Larissa Govers, BSc Not a day goes by that you are not confronted with coronavirus, albeit on the news, as a joke or because you got an email about it from your employer. The world is currently completely captivated by this disease, which shows symptoms such as cough, dyspnea fever and bilateral lung infiltrates [1]. But here I wonder, why does a flu-like disease have the ability to affect the global economic growth, while other diseases with significantly higher burdens get by unnoticed? For … [Read more...]

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...]