Today in Research: Sitting Around Too Much Can Cause Cancer; More

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Discovered: people stuck in a cramped space for 520 days can get along, no song is really good to perform CPR to, aged mice may be living longer, and everyone sits around too much.

  • Everyone is probably sitting too much for their own good. By now, we should know that sitting at your cubicle all day is pretty unhealthy -- not that there's much that a mostly office-bound person could do with this information. Today, "sitting around" got a little worse for you: "More than 90,000 new cancer cases a year in the United States may be due to physical inactivity and prolonged periods of sitting, a new analysis shows," USA Today reported, noting that the estimate is "conservative." What's the rule on getting up to take a break? "If you've sat for an hour, you've probably sat too long," said one professor to the newspaper. Really, only an hour? [USA Today]
  • A few lucky, scientifically-modified mice may be living a bit longer. The hope, of course, is that the process by which researchers used a drug to kill aging cells in mice that have stopped dividing could one day be accomplished with humans, The Wall Street Journal reported. After being treated, the researchers found "a 'quite dramatic delay' in the development of cataracts and age-related changes to muscle and fat." Which is great for these rodents -- which, we'd guess, feel a little whiplash since "the team used mice designed to age faster than normal." [The Wall Street Journal]

Read the full story at The Atlantic Wire.

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