Developing adaptable brain-body systems lets athletes thrive beyond 30

Strength training appears to make for a healthier, youthful-looking brain

A study from 2025 links having higher amounts of muscle with a more youthful-looking brain age. Scientists analyzed data from more than 1,100 healthy adults around their mid-50s after they underwent full-body MRIs, comparing muscle, fat, and brain age appearances from the scans.Their findings link strength training and controlling visceral fat with improved brain health. The research didn't tease apart why this benefit occurs.

How endurance athletes can build resilience

Long-distance runners and other endurance athletes can improve their performances using tips explored in this article. Findings from two recent studies show that strength training, high-altitude training, and intense interval sessions are all potential methods for ameliorating long-term athletic capabilities.

Can humans delay or reverse old age?

We're not sure yet. Researchers at the University of California San Francisco are studying why some conditions and behaviors, such as low-oxygen environments and exercise, benefit the aging process, hoping to reveal potential health applications. Some of this research focuses on klotho, a naturally occurring age-regulating hormone named after the Greek Fate Clotho. Animal studies on klotho brain injections found subjects had improved memory recall and age-related degeneration resistance.

How aging degrades neural functioning in the brain over time

Aging affects the brain perhaps more than any other organ in the body. Throughout life, the brain experiences radical shifts in the number of neurons, synaptic connections between neurons, and hormone levels that regulate our mood and processing.

Optimal human functioning requires movement

There is now ample evidence to back the centuries-old hypothesis that exercise is critical to human health. This review article explores the latest discoveries in exercise science, including how exercise is intrinsic to maintaining our organ systems throughout life.

The formula behind super agers—those possessing health and cognitive skills of people decades younger

A study of about 1,400 super agers did not identify any underlying genetic mechanism for longevity. While researchers instead emphasized that sustainable habits involving positive social connections, sleep, mood, diet, exercise, and personal fulfillment help reduce long-term risks, there is no one-size-fits-all formula for everyone.

Mental health experts caution against youth sports betting

People in their early 20s represent the fastest-growing group of sports gamblers. That fact concerns mental health professionals, who warn that early exposure to gaming primes children’s brains to seek digital rewards.

Inside entrepreneur Bryan Johnson's race to live forever

Created by entrepreneur Bryan Johnson in 2022, the Rejuvenation Olympics asks participants to find ways, including exercise and dietary supplements, to slow their biological aging. But some of these tactics are extreme in cost or nature—such as Johnson's regular injections of blood from his teenage son.

Microtears in muscles from exercise cause fibers to grow back larger

Placing muscle under increased load or stress causes damage that requires rest to repair, leading to stronger, more enduring muscle over time. Muscles adapt to such increasing demands by improving their efficiency with approaches that include increasing the number of mitochondria housed in hundreds of thousands of muscle cells.

Olympians view sleep as a performance tool, prioritizing routine and environment

Elite athletes emphasize consistent sleep routines, dark and cool environments, the well-placed nap, and tools like eye masks, white noise machines, and supplements like melatonin (particularly for jet lag). This priority belies a core principle: recovery and performance are inseparable. Read more ways Olympians "sleepmaxx" here.

Repeated head injuries can lead to CTE and early dementia

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a progressive neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated trauma to the head. The condition has become a particular concern in sports like football and soccer, from youth to professional leagues, where repeated low-level concussive events are likely.

Ten writers and thinkers on what growing older actually requires of us

The Marginalian's Maria Popova curates a collection arguing our culture has learned to dread aging while forgetting it is a privilege, and that the antidote is sustaining passions strong enough to keep us from turning inward. Voices include Simone de Beauvoir, Joan Didion, Pablo Casals, and Kahlil Gibran.

The biology of stress in your body

Stress is a normal human response that has evolved over millions of years to handle changes or threats in our environment. This article is a helpful overview of the biological basics of this response. While it is not harmful to our physiology in the acute setting, chronic stress can lead to damaging changes in the human body over many years.

Stem cells can reboot the ability of cells to repair themselves

Stem cells—special cells that can self-renew and evolve into new cell types—may provide a path to address aging. Instead of repairing aging cells, stem cells can replace a cell's "repair kit," effectively rebooting the internal processes of tissues to a more youthful state.

Research advances suggest death takes much longer than we realized

Recent research indicates that organs, including the brain, are better at handling a lack of oxygen after the heart stops beating than previously known. Such findings may open up possibilities that include someday reversing certain death processes and expanding the availability of organs available for organ donations. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

What happens to your brain when you burn out?

You've probably heard of burnout, also known as the feeling of exhaustion that happens after a long period of being overwhelmed or stressed. It's often associated with work and careers, but other parts of life, like parenting, can cause burnout, too. Scientists are figuring out what happens, biochemically speaking, in the brain when burnout hits—and spoiler alert, it includes a neurotransmitter called glutamate. Watch this video to learn more.

Modern bodybuilding evolved in the 19th century

The origins of modern progressive resistance exercise are traced to ancient Greece, where a repeat Olympic victor carried a calf every day until it grew into a full-sized ox. This 56-minute comedy and history podcast journeys through the rise of modern bodybuilding, which took off during the 19th century.

'Adversity, if you allow it to, will fortify you and make you the best you can be.'

-American beach volleyball star Kerri Walsh Jennings (1978-present)

People learned to fly in VR, and their brains then accepted wings as body parts

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts. The brain research has potential implications for how VR training may help people adapt to prostheses. (Free with email.)

Some athletes warm up with equipment from other sports

Baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani uses a cricket bat; his teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto throws a javelin. Quarterback CJ Stroud shoots free throws. The reasons are partially physical (it's good to exercise different parts of your body) and partially mental (it's nice to take the pressure off with someone else's game).

F1 drivers today are in peak physical shape

Formula 1 drivers today are in top physical condition, with reaction times on par with Olympic sprinters and strength programs specifically for their neck to withstand the immense g-forces experienced in racing.

Early-onset Alzheimer's can appear as early as age 30

Drugs recently approved to slow the progression of Alzheimer's appear to work best when administered as early as possible. Early stages are marked by a low buildup of tau, a protein experts believe clumps into misfolded, neuron-disrupting tangles once clusters of another protein—amyloid beta—have already started causing damage.

The gray area that makes PEDs seem like leveling up to hardcore athletes

Doping in sports is broadly condemned as unsafe and unfair. Significant controversies in major sports, including baseball and cycling, have been prompted by the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs, which are described as clear-cut dangers and abuses of the rules. But to many competitors, the line between a PED and the next smart technique to adopt is unclear. This podcast episode explores that gray reality.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

Social support plays a critical role in recovery from addiction

This engaging TEDx talk from addiction researcher Jacki Hillios explores addiction recovery through a transformative lens and Phoenix Multisport—an innovative program helping people rebuild their lives through active lifestyles. By living out its core message that people are not defined by their disease, the program demonstrates the power of social support in recovery.

How psychedelics can potentially reinvent learning

Critical periods, discovered in the early 20th century, describe a period when someone is incredibly sensitive to their environment, and any information learned can stick with them for life. Some researchers argue these states can be "reopened" via psychedelics, which put the mind into a malleable state that can potentially be used to treat conditions ranging from lazy eyes to PTSD.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

In recent years a child anxiety expert has created and tested a novel phobia and anxiety treatment approach for children, focused on changing how parents respond to the fears.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

Tattoos remain visible on your skin thanks to immune cells called macrophages

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

Apeirophobia is an overwhelming fear of living forever, perhaps stemming from the brain's inability to conceptualize an infinite life.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Fish populations in the Great Barrier Reef have increased after installing waterproof speakers on the ocean floor that played recordings of sounds from healthy coral reefs.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

Poison ivy will likely become both larger and more resilient due to climate change.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

Brandi Chastain, the star of the 1999 US victory over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup, was a last-second choice to take the penalty kick that sealed the victory.

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.