Babies can identify their own bodies
Newborn babies have the ability to differentiate their own body from others, scientists have found. The ability to differentiate your own body from others is a fundamental skill, critical for humans’ ability to interact with their environments and the people around them. Researchers have now provided some of the first evidence that newborn babies enter the world with the essential mechanisms for this kind of body awareness already in place. “The identification of these mechanisms at birth in the current study sheds light on the typical trajectory of body awareness across development,” said Maria laura Filippetti of Birkbeck College, University of london.
Excessive testosterone has risks
Moderate levels of male hormone testosterone may be key to longer life in men. Older men whose testosterone levels are neither low nor high tend to live longer, researchers said. Testosterone is a key male sex hormone involved in maintaining sex drive, sperm production and bone health.Physicians have long known that low testosterone levels can signal health problems, but the new study found men may not fare better when levels of the hormone rise too high. “Older men who had testosterone in the middle range survived longer than their counterparts who had either low or high levels of the hormone,” said the study’s lead author, Bu Beng Yeap of the University of Western Australia, based in Fremantle Hospital, Western Australia.
Brown fat cells can treat obesity
An Indian-origin researcher has discovered brown fat stem cells in adult humans that may lead to new treatments for diabetes and obesity. Until now, it was thought that brown fat stem cells did not exist in adults. Children have large amounts of brown fat that is highly metabolically active, which allows them to eat large amounts of food and not gain weight. The study was led by Amit N Patel, director of Clinical Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering, and associate professor in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Utah School of Medicine. Adults generally have an abundance of white fat in their bodies, which leads to weight gain and cardiovascular disease but this is not seen in brown fat, Patel said.