Most calories burnt during late afternoon
Researchers have found that people burn 10 percent more calories in the late afternoon and early evening than in the morning. This study reinforces the role circadian rhythm plays in regulating metabolism and also sheds light on why those who have irregular sleep schedules are more likely to gain weight. Participants in the study burned the fewest resting calories late in the biological night, when people experience a drop in their body temperature. Energy expenditure was highest about 12 hours later, in the biological afternoon and evening.
Tiny pacemakers to do away with big surgeries on babies?
If a new prototype miniature pacemaker reaches commercialisation stage, infants receiving pacemakers may not require open-chest surgery. With the new prototype, only a single small incision would be required; this would mean shorter surgeries that are less painful with faster recovery. The device is about a cubic centimetre in size and to implant it a 1-cm incision is made just below the rib cage, from which a two-channel access port (kind of a double-barrelled tube) is temporarily inserted into. An endoscopic camera is then fed up one of those channels, going to the heart,while the pacemaker’s electrical lead wire goes up the other.
