Blogs / Discoblog

In case you still needed a reason to skip that Hardees triple deluxe burger: a new study has found that women with waists larger than 35 inches have a 79% greater chance of dying prematurely than those with a waist that measures 28 inches or less, regardless of whether the woman is obese or overweight. The Los Angeles Times writes that, according to the report, “[w]omen with the largest waists had twice the risk of dying of cardiovascular disease—even if their weight was normal—and a 63% greater chance of dying of cancer compared with women with smaller waists.”

The data, gathered by researchers at Harvard University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, consisted of 44,636 women at an average age of around 50, who were tracked over a period of 16 years. At the beginning, participants recorded their hip and waist measurements, and every two years they answered questionnaires about their health. Over the course of the study, 3,507 women died, with 1,748 succumbing to cancer and 751 to heart disease.

(more…)

We here at DiscoBlog would like to introduce the Weekly Science Blog Roundup, in which we bring you the best news from around the sci-blogosphere. Here are some links for this week:

• A group of Japanese researchers discovers that daisies may contain a chemical cocktail that lowers triglycerides in mice. Watch for The Daisy Diet to hit shelves soon.

• If Tom Cruise came out, would it put a dent in homophobia? Perhaps, according to new research showing that exposure to celebrities identified as gay or lesbian decreased the test subjects’ bias.

• Finnish glass plant specializes in making drinking glasses out of recycled beer bottles. The real trick? They’ve never been crushed.

• Discovery of ancient human feces in Oregon cave results in samples of the oldest DNA ever found in the Americas.

• Five of the biggest technological inventions in the history of music.