Living in an area with more tree canopy improves people’s odds of getting enough sleep

Not feeling sharp? Finding it hard to concentrate? About 12-19% of adults in Australia regularly don’t get enough sleep, defined as less than 5.5-6 hours each night. But who’d have thought the amount of tree cover in their neighborhood could be a factor? Our latest research has found people with ample nearby green space are much more likely to get enough sleep than people in areas with less greenery.
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Americans are changing behavior and anticipating the fallout of COVID-19

Amid the rise of the coronavirus pandemic, many people in the United States perceive health and economic risks and are changing their behavior. That’s according to a new survey conducted by researchers at the Center for Economic and Social Research at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the USC Leonard D.Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics.
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The importance of gene position for muscle development and integrity

Mutations in the nuclear structural protein lamin A produce rare, tissue-specific diseases called laminopathies. To study these diseases, researchers from the Gasser group introduced a mutation inducing a human laminopathy in C. elegans and monitored its effect on chromatin. Not only did they understand the molecular basis of the disease, they found a way to counteract the dominant defects of the mutation, suggesting a novel therapeutic pathway.
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COVID-19 strategies built around ‘herd immunity’ are problematic

The idea of building herd immunity—increasing the number of infected to such a degree that naturally occurring immunity would outstrip the coronavirus, while isolating the elderly and others at greatest risk of the disease—has been tossed around in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. This week, however, U.K. officials appear to be backing away from that approach.
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