Healthier and happier without Facebook

Two weeks of 20 minutes less time per day on Facebook: a team of psychologists from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) invited 140 test persons to participate in this experiment. Lucky those who took part: afterwards they were more physically active, smoked less and were more satisfied. Symptoms of addiction regarding Facebook usage decreased. These effects continued also three months after the end of the experiment. The group headed by Dr. Julia Brailovskaia published their results in the journal Computers in Human Behavior on 6 March 2020.
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Special report highlights potential therapeutic agents, vaccines for COVID-19

Since the first reports of a new coronavirus disease in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, COVID-19 has spread rapidly across the globe, threatening a pandemic. Now, researchers from CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society specializing in scientific information solutions, have issued a special report in ACS Central Science. In the report, they provide an overview of published scientific information on potential therapeutic agents and vaccines for the virus, with an emphasis on patents.
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Hair in “stress”: analyse with care

Similar to humans, wild animals’ reaction to disturbance is accompanied by releasing hormones, including cortisol. To understand the impact of various stress factors on wildlife—for example, competition for food, encounters with predators, or changing environmental conditions—scientists first need to determine the baseline levels of relevant hormones for each species.
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Genes tell a story about diabetic kidney disease

By analysing samples from hundreds of Finns with diabetes, scientists have identified genes, and the proteins they encode, that could be involved in the development of diabetic kidney disease. The research, conducted by researchers from Duke-NUS Medical School and their international collaborators, suggests potential targets for treating the condition. The findings were published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
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