Scientific news in small doses

A few milligrams of all the scientific news of the week

Eric-Pierre Champagne
The Press

Sleep better, eat less

For people who don’t get enough sleep, adding one to two hours of sleep to their nights would… help you lose weight. This is at least the conclusion of a recent study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. According to research conducted by a team from the University of Chicago, people who sleep 8.5 hours instead of 6.5 hours per night consume 270 fewer calories daily. Further research will be needed to confirm the effectiveness of these practices over a longer period of time. Note, however, that other studies have already established that people who were deprived of sleep tended to eat more and thus gain weight.

Quiz

Does climate change affect the electoral concerns of the public?

The short answer is yes. At least in European countries, where the climate is generally more temperate, according to a study that has just been published in the journal Nature. In these countries, the increase in extreme weather events influences the vote in favor of political parties that promote climate action and environmental protection. The same finding was not as clear in countries with a Mediterranean climate. The results were obtained by crossing data from around thirty European countries.

The number

70%

By 2080, 70% of the oceans could suffer from a lack of oxygen, according to estimates by a team of Chinese researchers whose work was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Due to global warming, the oxygen concentration in the oceans tends to decrease. However, according to this research, new models predict that this deoxygenation should begin to affect all areas of the ocean by 2080. A situation that is likely to have significant consequences for the fishing industry at sea. global scale.

Chewing gum and premature births

Malawi, in southeastern Africa, has the highest proportion of premature births in the world. This country of 21 million inhabitants is also one of the poorest on the planet. An unusual study conducted by a team of American researchers has discovered that chewing gum reduces the risk of premature birth for women in this country. According to the study that was presented at the congress of the American Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, chewing sugar-free gum twice a day would reduce the risk of premature birth from 17% to 13%. One explanation is that women who chewed sugar-free gum were less likely to develop periodontitis, a condition that promotes premature births.

Anthony Fauci, disinformation and social networks

Three reputable scientists continue to be attacked on social media, even though misinformation about them has been proven time and time again. These three scientists are Anthony Fauci, director of the American Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Christian Drosten and Marc Van Ranst, German and Belgian virologists. Avaaz, a non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Madrid, analyzed 85 publications between January and June 2021 that targeted these three specialists with false information. Although they have all been verified and contradicted by several experts, half of these publications are still circulating on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Telegram without the slightest warning for Internet users. These publications have to date obtained more than 1.9 million interactions on these different platforms. Note that a study published in Nature last year reported that of scientists who have spoken publicly about COVID-19, 15% have received death threats.