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From Discover Magazine: No More Midnight Snacks? Mice That Eat at Odd Hours Get Fat | 80beats

obese mouse
FA=high-fat, ab libitum (eat-at-will) diet, FT=high-fat, time-restricted diet, NA=normal ab libitum (eat-at-will) diet, NT=normal diet, time-restricted

Diets tell you what you eat, but a new study suggests when you eat matters too. Of two groups of mice who were fed the same high-fat diet, the mice who could eat around the clock were much heavier than those who had food restricted to eight hours per day, in a new study published in Cell Metabolism. 

Researchers in the study gave the mice a special high-fat chow, 61% of whose calories come from fat (compared to just 13% in normal feed). The mice who chowed down all day and night became, unsurprisingly, obese, but the ones who ate the same amount of hi-fat food in only eight hours per day did not. Their body weight was comparable to mice fed an equivalent amount of calories on normal feed.

This being a study in Cell Metabolism, the researchers didn’t stop with just weighing the mice; they did a lot of molecular experiments to work out the link between timing and weight gain. Mice on high-fat, eat-whenever diets had the insulin problems associated with obesity-induced diabetes and lower expression of genes linked to breaking down fats in the …


from Discover Magazine

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From Ars Technica: Coffee may be ok, but coffee drinkers not living longer

Is coffee good or bad for you? If you follow the medical literature, you might think that the answer changes a few times a year. Different studies have found associations with various ailments, while others suggested that people who hit the java actually outlived their peers.

Now, a new study is out that not only finds that coffee has a positive effect, but may help explain why the earlier studies were so confused. As it turns out, coffee drinking is associated with a broad range of bad habits (most notably smoking), so if one adjusts the numbers to compensate for those, coffee drinking starts to look pretty good. Before you rush off for your latest hit, however, you should note the biggest limitation of this study: its population was recruited exclusively from the AARP. If you’re not considering retirement, you might want to hold off until we see more from a study with a younger demographic.

AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) membership is open to anyone over 50, so the population at the start of the study was between 50 and 71. On the plus side, it was huge: over 400,000 individuals. And that was after the authors got rid of people who already had cancer, heart disease, and/or strokes. The initial survey included questions about coffee consumption along with a lot of other health and dietary habits. Once enrolled, the authors followed the participants for 12 years, or until Social Security records indicated they had died.

from Ars Technica

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From Ars Technica: Travel across the Roman Empire in real time with ORBIS

In a clever bit of technological legerdemain, Stanford University has combined historical research, mapping, and Web technology to bring ancient Roman Empire travel to the Internet. A cross-disciplinary team has created and launched ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World. With it, a user can determine how long it will take to travel from any point in the Roman Empire to any other, as well as calculate the cost of transporting goods and people.

This heretofore unnatural union of geographers, technologists, and historians of the ancient world is becoming more and more common under the descriptor of “digital humanities.” ORBIS looks to be one of the most effective examples of its promise.

Built by historian and classicist Walter Scheidel and Stanford Libraries’ digital humanities specialist Elijah Meeks, with the assistance of geographer and Web developer Karl Grossner and GIS analyst Noemi Alvarez, the interactive online atlas is based on a host of data. This includes historical tide information and weather; size, grade, and surface of roads; main cities and ports; land, sea, and river routes; vehicle speed (including ships, ox carts, horse, and walking); and the cost of transport.

 

from Ars Technica

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From Engadget: FCC wants to set aside wireless spectrum for medical body area devices, our hearts are literally aflutter

Smartphone brain scanner

The FCC has been making a big push towards freeing up the airwaves for medical uses, and it just took one of its biggest steps on that front by proposing to clear space for wireless body area networks. Agency officials want to let devices operate in the 2.36GHz to 2.4GHz space so that patients can stay at home or at least move freely, instead of being fenced in at the hospital or tethered to a bed by wires. Devices would still need the FDA’s green light, but they could both let patients go home sooner as well as open the door wider for preventative care. Voting on the proposal takes place May 24, which leaves our tech-minded hearts beating faster — and if the proposal takes effect, we’ll know just how much faster.

 

from Engadget

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From the blind cook: watch me on “masterchef” season 3, premiering june 4 & 5

Christine is a good friend of mine… well, at least I think so.  :P  She is going to be my very first friend to be on major TV time!!  So yes, I’m plugging her in!  Watch it!

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I’ve been MIA for a while. But not to fear–I had good reason. I promise. During my hiatus, I was cooking my ass off to impress Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot, and Joe Bastianich. That’s right, I was cooking for my life to get on season three of the summer hit show “MasterChef” on FOX. After open casting calls in several cities across the U.S., I made it past tens of thousands of contestant hopefuls to land a slot in the top 100 to cook for the three notable judges. Did I impress them enough to get a white apron? Tune in to find out: “MasterChef” season 3 premieres June 4 and 5 on FOX at 9/8 Central. See what craziness ensues! In the meantime, here’s a promo commercial. And yes, that’s yours truly smack dab in the middle of it already crying like a buffoon. Hah!

 

 

from the blind cook