Do you hate vegetables? You’re not alone. About 20% of the population are “super-tasters”. Super-tasters have more taste buds than other people and are super sensitive to the bitter compounds found in some food and drinks, even at low concentrations. If you have inherited super-taster genes then cruciferous vegetables (flower vegetables in the cabbage family) like bok choy, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, radish, swede, turnip, and watercress will taste disgusting.
Research Check: can even moderate drinking cause brain damage?
Health Check: what’s the right way to blow your nose?
Choosing healthy food: your surroundings can help or hinder your dining choices
We know too much sugar is bad for us, but do different sugars have different health effects
Our recent article published in the Medical Journal of Australia found that Australian and European soft drinks contained higher concentrations of glucose, and less fructose, than soft drinks in the United States. The total glucose concentration of Australian soft drinks was on average 22% higher than in US formulations.
How do the chemicals in sunscreen protect our skin from damage?
Health Check: can chopping your vegetables boost their nutrients?
We all know eating vegetables is a good way to improve health. And for many years the focus has been on just eating more vegetables, be it fresh, frozen or tinned.
But what if there was a quicker and easier way to get more benefit from our vegetables? Can the way we prepare vegetables boost their nutrition? Does tearing or chopping your lettuce makes any difference? And if we chop, does it matter what type of knife we use?
To age better, eat better
It’s a myth that humans’ sense of smell is inferior to that of other animals – here’s why
Conventional wisdom has it that humans have a poorer sense of smell than most other animals. Sure, we can smell – most of us appreciate the aroma of our morning coffee or a delightful fragrance, and we’re able to detect burning toast or a gas leak. But we have nonetheless long been thought to be relative weaklings in the animal kingdom’s league of olfactory excellence, which puts dogs and rodents near the top.
Two simple questions that have changed the way people hear inner voices
Once the province of prophets, “hearing voices” is still shorthand for madness. And yet in the past 30 years, a new understanding has been created by voice-hearers themselves, as part of the Hearing Voices Movement. This suggests that uncovering the roots of the voice can potentially help the hearer.
Food as medicine: your brain really does want you to eat more veggies
As well as our physical health, the quality of our diet matters for our mental and brain health. Observational studies across countries, cultures and age groups show that better-quality diets – those high in vegetables, fruits, other plant foods (such as nuts and legumes), as well as good-quality proteins (such as fish and lean meat) – are consistently associated with reduced depression.
Could taking vitamins in huge doses produce a health miracle after all?
For decades, some people have embraced the idea that there might be major health benefits from taking vitamins in quantities well beyond the recommended daily requirement. The concept was very popular for a while in the media, but research findings to the contrary gradually made it virtually untouchable for scientists.
The science of laughter – and why it also has a dark side
When you hear someone laugh behind you, you probably picture them on the phone or with a friend – smiling and experiencing a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Chances are just the sound of the laughter could make you smile or even laugh along. But imagine that the person laughing is just walking around alone in the street, or sitting behind you at a funeral. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem so inviting.
What science says about getting the most out of your tea
Health Check: does caffeine cause dehydration?
Why deaf people can have accents, too
Most people have probably encountered someone who appears to use lip-reading to overcome a hearing difficulty. But it is not as simple as that. Speech is “bimodal”, in that we use both sounds and facial movements and gestures to communicate, so deaf or seriously hearing-impaired people often use lip-reading or “speech-reading” – watching facial movement, body language and mannerisms – to understand what people are saying to them.
Can training your working memory make you smarter? We reviewed the evidence
Health Check: is sleepwalking problematic and can it be ‘cured’?
The brain: a radical rethink is needed to understand it
Understanding the human brain is arguably the greatest challenge of modern science. The leading approach for most of the past 200 years has been to link its functions to different brain regions or even individual neurons (brain cells). But recent research increasingly suggests that we may be taking completely the wrong path if we are to ever understand the human mind.
