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It’s winter, so many of us will be bringing out, or buying, winter bedding. But how much of a difference does your bedding make to your thermal comfort? Can a particular textile help you sleep? Is it wool, or other natural fibres, such as cotton? How about polyester? With so much choice, it’s easy to be confused. Here’s what we found when we reviewed the evidence – not just for winter, but also for the summer ahead. The importance of bedding We rely on our bedding to maintain a comfortable temperature to help us sleep. And the right textiles can help regulate our body temperature and wick away moisture from sweat, promoting better ...... Read Full article on HadNews

The United States has the largest philanthropic sector in the world. Foundations and similar grantmakers have US$1.5 trillion in assets and disburse more than $100 billion annually to everything from hospitals and museums to making communities more walkable and improving care at the end of life. Many foundations task in-house and outside communications experts with helping the public learn about their grantmaking and its impact. And yet polling indicates that few people know what foundations do or how philanthropy affects their lives. We are communications scholars who research ways that organizations seeking to bring about social cha...... Read Full article on HadNews

Middle-aged Americans are lonelier than their European counterparts. That’s the key finding of my team’s recent study, published in American Psychologist. Our study identified a trend that has been evolving for multiple generations, and affects both baby boomers and Gen Xers. Middle-aged adults in England and Mediterranean Europe are not that far behind the U.S. In contrast, middle-aged adults in continental and Nordic Europe reported the lowest levels of loneliness and stability over time. We used survey data drawn from over 53,000 middle-aged adults from the U.S. and 13 European nations from 2002 to 2020. We tracked their reported ...... Read Full article on HadNews

Tuberculosis is the world’s deadliest bacterial infection. It afflicted over 10 million people and took 1.3 million lives in 2022. These numbers are predicted to increase dramatically because of the spread of multidrug-resistant TB. Why does one TB patient recover from the infection while another succumbs? And why does one drug work in one patient but not another, even if they have the same disease? People have been battling TB for millennia. For example, researchers have found Egyptian mummies from 2400 BCE that show signs of TB. While TB infections occur worldwide, the countries with the highest number of multidrug-resistant TB cases are...... Read Full article on HadNews

Probiotics have been getting a lot of attention recently. These bacteria, which you can consume from fermented foods, yogurt or even pills, are linked to a number of health and wellness benefits, including reducing gastrointestinal distress, urinary tract infections and eczema. But can they improve your mood, too? Behavior and mental health are complicated. But the short answer, according to my team’s recently published research, is likely yes. The beneficial bacteria in probiotics become part of a community of other microscopic organisms living in your digestive system called the gut microbiome. Your gut microbiome contains trillions...... Read Full article on HadNews

Teachers across the country are grappling with whether to view AI tools like ChatGPT as friend or foe in the classroom. My research shows that the answer isn’t always simple. It can be both. Teaching students to be creative thinkers rather than rely on AI for answers is the key to answering this question. That’s what my team and I found in our study on whether AI affects student creativity, published in the Journal of Creativity and representing scholars from the University of South Carolina, the University of California, Berkeley and Emerson College. In the study, we asked college students to brainstorm – without technology – all th...... Read Full article on HadNews