La ciencia en los medios

Ever since the Columbia University anatomy professor Michael Gershon launched the field of neurogastroenterology, in 1999, by pointing out that the human gastrointestinal tract is home to some hundred million neurons, scientists have been amassing evidence of the so-called gut-brain connection, the hardwired link between emotion and digestion.

Contar las manchas solares a lo largo del tiempo ayuda a conocer la actividad de nuestra estrella, pero los dos índices que emplean los científicos discrepan para fechas anteriores a 1885. Ahora un equipo internacional de investigadores ha tratado de armonizar los resultados históricos y ha descubierto que, en contra de lo que se pudiera…

A Danish health study has concluded that light and moderate joggers have lower mortality than sedentary nonjoggers, whereas strenuous joggers have a mortality rate not statistically different from that of the sedentary group.

The problem, Guarente says, is that it’s nearly impossible to prove, in any reasonable time frame, that drugs that extend the lifespan of animals can do the same in people; such an experiment could take decades. That’s why Guarente says he decided to take the unconventional route of packaging cutting-edge lab research as so-called nutraceuticals,…

As human populations disperse, the separation leads to changes both in genes and in language. So if we look at human DNA and languages over time, we should find that they differ along similar geographic lines.

Some parents feel certain that vaccines can lead to autism, if only because there have been instances when a child got a shot and then became autistic. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Making that connection between the two events, most health experts say, is as fallacious in the world of medicine as it is in…

Tuberkulosia eragiten duen bakterioaren aldaera gogorrenetako baten bilakaera historikoa aztertu du nazioarteko ikerketa-talde batek, haien DNAtik abiatuta. Ikusi dute bakterio horien populazioaren bilakaerak bat egiten duela gizateriaren historian izan diren hainbat gertakari garrantzitsurekin.

A team of astronomers that last year reported evidence for gravitational waves from the early Universe has now withdrawn the claim. A joint analysis of data recorded by the team’s South Pole telescope and by the European spacecraft Planck has revealed that the signal can be entirely attributed to dust in the Milky Way rather…

Number of extremely hot days a year has increased in hundreds of cities since the 1970s years, with frequencies peaking in the last five years