Early in the 20th century, Alois Alzheimer first described a disorder of progressive memory loss and confusion in a 50-year-old woman. After she died, he examined her brain and saw that it was full of unusual protein clumps, known as plaques. Over a century later, we know that these plaques are full of a protein called beta-amyloid and are a hallmark of the disease that bears Alzheimer’s name. While other features of Alzheimer’s disease have been discovered, the theory that beta-amyloid is the main cause of this incurable disease has dominated.
Health check: can eating certain foods make you smarter?
Pets and owners - you can learn a lot about one by studying the other
Even light physical activity has health benefits
Most people probably don’t think of everyday activities – such as hanging out the washing or putting away the groceries – as having an effect on their long-term health. But new research suggests that doing lots of these light-intensity physical activities reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease.
All those hours you 'wasted' on gaming as a kid might have been useful after all
Always had the idea that the hours you spent behind your Nintendo, Xbox, PC or Playstation must have been good for something? You can now provide that vague notion with a scientific basis. A recently published study in the Journal of Communication shows that a certain type of intelligence increases through gaming.
New evidence suggests we should eat fewer eggs
New evidence for a human magnetic sense that lets your brain detect the Earth’s magnetic field
Gravity influences how we make decisions – new research
Brain wave stimulation may improve Alzheimer’s symptoms
How the brain distinguishes between objects
Health check: is moderate drinking good for me?
For the past three decades or so, the conventional wisdom has been that drinking alcohol at moderate levels is good for us. The evidence for this has come from many studies that have suggested the death rate for moderate drinkers is lower than that for non-drinkers. In other words, we thought moderate drinkers lived longer than those who didn’t drink at all.