Researchers have found that central body fat, especially around the abdomen, is more strongly linked to psoriasis risk than total body fat, particularly in women. This link between central fat and psoriasis remained consistent regardless of genetic predisposition, indicating that abdominal fat is an independent risk factor.The study in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, published by Elsevier, provides insights that could help improve early risk prediction and guide personalized prevention strategies. Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin condition that can have a significant impact on quality of life. Many individuals with psoriasis also have elevated levels of body fat. While…

A research team led by Prof. Si-Young Choi from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Semiconductor Engineering at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) has discovered ferroelectric phenomena occurring at a subatomic scale in the natural mineral Brownmillerite, in collaboration with Prof. Jae-Kwang Lee’s team from Pusan National University as well as Prof. Woo-Seok Choi’s team from Sungkyunkwan University. The research was published on May 20 in Nature Materials. Electronic devices store data in memory units called ‘domains,’ whose minimum size limits the density of stored information. However, ferroelectric-based memory has been facing challenges…

What’s the best thing on my phone? The Merlin Bird ID app. It listens and tells you (with reasonable accuracy) what birds are around you. Recently I heard someone singing who I didn’t immediately recognize, but I thought sounded fluty and musical, like a thrush. Merlin agreed: Swainson’s thrush, a new bird for me. In the olden days, my family had LPs of bird songs. If you listened to it, you’d hear the man’s voice saying the name of the bird, the bird singing, then the name of the next bird, its song, and so forth. I am sure there…

Learning to play music by ear is challenging for most musicians, but research from a team at the University of Waterloo may help musicians-in-training find the right notes. The Waterloo team analyzed a range of YouTube videos that focused on learning music by ear and identified four simple ways music learning technology can better aid prospective musicians — helping people improve recall while listening, limiting playback to small chunks, identifying musical subsequences to memorize, and replaying notes indefinitely. “There are a lot of apps and electronic tools out there to help learn by ear from recorded music,” said Christopher Liscio,…