Photo: Nick Laham / Allsport (Getty Images)Ryan Petersen, the CEO of a logistics tech company called Flexport, tweeted out a photo that went viral Monday, purporting to show a time when McDonald’s used supposedly healthier cooking methods. Petersen suggested the people from this allegedly ancient photo were much healthier than the people of 2022, insinuating it’s because they weren’t consuming seed oils, a currentboogeyman in the diet world. But just about everything in Petersen’s tweet is wrong or misleading.“This…

From the engine in your car to the components in your laptop, mechanical systems tend to heat up when they're working harder. Now new research has revealed that the same can be said of the brain – and it runs hotter than was previously thought.  Some parts of the deep brain can get up to 40 °C (104 °F), a new study shows, though this varies by sex, time of day, and various other factors. Compare that with the average oral temperature in human bodies, which is typically under 37 °C (98.6 °F).This isn't a sign of…

Illustration: Shutterstock (Shutterstock)People might be more hotheaded than we thought. In new research this week, scientists say they were able to create the first maps of healthy people’s brain temperatures. Their findings indicate that brain temperature varies widely depending on many factors, like the time of day and region of the brain, but that it’s typically warmer than the rest of our body.The study was conducted primarily by researchers at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory for Molecular Biology in…

One of the standout features of the upcoming iOS 16 update is the ability to put widgets on your Lock Screen while Live Activities will bring more glanceable information to the fore without the need to unlock your iPhone. All of that, says Appel SVP Craig Federighi, is to help people "have a healthy relationship" with their iPhones. Federighi was speaking during an interview with John Gruber on his The Talk Show podcast. The podcast was filmed live at WWDC22 with Federighi and fellow Apple executive Crag Joswiak joining…

Data Science DysfunctionsPut those data science Venn diagrams away. Yes all thirteen of them.Photo by Artem PodrezThe ongoing great resignation that started in 2021, while gathering steam and backed by credible data, is nothing new in data science.Today is not about running explainability on why people are quitting. (We did this and bravely published our thoughts on how we think this can be done with empathy and governance). Rather today I want to focus on one key driver of dysfunctional data science teams — management…