College athletes participating in indoor sports, especially African-Americans, might be vitamin D deficient and put themselves at risk of injury or poor performance according to a study recently published in the journal Nutrients.
Read More

Utah residents who have difficulty keeping their families fed could be missing a key ingredient: information. A University of Utah Health study finds that poor communications in at least 22 Utah communities could be hampering efforts to connect those in need with food stamps, food banks, soup kitchens, and other food resources. Researchers say the finding could help refine future community food distribution efforts.
Read More

Educating friends and classmates about a child’s autism may not necessarily improve inclusion and reduce bullying, according to a University of Alberta researcher, who advises the decision to make a disclosure of this nature is often fluid and subject to change over time based on context.
Read More

“As you can see, individual differences in writing can be seen as early as kindergarten,” says Cynthia Puranik, associate professor in the College of Education & Human Development. On her computer, she pulls up writing samples from two kindergarteners who were asked to print words that they know. One child manages “hot,” while the second, incredibly, executes “somber, “sarcasum” [sic] and “redundant.”
Read More

Do you like to listen to music when you work?
Read More

During the winter months, pediatric admissions to the hospital increase due to flu and respiratory infections. In hospitals, a team of Child Life specialists help parents and kids cope with being in the hospital. Here are some tips from them to reduce your child’s fear during a scary and stressful time.
Read More

Erythropoietin, or Epo for short, is a notorious doping agent. It promotes the formation of red blood cells, leading thereby to enhanced physical performance—at least, that is what we have believed until now. However, as a growth factor, it also protects and regenerates nerve cells in the brain. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine in Göttingen have now revealed how Epo achieves this effect. They have discovered that cognitive challenges trigger a slight oxygen deficit (termed ‘functional hypoxia’ by the researchers) in the brain’s nerve cells. This increases production of Epo and its receptors in the active nerve cells, stimulating neighbouring precursor cells to form new nerve cells and causing the nerve cells to connect to one another more effectively.
Read More

The Harvard historian Jill Lepore recounted recently in The New Yorker magazine that when democracies sink into crisis, the question “where are we going?” leaps to everyone’s mind, as if we were waiting for a weather forecast to tell us how healthy our democracy was going to be tomorrow. Quoting Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce, Lepore writes that “political problems are not external forces beyond our control; they are forces within our control. We need solely to make up our own minds and to act.”
Read More

While lifestyle choices and genetics go a long way toward predicting longevity, a new study shows that certain community characteristics also play important roles. American communities with more fast food restaurants, a larger share of extraction industry-based jobs, or higher population density have shorter life expectancies, according to researchers from Penn State, West Virginia, and Michigan State Universities. Their findings can help communities identify and implement changes that may promote longer lifespans among their residents.
Read More

The coronavirus is on everyone’s minds. As an epidemiologist, I find it interesting to hear people using technical terms—like quarantine or super spreader or reproductive number—that my colleagues and I use in our work every day.
Read More