Author: James Martin

“Our data suggest that caloric intake restriction explained most of the beneficial effects of a time-restricted eating regimen,” according to researchers at Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China.”Bottom line, the determinant of weight loss, as well as reductions in body fat, visceral fat, blood pressure, and glucose and lipid levels, is dependent on reducing calorie intake, regardless of the distribution of food and beverages consumed throughout the day,” said Alice Lichtenstein, director and senior scientist at Tufts University’s Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory, via email. She was not involved in the study.One group was told to limit their daily food intake to…

Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender — the one the person was designated at birth — to their affirmed gender — the gender by which one wants to be known.By one estimate, more than 58,000 transgender youth 13 and older across the US are facing restricted access or proposals, and could soon lose access to gender-affirming care. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate any instances of certain procedures used in such care, on the grounds that…

Placeholder while article actions loadEuropean policymakers reached a deal early Saturday in Brussels on a sweeping new law to force the world’s largest tech companies to more aggressively police their platforms for illegal content, paving the way for one of the most expansive regulations to date to address a broad range of harms caused by social networks, shopping websites and search engines.The legislation, called the Digital Services Act, would impose new transparency obligations on the companies, forcing them to provide information to regulators and outside researchers about how algorithms that control what people see on their sites work. It also…

Placeholder while article actions loadAt the risk of criminal oversimplification, one could look at the last seven decades of U.S. foreign policy as a story of two competing ideas.One, which flowered after the fall of the Soviet Union, is liberalism. Among its tenets is that America benefits if it spreads its values across the globe and is willing to use its economic and military power where liberty, sovereignty and universal rights are threatened. This school brought us the good (Ukraine, at least for now), the bad (the 2003 Iraq invasion) and the ugly (Kosovo in the late 1990s). There are various factions…

Placeholder while article actions loadWe know the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the U.S. workforce forever. What we don’t know for sure is how the changes will play out. Some are accelerations of trends that began around the time of the financial crisis in 2008 or earlier, while others were directly inspired by the pandemic. Still others were temporary dislocations that will revert. But it’s anyone’s guess which changes are which.Rather than focusing on current numbers that are confusing, we may get a clearer picture by looking at trends in college enrollment. These represent decisions made by individuals today considering their…

Placeholder while article actions loadNorth Korean hackers who last month carried out one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts ever are still laundering their haul more than a week after they were identified as the thieves.The cybercriminals’ continued access to the money, more than $600 million stolen from the Axie Infinity video game, underscores the limits of law enforcement’s ability to stop the flow of illicit cryptocurrency across the globe. The hackers are still moving their loot, most recently about $4.5 million worth of the Ethereum currency on Friday, according to data from cryptocurrency tracking site Etherscan — eight days after…

Placeholder while article actions loadWhen Americans were confronted with the worst pandemic in more than a century, they reacted in some surprising ways. One was to order lots of chicken wings.U.S. same-store sales at Wingstop Inc., a chain with a strong takeout and delivery game even before Covid-19, rose 31.9% in the second quarter of 2020 over the same period a year earlier, and 21.4% for the full year. As other fast-food purveyors and new-style “ghost kitchens” got in on the wings action, wholesale chicken wing prices more than doubled in 12 months.As Josh Dzieza of The Verge summed up in an fascinating article on…

Placeholder while article actions loadSavers are about to learn one painful and one surprising lesson about interest rates and banks.First, just because the Federal Reserve is raising rates doesn’t mean the rate investors earn on their cash will rise as much — if at all. In fact, the financial repression in the form of zero rates suffered for more than a dozen years by those who are ultra conservative with their savings isn’t going away soon. Second, banks don’t want your money. Understanding these dynamics why will go a long way toward explaining why the stock market and other riskier assets may…

Placeholder while article actions loadBest Buy is recalling 772,000 air fryers and air fryer ovens in the United States and Canada after more than 100 reports of them burning, melting or catching fire, safety regulators announced.The 104 incidents involving the retailer’s Insignia brand included seven reports of minor property damage and two injuries, including to a child’s leg, according to a notice Thursday from the Consumer Product Safety Commission.Air fryers, which can be used to quickly cook food without the preheating time of an oven or the oily mess that can come from traditional frying, have grown in popularity in…

A federal court judge in Florida said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had overstepped its authority in requiring masks on public transportation, a mandate that legal experts considered well within the bounds of the agency’s charge to prevent the spread of covid-19 across the nation.The CDC said late Wednesday that it had asked the Department of Justice to appeal the decision — a move the DOJ left up to the agency. That will put the issue before one of the nation’s most conservative-leaning appellate courts, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.Public health experts worry the ruling, unless…