How ‘swapping bodies’ with a friend changes our sense of self

Our sense of who we are is thought to be influenced by things like our childhood experiences, our interactions with others, and now, researchers say, our bodies. A study appearing August 26 in the journal iScience shows that, when pairs of friends swapped bodies in a perceptual illusion, their beliefs about their own personalities became […]

Peanut butter overtakes jam as our breakfast spread of choice

Peanut butter overtakes jam as our breakfast spread of choice but how healthy is it? Dietitian investigates which jars are worth going nuts for Peanut butter has overtaken jam as our breakfast spread of choice, with sales up Peanuts are high in satiating protein and fibre, and provide fatigue-fighting iron So how healthy are they? Helen […]

SARS-CoV-2 may be exploiting our immune system’s ‘first responder’ cells

The new coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, may be using part of the human body’s own immune response against us, a new study suggests. The novel coronavirus is known to use a keyhole called the ACE2 receptor to “unlock” a cell and get inside, where it replicates and wreaks havoc. Now, researchers have found that the […]

How the coronavirus is putting our relationship with alcohol to the test

It is not surprising to hear that sales of alcohol are rising during this COVID-19 pandemic. Retail sales data for the United Kingdom reported an additional £104 million was spent in the last week of March, which is when lockdown measures were introduced, compared to the week before. Lager is where the greatest spend was […]

Celebrating our genomic diversity: Fine-scale differences in the Japanese population

Geographically isolated from mainland Eurasia, the island nation of Japan has seen little in the way of population mixing for thousands of years. In fact, after two waves of human migration—one 40,000 years ago from Southeast Asia and one 3,000 years ago from the Korean Peninsula—Japanese people are recognized as a relatively homogeneous and isolated […]