Health

From HBO’s The Last of Us to traditional Chinese medicine, lion’s mane mushrooms (Hericium erinaceus) have been used for centuries for their potential anti-inflammatory properties and cauterizing wounds. Now, a team of researchers from Australia and South Korea have discovered an active compound from the edible lion’s mane mushroom that can enhance memory and stimulate nerve growth. This could potentially be used to protect against neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Read full article here

Coffee and tea – the ‘magical’ substances that could help you live longer (or sleep less…). A recent study suggests that drinking moderate amounts of both beverages together may reduce overall mortality and disease risk. People who drank 2 to 4 cups of tea and up to 2 cups of coffee a day had a 22% lower risk of all-cause mortality and a 58% lower risk of death from digestive diseases. So, why not perk up your life with a bit of coffee and tea? Read full article here

The human brain is capable of amazing feats, such as pre-programming complex sequences of movements for tasks like playing the piano or dancing. A new study conducted by researchers from the University of Birmingham and Bangor University reveals that the brain does this by ‘zipping and unzipping’ information about the timing and order of movements ahead of action. Fascinatingly, the order and timing of movements are stored separately in different areas of the brain, before being activated in response to a trigger such as a musical cue. Read full article here

This article reveals an often overlooked consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic: the staggering amount of productive workdays lost to the illness. In 2022 alone, US workers lost 315 million to 1.05 billion days of work due to COVID-19, equivalent to the removal of 1.3 to 4.3 million workers from the workforce for the full year. This hidden loss could help explain the persistent US worker shortage, with industries unable to work remotely bearing a greater burden. The economic impact of this loss is expected to continue into 2023 if new waves of disease arise. Read full article here

This revolutionary new cell therapy developed by Khalid Shah and his team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital could be a game-changer for the treatment of deadly brain cancer. Instead of using inactivated tumor cells, the team repurposed living tumor cells by using the gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 to engineer them to release tumor cell killing agents and immunomodulatory agents to both destroy primary tumors and stimulate the immune system. The approach was successful in mice models and has the potential to translate clinically in the future. Read full article here

Stress levels may actually decrease with age, according to David Almeida, a developmental psychologist at Pennsylvania State University. After two decades of research, Almeida and his team found that people in their 20s experience the highest levels of stress, with those in their 70s experiencing the lowest. The age advantage in dealing with stress may be due to the social roles people inhabit, the realization that life is short, and the experience of coping with stressors over time. Surprisingly, during the 2008 recession, it was midlife adults in their 40s to 60s who reported the highest levels of distress. Read full article here

In her sprawling work, Papyrus, Spanish historian and philologist Irene Vallejo takes us on a journey of how books have shaped the ancient world and ours. She engages with the physicality of books, as well as the imaginative and intellectual journey a reader embarks on when they open up a volume. She starts with the great library of Alexandria, a vanity project dreamed up by Alexander the Great, and then moves on to Constantin Cavafy, a bureaucrat of Greek origin in the early 20th century, and Lawrence Durrell in the Alexandria Quartet. Read full article here