Science Daily

Stress during pregnancy is known to influence health outcomes, but a new study suggests that stress levels before pregnancy are also important to evaluate. Investigators analyzed the link between self-reported stress immediately before conception among women seeking fertility care and blood glucose levels, a marker of heart health. The team found that maternal stress during preconception was associated with higher blood glucose levels, especially among women using intrauterine insemination to conceive and women of higher socioeconomic status.

Even small differences in the availability of urban green and blue spaces may be associated with better mental and physical health in older adults, according to a new study. The study's findings showed that having just 10% more forest space in a person's residential ZIP code was associated with reduced serious psychological distress, which covers mental health problems that require treatment and interfere with people's social lives, work or school.

Honey yields in the U.S. have been declining since the 1990s, with honey producers and scientists unsure why, but a new study has uncovered clues in the mystery of the missing honey.

Researchers 3D printed a mini quadrupole mass filter, a key component of a mass spectrometer, that performs as well as some commercial-grade devices. It can be fabricated in hours for a few dollars and is one step toward producing a portable mass spectrometer that could enable effective medical diagnoses or chemical analyses in remote areas.

A team of researchers has found that Paxlovid (Nirmatrelvir-ritonavir) did not reduce the risk of developing long COVID for vaccinated, non-hospitalized individuals during their first COVID-19 infection. They also found a higher proportion of individuals than previously reported with rebound symptoms and test-positivity after taking Paxlovid.

Scientists have developed a novel human brain organoid model that generates all the major cell types of the cerebellum, a hindbrain region predominantly made up of two cell types necessary for movement, cognition, and emotion: granule cells and Purkinje neurons. This marks the first time that scientists have succeeded in growing Purkinje cells that possess the molecular and electrophysiological features of functional neurons in an all-human system.

New research indicates that the eating disorder anorexia nervosa is associated with being an early riser, unlike many other disorders that tend to be evening-based such as depression, binge eating disorder and schizophrenia.

A research team has detected various substances that have a dual effect against tuberculosis: They make the bacteria causing the disease less pathogenic for human immune cells and boost the activity of conventional antibiotics.

The integration of mechanical memory in the form of springs has for hundreds of years proven to be a key enabling technology for mechanical devices (like clocks), achieving advanced functionality through complex autonomous movements. In our times, the integration of springs in silicon-based microtechnology has opened the world of planar mass-producible mechatronic devices from which we all benefit, via air-bag sensors for example.