Later school times benefit adolescent health. Dark chocolate is good for the heart. No link found between violence in movies and video games and violence in society. Those were among the most popular science stories of 2014.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science has chosen those and a number of others as the most popular, most read and most shared science stories of the year, based on the public response to scientific news releases posted on EurekAlert!, the AAAS's science news service.
Releases on EurekAlert! come from peer-reviewed journals and accredited research facilities around the world.
Health science dominated the year's science news, the AAAS says, with 6 items about research on the brain, intoxication, sleep, environmental health impacts and HIV among the top 10 items.
Two items on how genome sequencing allowed the identification of new species took spots on the list, it said.
Among the popular items:
- "Study finds later school start times improve sleep and daytime functioning in adolescents," on research that found sleep deprivation is having potentially serious impacts on adolescents' mental and physical health, safety and learning, and that early school start times were contributing to the problem.
- "New research sheds light on how the body regulates fundamental neuro-hormone," describing the discovery of a previously unidentified body mechanism regulating a hormone linked to motivation, response to stress, and control of appetite, pain and blood pressure.
- "Why dark chocolate is good for your heart," describing how dark chocolate can restore the flexibility of arteries and prevent white blood cells from stick the blood vessel wall. Both -- arterial stiffness and sticking blood cells -- have been known as factors in developing atherosclerosis, narrowing of arteries by fat deposits.
- "No link found between movie, video game violence and societal violence," reporting on a study which found no correlations between violence in media and actual violence rates in society.
- "Virginia Tech scientist proposes revolutionary naming system for all life on Earth," describing a new biological naming convention that would name and classify organisms based on their genome sequence, in an effort to formulate a universal language that would allow scientist to communicate with each other about life on Earth with a new and welcome specificity.
The top 10 EurekAlert! releases in 2014 received a total of more then 1.2 millions views, the AAAS said.
