CU Boulder Podcasts

Pulling an all-nighter just once can disrupt levels and expression patterns of more than 100 critical proteins in the blood, including those that influence blood sugar, energy metabolism, and immune function, according to new CU Boulder study that asked male participants to live like they worked the night shift for a few days. Researcher Christopher Depner, lead author of the study, says disrupting sleep patterns can very rapidly alter our normal physiology in a way that can be detrimental to our health.

Children raised in a rural environment, surrounded by animals and bacteria-laden dust, grow up to have more stress-resilient immune systems and might be at lower risk of mental illness than pet-free city dwellers, according to new research. The study adds to mounting evidence supporting the "hygiene hypothesis," which theorizes that overly sterile environments can breed health problems, says co-author Christopher Lowry, a professor of integrative physiology at CU Boulder.

You might have heard of the experiment in which children can have one marshmallow now, or wait a few minutes and have two. It’s been used as a test of self-control, and it’s been believed that you either have it or you don’t. But now researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered that social factors can influence children’s self-control.

Sabine Doebel is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at CU Boulder. In her experiment, some children were told they were part of a group that waited for the second marshmallow. Others were told their group didn’t wait and just went for the one marshmallow. The outcomes were different.

New CU Boulder research suggests when a sleeping infant hears a sound, the brain reshapes itself

According to a new CU Boulder study, infants as young as one-month-old show that during sleep their brain is processing information about its environment and performing computations about that information, paving the way to developing pathways for learning, says Phillip Gilley, lead author of the study.

It’s that silly hoax-filled day again when friends and family try to make fools out of each other. That’s right - April Fools’ Day - a day when even lousy pranks seem to be funny.

And there’s a reason for that, says Peter McGraw, an associate professor in marketing and psychology at CU Boulder’s Leeds School of Business. It’s something he calls “benign violations.”

You've heard the commercials.

'Eat this yogurt!'

It's full of probiotics. They're super good for you… more specifically, your gut.

But have you heard of prebiotics? Turns out they might be good for you, too.

Robert Thompson works at the Stress Physiology Laboratory in the Department of Integrative Physiology at CU Boulder.

Thompson's been studying these lesser-known dietary building blocks.

Listen as Thompson describes what prebiotics are and what the study found.

Bright-light before bedtime disrupts preschoolers sleep patterns, study suggests

Exposing preschoolers to bright light before bedtime is not a good idea, according to a new CU Boulder study. It almost completely shuts down their production of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin, keeping it suppressed for at least 50 minutes after light's out, says lead author Lameese Akacem with the Sleep and Development Laboratory.

Camping in the Colorado mountains is a great way to get away from the hustle and bustle of modern life, but it might be more than just a serene campsite that helps us relax. According to a new CU Boulder study, camping, even for a short weekend, can help reset our internal clocks, resulting in better sleep, says Professor Ken Wright, director of CU Boulder's Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory.

With their brains, sleep patterns, and eyes still developing, children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the sleep-disrupting effects of screen time, according to a sweeping review of the literature published today in the journal Pediatrics.

“The vast majority of studies find that kids and teens who consume more screen-based media are more likely to experience sleep disruption,” says first author Monique LeBourgeois, an associate professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder. “With this paper, we wanted to go one step further by reviewing the studies that also point to the reasons why digital media adversely affects sleep.”

Household chemical products refined from petroleum, like cleaners, pesticides, paints and perfumes, now rival automobile emissions as the top source of urban air pollution, according to atmospheric scientist Brian McDonald, lead author of a CU Boulder-NOAA study.