Larissa Govers, BSc When you want to study the effect of a therapeutic intervention, randomisation is the most reliable method to assess the real effect of the intervention. Randomisation is the process of assigning participants or experimental units to a certain treatment in a way that every unit has a known (equal) chance of being assigned to any of the groups. However, the results from these studies could still be biased due to systematic differences. Already from early on in our … [Read more...]

Elisah Geertman If you have seen the movie ‘Joker’ in theatres, there is a big chance you will recognise the card as the one carried around by the film’s main character, Arthur Fleck (better known as The Joker), who suffers from a variety of mental illnesses. One of his conditions causes him to have involuntary and extreme outbursts of (horrifying) laughter at the most inappropriate moments. But what is the real-life condition behind the Joker’s laugh?  The outbursts of laughter displayed … [Read more...]

Mariam Baghdady On November 13 - 15, nearly 300 scientists from all over Europe came together in Nijmegen to share new ideas and innovative approaches in life sciences. The symposium is organised annually by the ENABLE initiative: the European Academy for Biomedical Science. This year, the programme was filled with short talks and post presentations. PhD students from various fields of life sciences shared personal experiences and increased their knowledge. As the editorial board of RAMS we … [Read more...]

Nena Rokx The last couple of months, social media platforms have been focusing on a new type of lifestyle for losing weight and improving overall health: intermittent fasting. Most of the hype has been about the 16/8 method. This method affects the hours of food intake, which is restricted to 8 hours a day. Another popular method of intermittent fasting includes complete fasting for a minimum of one day a week. If desired, you are allowed to eat one meal of a maximum of 25% of your caloric need … [Read more...]

Lia Goltstein We all know that one person who will not touch their food if there is a more exotic ingredient in it. Some individuals even demand that all salad ingredients are put into separate bowls, so they can decide for themselves what is in it. These individuals are fittingly known as picky eaters. Picky eating is characterised by an unwillingness to eat certain familiar foods or to try new foods, as well as having strong food preferences [1]. But how come some individuals will not even … [Read more...]

Mylène Gorissen  As you are probably all aware of, people have a favour for using either their right or their left hand. This is the result of lateralisation (division) of the brain in two hemispheres, with each its own distinct functions. However, what most of you probably are not aware of is that there is also a lateralisation in the way humans carry their new-born children. Decades of research shows that mothers prefer to carry their baby on the left side of their body using their left arm … [Read more...]

Jelmer Raaijmakers Ever wondered how many DNA-containing cells you would need to store the latest Avengers movie on your storage device? The previous sentence might sound really strange to you, but utilizing currently available DNA technologies to store large amounts of data (read “digital data”) might be the future of data storage. Data scientist Goldman was talking with his fellow bioinformaticians in a hotel in Hamburg (Germany) one day when the question popped up: “What is to stop us from … [Read more...]