Eighty nine students had five minutes to prepare a speech for a panel they were told would judge them. The ones who coached themselves by name came out in better shape, and blind coders scored their speeches higher.
One twin stirred plant fiber into her drink each morning. The other got a dummy powder. Twelve weeks later their memory scores had parted, and the muscle test the trial was built for had not budged.
Can a candle do the smell trick? Does the blood pressure trial apply if your numbers are fine? Does a treadmill desk count? And should you give up the plunge?
Twenty one trained men lifted for twelve weeks. The ones who cycled gently afterwards grew their quadriceps 15%. The ones who sat in cold water grew 2%.
Then a human one came free, and he took it. A pig heart trial has clearance. A lab-grown blood vessel is already on the shelf. Plus the ten second test that predicts a lot.
Forty eight students faced a blank wall on a treadmill and named uses for everyday objects. Walking answers ran about 60% ahead of sitting, and the lift stayed on after they sat back down.
A trial of 9,361 people came up short on dementia. Then 326 Chinese villages ran the same idea for four years with trained neighbours, and the count came back 15% lower.
A smell in the room can lift what your brain keeps overnight. A click on a slow brain wave does far less than it did ten years ago. And in four countries, six sleepers answered questions without waking up.
Four questions in focus this week, drawn from the last fortnight of issues and answered straight from the papers. Every answer is held to what the trials can actually carry.
One trial in thirteen men of 74 gave the rule its name. Then 23 studies were pooled, and the timing effect vanished as soon as total daily protein was held level.
A drug that takes the brake off bone growth, a knee patch that still holds at five years, and a tendon headline that turns out to be rabbits. Plus the twice weekly session that put bone back on in 101 women.
Fifty one ordinary people trained one old trick for thirty minutes a day. Six weeks on they had more than doubled their recall, and their brain wiring had moved toward that of memory champions.
One sleepless night in Germany gave a big single dose and got solid numbers back. The everyday case is thinner. The pooled memory gain did not survive its own authors' recount, except in adults of 66 to 76.
A volunteer imagines a four word password, and only then will the decoder read the sentences they imagine on cue. Free-form thought stays out of reach. Three labs are pulling speech off the cortex, and one of them has run at home for two years.
Does the four hour gap work backwards, what carries flavanols if you skip tea, is a hearing test worth it at 58, and could that eye chip help your mother. Mailbag day, with the source under every answer.
A gene put into the ear, a chip the size of a grain of rice under the retina, and a leg that answers to the nervous system. Plus the free move with the biggest trial behind it.
Seventy two people learned the same 90 pairs. The ones who rode a bike four hours afterwards held onto more of it two days on, and the ones who rode straight away did not.
In one small trial the lead scientist said a 60-year-old memory came to test like a 40-year-old. Then a trial almost a hundred times bigger found the gain only in people who were short to begin with.
A drug that reopens a learning window, a nerve paired with practice, and a beam of sound aimed through the skull. Plus the free trick that beat rereading by 21 points.
Thirteen trials pooled into one answer: a warm bath at the right hour shortens the wait for sleep by about ten minutes. The reason is a thermostat under your skin.
An antibody, a pill and a pair of robotic shorts are all chasing the same prize. One arm curl a day, three seconds long, already delivers a slice of it.