Summary: Scientists have discovered that depression can be driven by abnormal sugar modifications on proteins in the brain, offering a new molecular pathway for understanding the disorder. Chronic stress was…
Category: Life
Motherhood Flips Brain Switch That Triggers Aggression
Summary: Researchers discovered that female mice gain access to aggression after giving birth through a brain circuit usually dormant in non-pregnant females. The same neurons drive aggression in males but…
When Mom Struggles to Bond, Babies Sleep Worse
Summary: A large Finnish study has found that mothers who struggle to bond with their infants are more likely to have children with sleep problems that persist into toddlerhood. Difficulties…
To make a tasty yogurt, just add ants (and their microbes)
In parts of Eurasia, the key to a tangy yogurt treat scurries along the forest floor. Red wood ants and their microbes acidify and thicken milk, helping ferment the liquid…
Trump’s wacky science: He’s now blaming mothers for autism
The Trump administration’s targeting of women’s behavior as the basis for autism evokes the disgraceful mid-20th-century era of so-called refrigerator mothers, when the medical establishment widely believed and falsely claimed that…
Psilocybin Rewire Brain Circuits Tied to Pain and Mood
Summary: New research shows that psilocybin, the active compound in psychedelic mushrooms, can reduce both chronic pain and pain-related depression by modulating brain circuits rather than acting at the site…
How dandelions rig the odds for catching upward gusts
It’s surprisingly difficult — by puffing from any one direction — to send all of a dandelion’s delicate white seed tufts wafting away from their stem. A clump almost always…
GLP podcast: Media keeps hyping the youth cancer ‘epidemic.’ Problem? It’s a myth
Buoyed by sensationalist reporters eager to write alarming headlines, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly hyped a dramatic “epidemic” of cancer among children and young people, asserting that rates have…
Dietary RNA Molecules May Hold the Key to Slowing Cellular Aging
Summary: Living longer doesn’t always mean living healthier, and researchers are exploring how diet can extend healthspan. A study in worms shows that specific dietary RNA molecules protect cells from…
