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[ad_1] Sleep quality in older adults could, thus, potentially be enhanced by optimising home thermal environments. (Image: Shutterstock) The researchers thus monitored sleep duration, efficiency, and restlessness over an extended period within participants’ homes Ambient night-time temperature for older adults to have a restful sleep should be between 20 and 25 degrees Celsius, according to newly published research. Further, sleep efficiency in older adults, aged 65 years or above, was found to drop by 5-10 per cent as the ambient night-time bedroom temperature rose to 30 degrees Celsius, the study found, despite substantial differences among the individuals studied. A lowered sleep quality in the long term has been linked with cognitive decline and dementia in older adults, along with impacting their mood by making them irritable and less productive during the day. Sleep quality in older adults could, thus, potentially be enhanced by optimising home thermal environments. The stud...

[ad_1] The actual number of each particle released by microwaving depended on multiple factors. (Representative Image: Shutterstock) The researchers suspect that kidney cells might be more susceptible to the particles than other cell types examined in prior research Microwaving plastic food containers can release billions of small toxic plastic particles, according to a study. The researchers found that microwaving plastic baby food containers released over two billion nanoplastics and four million microplastics for every square centimetre of container in some cases. The study, published recently in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, also found that three-quarters of cultured embryonic kidney cells had died after two days of being introduced to those same particles. ”It is really important to know how many micro- and nano-plastics we are taking in,” said Kazi Albab Hussain, the study’s lead author and a doctoral student at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, US. ”...