Online shopping continues to grow globally, with total e-commerce sales estimated at $6 trillion by 2024 and consumers in Western Europe making nearly 19 online purchases per year. In this rapidly expanding landscape, online retailers are increasingly investing in interactive and contextual product images to capture customer attention. But do these visual strategies actually work? This is what PhD candidate Rowena Summerlin of Tilburg University  investigated .

Summerlin concludes that product images—especially interactive versions—can indeed influence consumer purchase intentions, but that this effect is context-dependent. According to her research, interactive images, especially for individual consumers, increase the perception of a product’s higher quality, which can strengthen purchase intentions. However, the impact depends on factors such as product price, customer type, and the platform on which the images are displayed. For business customers, the effect appears to be virtually nonexistent.

Analyses of real marketplace data show that contextual images can increase sales on some websites, but have little effect on other platforms. The researchers point out that this is likely related to the differing norms and customs of different online environments. The strongest effects occurred with more expensive products and during peak shopping periods, when consumers themselves are more uncertain about their choices.

Source: Research: How Product Images Influence Online Purchase Decisions and When They Don’t – Emerce

[…]

a 20-year study of 2832 people aged 65 and older suggests specific exercises may offer benefits.

The participants were randomly assigned to one of three intervention groups or to a control group. One group engaged in speed training, using a computer-based task called Double Decision, which briefly displays a car and a road sign within a scene before they disappear. Participants must then recall which car appeared and where the sign was located. The task is adaptive, becoming harder as performance improves.

The other two groups took part in memory or reasoning training, learning strategies designed to improve those skills.

The participants completed two 60-75-minute sessions per week for five weeks. About half of those in each group were then randomly assigned to receive booster sessions – four additional 1-hour sessions at the end of the first year, and another four at the end of the third year.

Twenty years later, the researchers assessed US Medicare claims data to determine how many of the participants had been diagnosed with dementia. They found that those who completed speed training with booster sessions had a 25 per cent lower risk of diagnosis with Alzheimer’s or a related dementia compared with the control group. No other group – including speed training without boosters – showed a significant change in risk. “The size of the effect is really quite astonishing,” says Albert.

[…]

Source: Specific cognitive training has ‘astonishing’ effect on dementia risk | New Scientist

We don’t experience the world through neat, separate senses—everything blends together. Smell, touch, sound, sight, and balance constantly influence one another, shaping how food tastes, objects feel, and even how heavy our bodies seem. Scientists now believe humans may have more than 20 distinct senses working at once. Everyday illusions and experiences reveal just how surprisingly complex perception really is.

[…]

Nearly everything we experience is multisensory. We do not process sight, sound, smell, and touch in isolation. Instead, they blend together into a single, unified experience of the world and of our own bodies.

How the Senses Influence One Another

What we feel affects what we see and what we see affects what we hear. Different odors in shampoo can affect how you perceive the texture of hair. The fragrance of rose makes hair seem silkier, for instance.

Odors in low-fat yogurts can make them feel richer and thicker on the palate without adding more emulsifiers. Perception of odors in the mouth, rising to the nasal passage, are modified by the viscosity of the liquids we consume.

How Many Senses Do Humans Have

My long-term collaborator, professor Charles Spence from the Crossmodal Laboratory in Oxford, told me his neuroscience colleagues believe there are anywhere between 22 and 33 senses.

These include proprioception, which enables us to know where our limbs are without looking at them. Our sense of balance draws on the vestibular system of ear canals as well as sight and proprioception.

Another example is interoception, by which we sense changes in our own bodies such as a slight increase in our heart rate and hunger. We also have a sense of agency when moving our limbs: a feeling that can go missing in stroke patients who sometimes even believe someone else is moving their arm.

There is the sense of ownership. Stroke patients sometimes feel their, for instance, arm is not their own even though they may still feel sensations in it.

Taste Is Not a Single Sense

Some of the traditional senses are combinations of several senses. Touch, for instance involves pain, temperature, itch and tactile sensations. When we taste something we are actually experiencing a combination of three senses: touch, smell and taste – or gustation – which combine to produce the flavors we perceive in food and drinks.

Gustation, covers sensations produced by receptors on the tongue that enable us to detect salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami (savory). What about mint, mango, melon, strawberry, raspberry?

We don’t have raspberry receptors on the tongue, nor is raspberry flavor some combination of sweet, sour and bitter. There is no taste arithmetic for fruit flavors.

Why Smell Dominates Flavor

We perceive them through the combined workings of the tongue and the nose. It is smell that contributes the lion’s share to what we call tasting.

This is not inhaling odors from the environment, though. Odor compounds are released as we chew or sip, traveling from the mouth to the nose though the nasal pharynx at the back of throat.

Touch plays its part too, binding tastes and smells together and fixing our preferences for runny or firm eggs, and the velvety, luxuriousness gooeyness of chocolate.

When Balance Changes What You See

Sight is influenced by our vestibular system. When you are on board an aircraft on the ground, look down the cabin. Look again when you are in the climb.

It will “look” to you as though the front of the cabin is higher than you are, although optically, everything is in the same relation to you as it was on the ground. What you “see” is the combined effect of sight and your ear canals telling you that you are titling backwards.

Exploring the Science of the Senses

The senses offer a rich seam of research and philosophers, neuroscientists and psychologists work together at the Centre for the Study of the Senses at the University of London’s School of Advanced Study.

In 2013, the center launched its Rethinking the Senses project, directed by my colleague, the late Professor Sir Colin Blakemore. We discovered how modifying the sound of your own footsteps can make your body feel lighter or heavier.

We learned how audioguides in Tate Britain art museum that address the listener as if the model in a portrait was speaking enable visitors to remember more visual details of the painting. We discovered how aircraft noise interferes with our perception of taste and why you should always drink tomato juice on a plane.

Why Tomato Juice Tastes Better on a Plane

While our perception of salt, sweet and sour is reduced in the presence of white noise, umami is not, and tomatoes, and tomato juice is rich in umami. This means the aircraft’s noise will taste enhance the savory flavor.

Seeing Sensory Illusions for Yourself

At our latest interactive exhibition, Senses Unwrapped at Coal Drops Yard in London’s King’s Cross, people can discover for themselves how their senses work and why they don’t work as we think they do.

Pausing to Notice the Senses

For example, the size-weight illusion is illustrated by a set of small, medium and large curling stones. People can lift each one and decide which is heaviest. The smallest one feels heaviest, but people can them place them on balancing scales and discover that they are all the same weight.

But there are always plenty of things around you to show how intricate your senses are, if you only pause for a moment to take it all in. So next time you walk outside or savor a meal, take a moment to appreciate how your senses are working together to help you feel all the sensations involved.

Materials provided by The Conversation. Original written by Barry Smith, Director of the Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Source: New research reveals humans could have as many as 33 senses | ScienceDaily

A growing body of research continues to show that older workers are generally more productive than younger employees.

Annie Coleman, founder of consultancy RealiseLongevity, analyzed the data and highlighted a 2025 study finding peak performance occurs between the ages of 55-60.

Writing in the Stanford Center on Longevity blog, she cited research examining 16 cognitive markers that confirm that although processing speed declines after early adulthood, other dimensions improve, and overall cognition peaks near retirement age.

Studies from the past 15 years show that some qualities like vigilance may worsen with age alongside processing speed, but others improve, including the ability to avoid distractions and accumulated knowledge.

These factors matter more as AI starts to eliminate jobs for grads and entry-level candidates, increasing the value of experienced workers who can mentor other employees.

A 2022 meta-analysis concluded that professional teams tend to function better when they have company veterans among them, as did Bank of America’s findings [PDF] two years later.

Likewise, a Boston Consulting Group study in 2022 showed age-diverse teams outperformed homogeneous ones, with the best results coming when older workers’ judgment combined with younger employees’ digital skills.

So, in a working world that seemingly values youthful forward thinkers over experience – illustrated by the various age discrimination lawsuits across the tech industry – the current data shows organizations should be doing everything they can to keep their older staffers.

“In meeting their responsibility for long-term risk and growth, companies should begin with clarity. Map the age profile of the workforce by role and seniority,” Coleman wrote. “Identify where people in their fifties and early sixties are exiting, and whether those exits reflect performance or design. Treat age as a strategic variable in the same way firms now treat gender, skills, or succession risk.

“Build roles and career paths that assume longer working lives. Invest in mid- and late-career reskilling, not as remediation but as renewal. Structure intergenerational teams deliberately, so experience and speed compound rather than collide. Align product, service, and brand strategy with the realities of an aging, wealthier customer base.

“None of this is about altruism. It is about reclaiming value currently being left on the table.”

Source: Study confirms experience beats youthful enthusiasm • The Register

A natural chemical in dark chocolate may play a role in slowing certain signs of biological aging. Researchers at King’s College London have identified theobromine, a plant compound found in cocoa, as a possible contributor to this effect.

The study, published on December 10 in Aging, analyzed how much theobromine was present in participants’ blood and compared those levels with biological aging markers measured in blood samples.

What Biological Age Reveals

Biological age reflects how well a person’s body is functioning, rather than the number of years they have lived. This measure is based on DNA methylation, a collection of tiny chemical tags on DNA that shift as we grow older.

The research team examined data from two European groups, including 509 people from TwinsUK and 1,160 from KORA. Individuals with higher amounts of theobromine in their bloodstream tended to have a biological age that appeared younger than their chronological age.

[…]

Dr. Ricardo Costeira, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at King’s College London, said: “This study identifies another molecular mechanism through which naturally occurring compounds in cocoa may support health. While more research is needed, the findings from this study highlight the value of population-level analyses in aging and genetics.”

Although the findings are encouraging, the researchers caution that increasing dark chocolate consumption is not automatically beneficial. Chocolate also contains sugar, fat and other ingredients, and more work is needed to fully understand how theobromine interacts with the body and how it may influence aging.

Source: Scientists find dark chocolate ingredient that slows aging | ScienceDaily

During covid-19, most of us became accustomed to conducting all sorts of business via video call, as well as struggling with the unavoidable technical problems associated with such digital interactions. New research, however, reveals that in certain situations, glitches can be more harmful than one might think.

Researchers found that audiovisual glitches during face-to-face video calls can trigger a feeling of “uncanniness,” even if they don’t impact the communicated information. Depending on the context, this can have serious implications for the outcome of the call. In potentially the most striking example, researchers associated disrupted online court hearings with lower likelihoods of individuals being granted criminal parole.

The danger zone

“The best feature of video calling is the fact that you basically feel like you’re together,” Jacqueline Rifkin, assistant professor of marketing and management communications at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, said in a university statement. “And so when there’s a glitch, you’re right in that danger zone where it’s almost perfect, but not quite—what has become known as the ‘uncanny valley.’ It triggers this switch in your brain where things feel just a little bit creepy,” she explained. She’s a co-first author of a study published December 3 in the journal Nature.

To investigate the matter, Rifkin and her colleagues analyzed previously held video conferences and conducted real-life experiments. They studied a database of over 1,600 “get-to-know-you” video calls that took place in 2020, after which participants took a survey including questions about interpersonal connection and any technical difficulties during the call. The data revealed that the connection was weaker between video callers who had experienced glitches, no matter what type of glitch and whether they had happened for one or both individuals.

Another analysis of transcript data from hundreds of virtual parole hearings in Kentucky in 2021 identified glitches in 32.6% of cases. Individuals whose hearings experienced glitches were granted parole 48% of the time, whereas those who didn’t have problematic calls were granted parole 60% of the time. Taking into account the individual’s or crime’s characteristics didn’t make a difference. Simply put, disrupted connections were associated with lower chances of individuals being granted parole.

“That was when we started feeling like, wow, there’s really something quite important to say here,” Rifkin explained.

Potential to further inequalities

Their experiments also confirmed that glitches during face-to-face video calls broke the illusion of in-person reality. In one, the team had over 3,000 participants watch job interview recordings similarly to how one would experience a video call. Glitches during the “calls” lowered the interviewee’s chances of being recommended for hire. Similarly, of the almost 500 participants who listened to healthcare advice in a replication of a virtual health consultation, 77% said they were confident in working with the professional during a smooth call, while only 61% were confident when they experienced connection problems on the call.

According to Rifkin, the feeling of uncanniness is difficult to ignore once it takes hold. “We tried a lot of different interventions, but we basically struggled to overcome it,” she explained. In short, their work indicates that small audiovisual issues during video calls result in negative consequences for interpersonal judgements. This could further inequalities among already disadvantaged groups, such as those with suboptimal internet connections.

[…]

Source: Even Minor Video Call Glitches Could Cost You a Job—or Your Freedom

[…] On Wednesday, Cosmo Pharmaceuticals announced the results of its two phase III trials testing out the topical drug clascoterone for AGA. Compared to placebo, people on clascoterone gained back significantly more hair—with one trial showing a roughly 500% improvement in hair restoration. The results will pave the way for a potential FDA approval next year, which could make clascoterone the first truly novel treatment for pattern baldness seen in decades.

First-in-class

Male pattern baldness is primarily caused by having genes that make a person’s hair follicles overly sensitive to androgens (male-related sex hormones), particularly the hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT).

There are effective medications for AGA, such as minoxidil (the active ingredient in Rogaine) and finasteride, as well as other interventions like hair transplants. But these treatments have all their potential drawbacks (including cost) or may not work for everyone.

Cosmo is hoping that clascoterone can become the first of a new class of hair loss drugs. The topical drug is an androgen receptor inhibitor, meaning it directly targets the hormones that help cause the loss of hair follicles in AGA. The Dublin-based company also argues that clascoterone isn’t systemically absorbed by the body, minimizing the risk of potential side effects.

Its two pivotal trials involved nearly 1,500 male patients diagnosed with AGA. The volunteers were randomized to receive a placebo or a topical clascoterone 5% solution on affected parts of their scalp. Both trials met their primary goal. In one, clascoterone users experienced a 539% improvement in the amount of hair grown relative to placebo, while in the other, there was a 168% improvement. According to the company, however, the absolute amount of regrown hair seen during the trials was similar between the two treatment groups. Clascoterone also appeared to be safe and tolerable, the company said, with most adverse events recorded during the studies not related to the drug itself.

[…]

Source: New Baldness Drug Boosted Hair Growth by 539% in Trials

A new study suggests that briefly changing the way people see their own bodies can make it easier to recall autobiographical memories, including some from early childhood.

Published in Scientific Reports, part of the Nature journal group, the research is the first to show that adults can access early memories more effectively after temporarily viewing themselves with a childlike version of their own face.

How the “Enfacement Illusion” Reconnects Mind and Body

Neuroscientists at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in Cambridge led the study, which involved 50 adult volunteers. The experiment used what is known as an “enfacement illusion,” a technique that helps people feel as though another face they see on a screen is actually their own reflection.

Each participant watched a live video of their own face that was digitally modified with an image filter to resemble how they might have looked as a child. As participants moved their heads, the on-screen image mirrored their movements, creating the sensation that the childlike face was truly theirs. A control group experienced the same setup but viewed their unaltered adult faces.

After completing the illusion, participants were asked to take part in an autobiographical memory interview designed to prompt recollections from both their early life and the previous year.

A Clear Boost in Childhood Memory Recall

Researchers measured how much detail participants included when describing their episodic autobiographical memories. These are the kinds of memories that allow a person to mentally relive past experiences and “travel back in time” within their own mind.

The findings revealed that people who saw the younger version of themselves remembered significantly more detailed events from childhood than those who saw their regular adult face. The results provide the first evidence that subtle changes in bodily self-perception can influence how deeply we access distant memories.

[…]

“All the events that we remember are not just experiences of the external world, but are also experiences of our body, which is always present.

“We discovered that temporary changes to the bodily self, specifically, embodying a childlike version of one’s own face, can significantly enhance access to childhood memories. This might be because the brain encodes bodily information as part of the details of an event. Reintroducing similar bodily cues may help us retrieve those memories, even decades later.”

Reimagining the Self to Revisit the Past

Senior author Professor Jane Aspell, head of the Self & Body Lab at Anglia Ruskin University, added: “When our childhood memories were formed, we had a different body. So we wondered: if we could help people experience aspects of that body again, could we help them recall their memories from that time?

“Our findings suggest that the bodily self and autobiographical memory are linked, as temporary changes to bodily experience can facilitate access to remote autobiographical memories.

[…]

Related Multimedia:

• Body Illusion Helps Unlock Memories – New Study

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Journal Reference:

1. Utkarsh Gupta, Peter Bright, Alex Clarke, Waheeb Zafar, Pilar Recarte-Perez, Jane E. Aspell. Illusory ownership of one’s younger face facilitates access to childhood episodic autobiographical memories. Scientific Reports, 2025; 15 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-17963-6

Source: Scientists find mind trick that unlocks lost memories | ScienceDaily

Why do some people endorse claims that can easily be disproved? It’s one thing to believe false information, but another to actively stick with something that’s obviously wrong.

Our new research, published in the Journal of Social Psychology, suggests that some people consider it a “win” to lean in to known falsehoods.

We are social psychologists who study political psychology and how people reason about reality. During the pandemic, we surveyed 5,535 people across eight countries to investigate why people believed COVID-19 misinformation, like false claims that 5G networks cause the virus.

The strongest predictor of whether someone believed in COVID-19-related misinformation and risks related to the vaccine was whether they viewed COVID-19 prevention efforts in terms of symbolic strength and weakness. In other words, this group focused on whether an action would make them appear to fend off or “give in” to untoward influence.

This factor outweighed how people felt about COVID-19 in general, their thinking style and even their political beliefs.

Our survey measured it on a scale of how much people agreed with sentences including “Following coronavirus prevention guidelines means you have backed down” and “Continuous coronavirus coverage in the media is a sign we are losing.” Our interpretation is that people who responded positively to these statements would feel they “win” by endorsing misinformation – doing so can show “the enemy” that it will not gain any ground over people’s views.

When meaning is symbolic, not factual

Rather than consider issues in light of actual facts, we suggest people with this mindset prioritize being independent from outside influence. It means you can justify espousing pretty much anything – the easier a statement is to disprove, the more of a power move it is to say it, as it symbolizes how far you’re willing to go.

When people think symbolically this way, the literal issue – here, fighting COVID-19 – is secondary to a psychological war over people’s minds. In the minds of those who think they’re engaged in them, psychological wars are waged over opinions and attitudes, and are won via control of belief and messaging. The U.S. government at various times has used the concept of psychological war to try to limit the influence of foreign powers, pushing people to think that literal battles are less important than psychological independence.

By that same token, vaccination, masking or other COVID-19 prevention efforts could be seen as a symbolic risk that could “weaken” one psychologically even if they provide literal physical benefits. If this seems like an extreme stance, it is – the majority of participants in our studies did not hold this mindset. But those who did were especially likely to also believe in misinformation.

In an additional study we ran that focused on attitudes around cryptocurrency, we measured whether people saw crypto investment in terms of signaling independence from traditional finance. These participants, who, like those in our COVID-19 study, prioritized a symbolic show of strength, were more likely to believe in other kinds of misinformation and conspiracies, too, such as that the government is concealing evidence of alien contact.

In all of our studies, this mindset was also strongly associated with authoritarian attitudes, including beliefs that some groups should dominate others and support for autocratic government. These links help explain why strongman leaders often use misinformation symbolically to impress and control a population.

Why people endorse misinformation

Our findings highlight the limits of countering misinformation directly, because for some people, literal truth is not the point.

For example, President Donald Trump incorrectly claimed in August 2025 that crime in Washington D.C. was at an all-time high, generating countless fact-checks of his premise and think pieces about his dissociation from reality.

But we believe that to someone with a symbolic mindset, debunkers merely demonstrate that they’re the ones reacting, and are therefore weak. The correct information is easily available, but is irrelevant to someone who prioritizes a symbolic show of strength. What matters is signaling one isn’t listening and won’t be swayed.

In fact, for symbolic thinkers, nearly any statement should be justifiable. The more outlandish or easily disproved something is, the more powerful one might seem when standing by it. Being an edgelord – a contrarian online provocateur – or outright lying can, in their own odd way, appear “authentic.”

Some people may also view their favorite dissembler’s claims as provocative trolling, but, given the link between this mindset and authoritarianism, they want those far-fetched claims acted on anyway. The deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, for example, can be the desired end goal, even if the offered justification is a transparent farce.

Is this really 5-D chess?

It is possible that symbolic, but not exactly true, beliefs have some downstream benefit, such as serving as negotiation tactics, loyalty tests, or a fake-it-till-you-make-it long game that somehow, eventually, becomes a reality. Political theorist Murray Edelman, known for his work on political symbolism, noted that politicians often prefer scoring symbolic points over delivering results – it’s easier. Leaders can offer symbolism when they have little tangible to provide.

Randy Stein is Associate Professor of Marketing, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and Abraham Rutchick is Professor of Psychology, California State University, Northridge. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Source: Symbolic Strength More Important Than Facts When It Comes To Misinformation | Techdirt

[…] “Dietary modifications could be a new, natural and cost-effective approach to achieve better sleep,[ …]

Previous studies have shown that getting too little sleep can drive people toward unhealthier eating patterns, often higher in fat and sugar. Yet, despite how sleep influences well-being and productivity, scientists have known far less about the reverse — how diet affects sleep itself.

While earlier research linked greater fruit and vegetable intake with people reporting better sleep, this study was the first to show a same-day relationship between diet and objectively measured sleep quality.

[…]

The scientists analyzed a measure called “sleep fragmentation,” which captures how often a person wakes up or shifts between lighter and deeper stages of sleep during the night.

What the Researchers Found

The results showed that daily eating habits were strongly connected to how well participants slept that night. Those who ate more fruits and vegetables — and consumed more complex carbohydrates such as whole grains — experienced longer periods of deep, undisturbed sleep.

According to the team’s analysis, people who met the CDC recommendation of five cups of fruits and vegetables per day could see an average 16 percent improvement in sleep quality compared with those who ate none.

“16 percent is a highly significant difference,” Tasali said. “It’s remarkable that such a meaningful change could be observed within less than 24 hours.”

[…]

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Chicago Medical Center. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Hedda L. Boege, Katherine D. Wilson, Jennifer M. Kilkus, Waveley Qiu, Bin Cheng, Kristen E. Wroblewski, Becky Tucker, Esra Tasali, Marie-Pierre St-Onge. Higher daytime intake of fruits and vegetables predicts less disrupted nighttime sleep in younger adults. Sleep Health, 2025; 11 (5): 590 DOI: 10.1016/j.sleh.2025.05.003

Source: Scientists say this simple diet change can improve sleep fast | ScienceDaily

Taking vitamin D2 might lower the body’s levels of the more efficient form of vitamin D, vitamin D3, according to new research from the University of Surrey, John Innes Centre and Quadram Institute Bioscience. Many people take vitamin D supplements to support their bone and immune health and meet the UK government recommendation of 10 micrograms (µg) each day, especially during the winter months.

There are two forms of vitamin D supplements available: vitamin D2 and vitamin D3. Researchers have found that taking vitamin D2 supplements can lead to a drop in the body’s concentration of vitamin D3, which is the form our bodies naturally produce from sunlight and use most effectively to raise overall vitamin D levels.

The study, published in Nutrition Reviews, analysed data from randomised controlled trials and found that vitamin D2 supplementation resulted in a reduction in vitamin D3 levels compared to those not taking a vitamin D2 supplement. In many of the studies, the vitamin D3 levels went lower than in the control group.

Emily Brown, PhD Research Fellow and Lead Researcher of the study from the University of Surrey’s Nutrition, Exercise, Chronobiology & Sleep Discipline, said:

“Vitamin D supplements are important, especially between October and March, when our bodies cannot make vitamin D from sunlight in the UK. However, we discovered that vitamin D2 supplements can actually decrease levels of vitamin D3 in the body, which is a previously unknown effect of taking these supplements. This study suggests that subject to personal considerations, vitamin D3 supplements may be more beneficial for most individuals over vitamin D2.”

[…]

Further research into the different functionalities of vitamin D2 and D3 should be a priority in deciding whether vitamin D3 should be the first-line choice of vitamin D supplement, subject to individual requirements.

[…]

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Surrey. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Emily I G Brown, Andrea L Darling, Tracey M Robertson, Kathryn H Hart, Jie Li, Cathie Martin, Martin J Warren, Colin P Smith, Susan A Lanham-New, Ruan M Elliott. Effect of Vitamin D2 Supplementation on 25-Hydroxyvitamin D3 Status: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Nutrition Reviews, 2025; DOI: 10.1093/nutrit/nuaf166

Source: The vitamin D mistake weakening your immunity | ScienceDaily

Researchers at Leipzig University and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin have discovered a key mechanism for appetite and weight control. It helps the brain to regulate feelings of hunger. In a study, scientists from Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1423 – Structural Dynamics of GPCR Activation and Signaling – found how a protein called MRAP2 (melanocortin 2 receptor accessory protein 2) influences the function of the brain receptor MC4R (melanocortin-4 receptor), which plays a central role in appetite control and energy balance. Their findings have just been published in the journal Nature Communications.

MC4R is an important receptor activated by the peptide hormone MSH. It plays a major role in Collaborative Research Centre 1423, where it is being characterised both structurally and functionally. Mutations in MC4R are among the most common genetic causes of severe obesity.

[…]

Setmelanotide, an approved drug, activates this receptor and specifically reduces feelings of hunger. “We are proud that CRC 1423 has now also contributed to understanding receptor transport and availability,” says Professor Annette Beck-Sickinger, spokesperson for CRC 1423 and co-author of the study. A total of five projects within the Collaborative Research Centre were involved in this interdisciplinary research.

Using modern fluorescence microscopy and single-cell imaging, the team demonstrated that the protein MRAP2 fundamentally alters the localisation and behaviour of the brain receptor MC4R within cells. Fluorescent biosensors and confocal imaging showed that MRAP2 is essential for transporting MC4R to the cell surface, where it can transmit appetite-suppressing signals more effectively.

By uncovering this new level of regulation, the study points to therapeutic strategies that mimic or modulate MRAP2 and hold the potential to combat obesity and related metabolic disorders.

[…]

Story Source:

Materials provided by Universität Leipzig. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Iqra Sohail, Suli-Anne Laurin, Gunnar Kleinau, Vidicha Chunilal, Andrew Morton, Alfonso Brenlla, Zeynep Cansu Uretmen Kagiali, Marie-José Blouin, Javier A. Tello, Annette G. Beck-Sickinger, Martin J. Lohse, Patrick Scheerer, Michel Bouvier, Peter McCormick, Paolo Annibale, Heike Biebermann. MRAP2 modifies the signaling and oligomerization state of the melanocortin-4 receptor. Nature Communications, 2025; 16 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-63988-w

Source: Scientists discover hidden protein that switches off hunger | ScienceDaily

[… lots of random stuff about some influencer nobody heard of until the US fascists made him a thing to deflect from Gaza, Ukraine, Trump and Epstein…] The “debate me bro” playbook is simple and effective: demand that serious people engage with your conspiracy theories or extremist talking points. If they decline, cry “censorship!” and claim they’re “afraid of the truth.” If they accept, turn the interaction into a performance designed to generate viral clips and false legitimacy. It’s a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose proposition that has nothing to do with genuine intellectual discourse.

The fundamental issue with “debate me bro” culture isn’t just that it’s obnoxious, it’s that it creates a false equivalence between good-faith expertise and bad-faith trolling. When you agree to debate someone pushing long-debunked conspiracy theories or openly hateful ideologies, you’re implicitly suggesting that their position deserves equal consideration alongside established facts and expert analysis.

This is exactly backwards from how the actual “marketplace of ideas” is supposed to work. Ideas don’t deserve platforms simply because someone is willing to argue for them loudly. They earn legitimacy through evidence, peer review, and sustained engagement with reality. Many of the ideas promoted in these viral “debates” have already been thoroughly debunked and rejected by that marketplace—but the “debate me bro” format resurrects them as if they’re still worth serious consideration.

Perhaps most insidiously, these aren’t actually debates at all. They’re performances designed to generate specific emotional reactions for viral distribution. Participants aren’t trying to persuade anyone or genuinely engage with opposing viewpoints. They’re trying to create moments that will get clipped, shared, and monetized across social media.

[…]

The most toxic evolution of this grift is Jubilee Media’s “Surrounded” series on YouTube (on which Kirk once appeared, because of course he did), which The New Yorker’s Brady Brickner-Wood aptly describes as an attempt to “anthropomorphize the internet, turning incendiary discourse into live-action role-play.” The format is simple: put one public figure in a room with 20 ideologically opposed people and let them duke it out in rapid-fire rounds designed for maximum conflict and viral potential.

As Brickner-Wood notes, these aren’t actual debates in the classical sense of trying to persuade, they’re spectacles designed to set up bad faith dipshits with the opportunity to dunk on others for social media clout.

“Surrounded” videos are a dizzying and bewildering watch, as gruelling as they are compelling. The participants who fare best seem to be familiar with the conventions of interscholastic debate, spouting off statistics and logic puzzles with the alacrity of an extemporaneous-speaking champion. To win an argument in such a condensed amount of time, debaters attempt to short-circuit their opponent’s claim as swiftly and harshly as possible, treating their few minutes of airtime as a domination game rather than, say, a path toward truth or understanding. The goal here is not to inform or educate, to listen or process, to build or intellectualize but to win, to own, to dunk on, to break the opponent’s brain, to spawn an argument of such devastating definitiveness that the matter can be considered, once and for all, closed. Wave the flag, run the clock out—next.

But Surrounded is just the most recent manifestation of a much older problem. We’ve seen multiple bad faith trolls, beyond just Kirk, turn the “debate me bro” model into large media empires. When people point out their bad faith nonsense, we’re told “what are you complaining about, they’re doing things the ‘right way’ by debating with those they disagree with.”

[…]

The format actively discourages the kind of thoughtful, nuanced discussion that might actually change minds—the kind actually designed for persuasion. Instead, it rewards the most inflammatory takes, the most emotionally manipulative tactics, and the most viral-ready soundbites. Anyone going into these situations with good faith gets steamrolled by participants who understand they’re playing a different game entirely.

When trolls demand debates, they’re not interested in having their minds changed or genuinely testing their ideas. They want one of two outcomes: either you decline and they get to claim victory by default, or you accept and they get to use your credibility to legitimize their nonsense while farming viral moments.

None of this means we should avoid authentically engaging with different viewpoints or challenging ideas. But there’s a crucial difference between good-faith intellectual engagement and feeding trolls who are just looking for their next viral moment.

[…]

When we praise bad-faith performers for “engaging” with their critics, we’re not celebrating democratic norms—we’re rewarding those who exploit them.

Source: The “Debate Me Bro” Grift: How Trolls Weaponized The Marketplace Of Ideas

Is the colour you see the same as what I see? It’s a question that has puzzled both philosophers and neuroscientists for decades, but has proved notoriously difficult to answer.

Now, a study that recorded the brain activity of 15 participants suggests that colours are represented and processed in the same way across different people. The findings were published in the Journal of Neuroscience on 8 September¹.

“Now we know that when you see red or green or whatever colour, that it activates your brain very similarly to my brain,” says study co-author Andreas Bartels, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Tübingen in Germany. “Even at a very low level, things are represented similarly across different brains, and that is a fundamentally new discovery.”

[…]

The pair used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare activity in the brains of a group of people while they viewed different colours.

Source: My blue is your blue: different people’s brains process colours in the same way

They could then predict what colour people were seeing based on the scans.

Microsoft is rolling out a new return-to-office policy that will see first Redmond, then US, and then global staff getting back on-prem at least three days a week.

“How we work has forever changed,” Microsoft’s Chief People Officer Amy Coleman told staff in a blog post. And that change will start in Redmond by the end of February. If you work within a 50-mile radius of the office, Microsoft has already emailed you if it expects your attendance, she said.

The changes will spread across the rest of America and then internationally on an unspecified timescale. We’ve asked for clarification and will update this article if it comes in.

Coleman’s note looked to get ahead of possible criticisms that mandatory RTO policies serve as a backdoor way to reduce headcount, as employees who’d moved far away from offices to take advantage of companies’ remote work policies may find it difficult or unpalatable to uproot again.

“Importantly, this update is not about reducing headcount,” she wrote. “It’s about working together in a way that enables us to meet our customers’ needs.”

[…]

Source: Microsoft employees ordered back to office • The Register

So… Microsoft Teams doesn’t work very well? Or is it just American Micromanagement at its best?

Managers and supervisors brace yourselves: calling the boss a dickhead is not necessarily a sackable offence, a tribunal has ruled.

The ruling came in the case of an office manager who was sacked on the spot when – during a row – she called her manager and another director dickheads.

Kerrie Herbert has been awarded almost £30,000 in compensation and legal costs after an employment tribunal found she had been unfairly dismissed.

The employment judge Sonia Boyes ruled that the scaffolding and brickwork company she worked for had not “acted reasonably in all the circumstances in treating [her] conduct as a sufficient reason to dismiss her”.

“She made a one-off comment to her line manager about him and a director of the business,” Boyes said. “The comment was made during a heated meeting.

“Whilst her comment was not acceptable, there is no suggestion that she had made such comments previously. Further … this one-off comment did not amount to gross misconduct or misconduct so serious to justify summary dismissal.”

The hearing in Cambridge was told Herbert started her £40,000-a-year role at the Northampton firm Main Group Services in October 2018. The business was run by Thomas Swannell and his wife, Anna.

The tribunal heard that in May 2022 the office manager had found documents in her boss’s desk about the costs of employing her, and became upset as she believed he was going to let her go.

When Swannell then raised issues about her performance, she began crying, the hearing was told.

She told the tribunal that she said: “If it was anyone else in this position they would have walked years ago due to the goings-on in the office, but it is only because of you two dickheads that I stayed.”

She said Swannell retorted: “Don’t call me a fucking dickhead or my wife. That’s it, you’re sacked. Pack your kit and fuck off.”

[…]

Boyes found that Herbert was summarily fired because of her use of the word “dickheads” and ruled that the company had failed to follow proper disciplinary procedures.

She concluded that calling her bosses dickheads was not sufficient to fire Herbert and ordered the firm to pay £15,042.81 in compensation.

In her latest judgment she also ruled it had to pay £14,087 towards her legal fees.

Source: Calling boss a dickhead was not a sackable offence, tribunal rules | Employment tribunals | The Guardian

Insomnia patients taking cannabis-based medical products reported better quality sleep after up to 18 months of treatment, according to a study published August 27 in the open-access journal PLOS Mental Health by Arushika Aggarwal from Imperial College London, U.K., and colleagues.

About one out of every three people has some trouble getting a good night’s rest, and 10 percent of adults meet the criteria for an insomnia disorder. But current treatments can be difficult to obtain, and the drugs approved for insomnia run the risk of dependence. To understand how cannabis-based medical products might affect insomnia symptoms, the authors of this study analyzed a set of 124 insomnia patients taking medical cannabis products. They examined the patient’s reports of their sleep quality, anxiety/depression, and quality of life changes between one and 18 months of treatment.

The patients reported improved sleep quality that lasted over the 18 months of treatment. They also showed significant improvements in anxiety/depression as well as reporting less pain. About nine percent of the patients reported adverse effects such as fatigue, insomnia, or dry mouth, but none of the side effects were life-threatening. While randomized controlled trials will be needed to prove that the products are safe and effective, the authors suggest that cannabis-based medical products could improve sleep quality in insomnia patients.

[…]

He adds: “Conducting this long-term study provided valuable real-world evidence on patient outcomes that go beyond what we typically see in short-term trials. It was particularly interesting to observe signs of potential tolerance over time, which highlights the importance of continued monitoring and individualized treatment plans.”

Journal Reference:

1. Arushika Aggarwal, Simon Erridge, Isaac Cowley, Lilia Evans, Madhur Varadpande, Evonne Clarke, Katy McLachlan, Ross Coomber, James J. Rucker, Mark W. Weatherall, Mikael H. Sodergren. UK Medical Cannabis Registry: A clinical outcomes analysis for insomnia. PLOS Mental Health, 2025; 2 (8): e0000390 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmen.0000390

---

Cannabis-based medicinal products

Details of cannabis-based medicinal product treatment at baseline and the maximum titrated dose were available for all participants (n = 124) (Table 4). Administration routes were also available at baseline (n = 124), follow-up months 1, 3, 6, and 12 (n = 123) and 18-months (n = 124). The median daily CBD dose at baseline was 1.00 [0.00-20.00] mg/day and increased to 10.00 [0.00-25.00] mg/day by month 3, and this was sustained until 18-month follow-up (10.00 [5.00-35.75] mg/day). For THC, the median daily dose was 20.00 [2.00-20.00] mg/day at baseline, and by 18-month follow-up, increased to 120.00 [95.00-210.38] mg/day. The most prescribed regimen at baseline (n = 51; 41.13%) and throughout every follow-up month until month 18 (n = 54; 43.55%) was dried flower only.

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Table 4. Data on prescribed cannabis-based medicinal products recorded for participants (n = 124).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmen.0000390.t004

Source: Study finds cannabis improves sleep where other drugs fail | ScienceDaily

Researchers have demonstrated a novel vaccine delivery method in an animal model, using dental floss to introduce vaccine via the tissue between the teeth and gums. The testing found that the new technique stimulates the production of antibodies in mucosal surfaces, such as the lining of the nose and lungs.

“Mucosal surfaces are important, because they are a source of entry for pathogens, such as influenza and COVID,” says Harvinder Singh Gill, corresponding author of a paper on the work. “However, if a vaccine is given by injection, antibodies are primarily produced in the bloodstream throughout the body, and relatively few antibodies are produced on mucosal surfaces.

“But we know that when a vaccine is given via the mucosal surface, antibodies are stimulated not only in the bloodstream, but also on mucosal surfaces,” says Gill, who is the Ronald B. and Cynthia J. McNeill Term Professor in Nanomedicine at North Carolina State University. “This improves the body’s ability to prevent infection, because there is an additional line of antibody defense before a pathogen enters the body.”

[…]

The junctional epithelium is a thin layer of tissue located in the deepest part of the pocket between the tooth and the gum, and it lacks the barrier features found in other epithelial tissues. The lack of a barrier allows the junctional epithelium to release immune cells to fight bacteria – you find these immune cells in your saliva, as well as between your teeth and gums.

“Because the junctional epithelium is more permeable than other epithelial tissues – and is a mucosal layer – it presents a unique opportunity for introducing vaccines to the body in a way that will stimulate enhanced antibody production across the body’s mucosal layers,” says Gill.

To determine the viability of delivering vaccines via the junctional epithelium, the researchers applied vaccine to unwaxed dental floss and then flossed the teeth of lab mice.

[…]

“We found that applying vaccine via the junctional epithelium produces far superior antibody response on mucosal surfaces than the current gold standard for vaccinating via the oral cavity, which involves placing vaccine under the tongue,” says Rohan Ingrole, first author of the paper, who was a Ph.D. student under Gill at Texas Tech University. “The flossing technique also provides comparable protection against flu virus as compared to the vaccine being given via the nasal epithelium.”

“This is extremely promising, because most vaccine formulations cannot be given via the nasal epithelium – the barrier features in that mucosal surface prevent efficient uptake of the vaccine,” Gill says. “Intranasal delivery also has the potential to cause the vaccine to reach the brain, which can pose safety concerns. However, vaccination via the junctional epithelium offers no such risk.

[…]

The researchers also tested whether the junctional epithelium delivery method worked for three other prominent classes of vaccines: proteins, inactivated viruses and mRNA. In all three cases, the epithelial junction delivery technique produced robust antibody responses in the bloodstream and across mucosal surfaces.

The researchers also found that, at least in the animal model, it didn’t matter whether food and water were consumed immediately after flossing with the vaccine – the immune response was the same.

But while regular floss serves as an adequate vaccine delivery method for lab mice, the researchers know it’s not practical to ask people to hold vaccine-coated floss in their fingers. To address that challenge the researchers used a floss pick. A floss pick consists of a piece of floss stretched between two prongs that can be held by a handle.

Specifically, the researchers coated the floss in floss picks with fluorescent food dye. The researchers then recruited 27 study participants, explained the concept of applying vaccine via floss, and asked the participants to try to deposit the food dye in their epithelial junction with a floss pick.

“We found that approximately 60% of the dye was deposited in the gum pocket, which suggests that floss picks may be a practical vaccine delivery method to the epithelial junction,” Ingrole says.

[…]

There are also some drawbacks. For example, this technique would not work on infants and toddlers who do not yet have teeth.

“In addition, we would need to know more about how or whether this approach would work for people who have gum disease or other oral infections,” Gill says.

[…]

Source: This vaccine uses dental floss instead of needles | ScienceDaily

This study begins by outlining the transparency paradox: that trust in science requires transparency, but being transparent about science, medicine and government reduces trust in science. A solution to the paradox is then advanced here: it is argued that, rather than just thinking in terms of transparency and opacity, it is important to think about what institutions are being transparent about. By attending to the particulars of transparency – especially with respect to whether good or bad news is disclosed – it is revealed that transparency about good news increases trust whereas transparency about bad news decreases it, thus explaining the apparent paradox. The apparent solution: to ensure that there is always only good news to report, which might require lying. This study concludes by emphasizing how problematic it is that, currently, the best way to increase public trust is to lie, suggesting that a better way forward (and the real solution to the transparency paradox) would be to resolve the problem of the public overidealizing science through science education and communication to eliminate the naïve view of science as infallible.

Source: Lying increases trust in science | Theory and Society