Consistently exercising 2–3 times a week over the long term is linked to a lower current risk of insomnia as well as the ability to clock up the recommended 6–9 hours of shut-eye every night, suggests an international 10-year study published in the open access journal BMJ Open.

Regular exercise is associated with better overall health, and several studies have suggested that physical activity promotes better quality sleep and may improve symptoms of chronic insomnia, note the researchers.

But it’s not entirely clear how much gender, age, weight (BMI), overall fitness, general health, and exercise type contribute to this association, they add.

To explore this further, the researchers assessed the frequency, duration, and intensity of weekl...

Aston University researchers have sent data at a speed that is 4.5 million times faster than the average home broadband. The rate is the fastest ever sent by opening up specific new wavelength bands that are not yet used in fiber optic systems.

As part of an international collaboration, the academics transferred data at a rate of 301 terabits or 301,000,000 megabits per second, using a single, standard optical fiber.

That’s compared to Ofcom’s UK home broadband performance report published in September 2023, which stated that the average broadband speed is just 69.4 Mbit/s megabits per second.

Professor Wladek Forysiak from Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies and Dr...

Dr. Marcin Glowacki, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Western Australia, led the research, which aimed to study the star-forming gas in a single radio galaxy.

Although the team didn’t find any star-forming gas in the galaxy they were studying, Dr. Glowacki instead discovered other galaxies while inspecting the data.

In total, the gas of 49 galaxies was detected. Dr Glowacki said this was a great example of how fantastic an instrument like MeerKAT is for finding the star-forming gas in galaxies.

“I did not expect to find almost fifty new galaxies in such a short time,” he said.

“By implementing different techniques for finding galaxies, which are used for other MeerKAT surveys, we were able to detect all...

New research from scientists at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford University has identified a key driver of myelination, the formation of protective fatty sheaths around nerve fibers.

Myelination is essential for the rapid transmission of electrical signals in the brain, facilitating everything from movement to thought. The breakdown or loss of this myelin sheath, as seen in conditions like multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases, leads to significant cognitive and physical impairments.

The new findings have researchers excited about the potential for new avenues of treatment to regrow these insulating sheaths i...