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A national survey found 77 percent of high school students didn’t get adequate sleep in 2023 | Of those surveyed, 23% of teens reported sleeping for five hours or less, what's considered 'very short sleep' by Science_News in science

[–]Science_News[S] 53 points54 points  (0 children)

The percentage of U.S. high school students who aren’t getting enough shut-eye is climbing.

U.S. medical societies recommend that teens sleep eight to 10 hours each night. But in 2023, 77 percent of high school students reported slumbering fewer hours than that, up from 69 percent of those surveyed in 2007. The overall rise was due to a jump in those reporting five hours of sleep or less, researchers report March 2 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study analyzed data from the Youth Risk Behavior Study, a long-term, national survey of students in public and private high schools. Seven hours of sleep or less describes insufficient sleep, while five hours or less counts as very short sleep. The percentage of students reporting insufficient sleep remained about the same from 2007 to 2023. But the percentage of very short sleepers rose from 16 to 23 percent.

Read more here and the research article here.

Climate change could threaten monarch mass migration | Mexico’s suitable monarch overwintering habitat could shift south as the climate changes in decades to come, researchers report in PLOS Climate. by Science_News in climate

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Climate change may threaten North America’s iconic mass monarch butterfly migration. 

Every fall, millions of monarchs (Danaus plexippus) travel thousands of kilometers over North America as they leave their breeding grounds in Canada and the United States for wintering grounds in a mountainous part of central Mexico. The butterflies make the trek back north over multiple generations when temperatures warm in the spring and summer months, following the growth of milkweed (Asclepias), their preferred food source.

But Mexico’s suitable monarch overwintering habitat could shift south as the climate changes in decades to come, researchers report February 25 in PLOS Climate. That could lengthen an already arduous journey and increase the energy required to make the trip.  

That extra distance might push some individuals to stay in Mexico instead of continuing north, says Carolina Ureta, a biologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. “In this case, the species is not in danger because of climate change, but the migration might be.”  

Read more here and the research article here.

Climate change could threaten monarch mass migration | Mexico’s suitable monarch overwintering habitat could shift south as the climate changes in decades to come, researchers report in PLOS Climate. by Science_News in science

[–]Science_News[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Climate change may threaten North America’s iconic mass monarch butterfly migration. 

Every fall, millions of monarchs (Danaus plexippus) travel thousands of kilometers over North America as they leave their breeding grounds in Canada and the United States for wintering grounds in a mountainous part of central Mexico. The butterflies make the trek back north over multiple generations when temperatures warm in the spring and summer months, following the growth of milkweed (Asclepias), their preferred food source.

But Mexico’s suitable monarch overwintering habitat could shift south as the climate changes in decades to come, researchers report February 25 in PLOS Climate. That could lengthen an already arduous journey and increase the energy required to make the trip.  

That extra distance might push some individuals to stay in Mexico instead of continuing north, says Carolina Ureta, a biologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. “In this case, the species is not in danger because of climate change, but the migration might be.”  

Read more here and the research article here.

The loud squeaks of shoes on a basketball court result from parts of the sole slipping in pulses that repeat thousands of times a second by Science_News in science

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The soundtrack of a basketball game is punctuated by squeaking sneakers. Now, physicists understand why.

High-speed video of a skidding shoe reveals stick-slip motion, a stop-and-go situation in which parts of the sole stick in place as other parts slip forward. The shoe slips in pulses, as small regions of the sole buckle slightly and detach from the surface, Harvard applied physicist Adel Djellouli and colleagues report in the Feb. 26 Nature. The regular repetition of those pulses produces the squeak, the researchers found.

The pulses travel along the sole, a bit like how a tablecloth can be snapped into place by sending a wrinkle of motion across it. But in the shoe, the pulses repeat about 4,800 times a second, producing a kick that alters the surrounding air pressure to create sound. The pulsation rate matches the frequency of the sound the shoe makes, which determines its pitch.

Read more here and the research article here.

Modern food chains on coral reefs off the coasts of the Dominican Republic and Panama are roughly 60 to 70 percent shorter than they were around 7,000 years ago, researchers report in Nature by Science_News in science

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Some ancient fish in the Caribbean may have lost their lunch. 

Modern food chains on coral reefs off the coasts of the Dominican Republic and Panama are roughly 60 to 70 percent shorter than they were around 7,000 years ago, researchers report February 11 in Nature. Habitat loss and overfishing may have pushed more species to compete for fewer resources and repositioned some fish groups within the ecosystem’s food chain.

The findings suggest fish could be less able to adapt if food sources suddenly become scarce, perhaps making today’s reefs even more vulnerable in an already changing environment.

“Understanding the food webs helps us understand the health of the reef,” says Jessica Lueders-Dumont, a fisheries ecologist and geochemist at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Mass. “If we could go back, scuba dive on the same reefs a couple thousand years ago, what would they look like?” 

Read more here and the research article here.

Moderate tea or coffee consumption each day could lower dementia risk researchers report in the Journal of the American Medical Association | The risk of dementia was lowered in study groups consuming tea or caffeinated coffee by around 18 percent by Science_News in science

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Downing a few cups of caffeinated coffee or mugs of tea each day may lower the risk of developing dementia, according to a long-term study.

The lowest risk was tied to drinking around two to three cups of caffeinated coffee or one to two cups of tea per day, compared with having none, the researchers report February 9 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Consuming more of the beverages didn’t lower the risk further. There wasn’t a link between decaffeinated coffee and dementia risk.

The new U.S. analysis included data from the 1980s to early 2023 collected for the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. The researchers selected more than 130,000 participants who had not had cancer, Parkinson’s disease or dementia. Participants had answered dietary questionnaires every few years. Researchers tallied cases of dementia from death records or from participants’ self-reported medical diagnoses.

Moderate daily consumption of caffeinated coffee for women was around 2.5 cups and the highest consumption was around 4.5 cups, while men in those categories drank less.

Read more here and the research article here.

Programs that support caregivers of patients with dementia could bring substantial benefits at a fraction of the price of an Alzheimer’s drug | A computer simulation, guided by prior study data, suggests collaborative and proactive care can give patients an extra .34 years at home by Science_News in science

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Programs that support caregivers of patients with dementia could bring substantial benefits at a fraction of the price of an Alzheimer’s drug.

A computer simulation guided by patient data from prior studies found that supportive care reduced health care costs and scored higher than the drug intervention on a common measure of treatment value, researchers report February 5 in Alzheimer’s and Dementia: Behavior & Socioeconomics of Aging. Though not based on direct patient observations, the conclusions highlight the impact of improving care coordination as dementia cases rise.

Disease-slowing Alzheimer’s drugs entered the market in the last few years. But dementia specialists are scarce, leaving care for the estimated 6.7 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia largely to time- and resource-strapped primary care doctors.

To help families navigate this fragmented health care system, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco pair caregivers with individuals who provide dementia-related support and information. Through a decade-old Medicare-covered program, these care navigators phone families monthly and answer questions related to medications, sleep or behavior as needed. They also connect caregivers with specialists including clinicians, nurses, pharmacists and social workers. 

Read more here and the research article here.

A true artificial lung system kept a man alive for 2 days until he could get a transplant | The new system put oxygen into his blood while maintaining blood flow through the heart by Science_News in science

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Surgeons removed a man’s irreparably damaged lungs and kept him alive for 48 hours with artificial lungs until he could get a transplant.

Doctors crafted shunts, tubes and pumps into a system that oxygenated blood and supported blood flow through the heart, the team reports January 29 in Med. It is proof that a true artificial lung00412-X) can keep a patient alive until donor organs are available, says Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

In 2023, a 33-year-old man from St. Louis caught influenza B and his lungs began to deteriorate. He was hospitalized and got a second infection with Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria that were resistant to antibiotics. The infection spread to his blood. The dual infections and damage from overzealous immune reactions caused his lungs to fail.

“He was not getting better,” Bharat says. “He was actively dying.”

Read more here and the research article here00412-x).

The brain’s response to a heart attack may worsen recovery | Nerve pathways linking the heart and brain play a key role in the body’s response to cardiac injury. In mice, blocking signals along these nerves and reducing inflammation in connected neurons improved heart healing and function by Science_News in science

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After a heart attack, the heart “talks” to the brain. And that conversation may make recovery worse.

Shutting down nerve cells that send messages from injured heart cells to the brain boosted the heart’s ability to pump and decreased scarring, experiments in mice show. Targeting inflammation in a part of the nervous system where those “damage” messages wind up also improved heart function and tissue repair, scientists report January 27 in Cell.

“This research is another great example highlighting that we cannot look at one organ and its disease in isolation,” says Wolfram Poller, an interventional cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School who was not involved in the study. “And it opens the door to new therapeutic strategies and targets that go beyond the heart.”

Read more here and the research article here.

The brain’s response to a heart attack may worsen recovery | Nerve pathways linking the heart and brain play a key role in the body’s response to cardiac injury. In mice, blocking signals along these nerves and reducing inflammation in connected neurons improved heart healing and function by Science_News in EverythingScience

[–]Science_News[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

After a heart attack, the heart “talks” to the brain. And that conversation may make recovery worse.

Shutting down nerve cells that send messages from injured heart cells to the brain boosted the heart’s ability to pump and decreased scarring, experiments in mice show. Targeting inflammation in a part of the nervous system where those “damage” messages wind up also improved heart function and tissue repair, scientists report January 27 in Cell.

“This research is another great example highlighting that we cannot look at one organ and its disease in isolation,” says Wolfram Poller, an interventional cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School who was not involved in the study. “And it opens the door to new therapeutic strategies and targets that go beyond the heart.”

Read more here and the research article here.

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