Contact me

Please enter your details and email address below where the ''enter your comment'' box is.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why you should stop buying new clothes

Image
Alana James, Northumbria University, Newcastle The fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world, producing 20% of global wastewater and 10% of global carbon emissions – and it’s estimated that by 2050 this will have increased to 25% . A staggering 300,000 tonnes of clothes are sent to British landfills each year. The fast fashion business model, first developed in the early 2000s is responsible for the increase in consumer demand for high quantities of low-quality clothing. Many fashion products now being designed and made specifically for short-term ownership and premature disposal. Clothing quality is decreasing along with costs, and the increased consumption levels of mass-manufactured fashion products are pushing up the consumption of natural resources. The pressure to facilitate consumer hunger imposes significant social and environmental pressures on the manufacturing supply chain. The UK’s consumption levels of fashion are the highest...
Read more

We mapped out food poverty across England, to see where food banks are needed most

Image
   Dianna Smith, University of Southampton and Claire Thompson, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Statistics from food banks across England show a frightening rise in the number of people using their services, meaning that more and more people don’t have enough money to feed themselves. Between April 1, 2016 and March 31, 2017, the Trussell Trust provided 1,182,954 three-day emergency food packages – up 73,645 from the previous year. People affected by food poverty face severe threats to their health and well-being. As well as the stress, depression and anxiety that can result from not having enough money to feed their families, people experiencing food poverty also face a higher risk of obesity , because the only foods they can afford tend to be cheap, sugary, processed and fattening. Some researchers have already mapped out who is using food banks, which is a big step towards understanding the problem. But academics like ourselves are i...
Read more

Scientists are unraveling the mystery of your body's clock – and soon may be able to reset it

Image
Carrie L. Partch, University of California, Santa Cruz For people who don’t get sleepy until 2 a.m., the buzz of an alarm clock can feel mighty oppressive. Relief may be on the horizon, thanks to the discovery this spring of a genetic mutation that causes night-owl behavior . Whether you’re a night owl or a morning lark rising effortlessly each day with the sun, your sleep habits are regulated by circadian rhythms. These internal clocks control just about every aspect of our health, from appetite and sleep to cell division, hormone production and cardiovascular function. Like many who study the intricacies of circadian biology, I’m optimistic that one day we’ll be able to design drugs that synchronize our cellular clocks. Bosses frowning on tardy arrivals could soon become a thing of the past. Our internal clocks Nearly every cell in your body contains a molecular clock. Every 24 hours or so, dedicated clock proteins interact with one another in a slow dance. Ov...
Read more