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18th Jan 2009
Obesity in Your Genes
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Is obesity in your genes? This week we find out how hormones, genetics and even your mother's diet contribute to your chances of becoming obese and succumbing to obesity-related diseases. We also take a look into the surgical way to lose weight fast - liposuction, figure out how the lengths of your fingers predicts your financial prowess and uncover a new source of antibiotics from the sea. Plus, is there life on Mars? We talk with the NASA scientist who recently discovered methane on the red planet to find out what this might mean, and in a fruity edition of Kitchen Science we explore the wobbly chemistry of jelly!
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News
The length of your fingers determines whether you've got the Midas touch...
Scientists have revealed this week that the relative lengths of a persons' fingers can predict money-making ability on the financial markets. Cambridge University Judge Business School researcher John Coates and his ...
As you can read in any paper, there are big problems today with hospital-acquired infections – people picking up nasty bugs in hospital – along with antibiotic resistance, meaning we have fewer weapons in our fight against bacteria. So the search is on for new antibiotics.Now scientists at the unive...
A new discovery has shed light on the mechanism by which joints are damaged by rheumatoid arthritis, scientists announced this week.
Writing in this week's edition of the journal PLoS Medicine Barts and the London Medical school researcher Constantino Pitzalis and his colleagues collected samples f...
Post-natal depression affects a significant proportion of new mothers. Some studies suggest one in twenty may be affected, while others show it could be as high as one in four. Not only can this be a problem for the mother, but it can also have an impact on her child and its care, and in the worst c...
Questions
Do the growth hormones given to animals have an effect on human obesity?
We put this to Professor Steve Bloom:
Growth hormone makes your muscles grow and burns up fat. In fact it will reduce your pot belly so it’s quite useful in that way. There is a slight disadvantage which is also causes tumours to grow, being growth hormone. Your chances of getting cancer, particularly cancer of the prostate are somewhat increased. I’m afraid I can’t really recommend it.
Is midriff fat worse than other fat?
We put this to Professor Lucilla Poston:
It certainly is. One of the best evidence that central fat is the worst sort of fat is telling us that’s bad news. The reason is there are probably different fat depots in the body and they produce different chemicals. The ones produced by the fat around the midriff are probably the most damaging in relation to cardiovascular risk.
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Interviews
Scientists have discovered methane on Mars, which comes and goes with the seasons. Could this be evidence of methanogenic bacteria beneath the surface of the red planet?
Obesity is a huge problem, but what makes us obese? Steve Bloom joins us from Imperial College London to explain why our obesogenic environment is causing us trouble...
Liposuction may be the easiest way to lose weight quickly, though it's an expensive option. But how does it really work, and is it as healthy as losing weight the longwinded way?
Are overweight parents more likely to have obese children? It could be that a mother's diet has lifelong influence on a child's likelihood of becoming obese, or developing obesity related diseases...
Kitchen Science
Find an excuse for a party, make some party food, and find out why some kinds of fruit work in jelly and others don't!
QotW
Petrified wood is a type of fossil, but some claim to have seen wooden fence posts that have already become petrified. Is it scientifically possible for wood to fossilise in such a short period? We ask how petrified wood is formed, and what exactly does it consist of?
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