Features - The Malaysian Insider

Sarah the cheetah, world’s fastest land mammal, dies

An Ohio zoo said on Thursday that Sarah, a cheetah designated the world's fastest land mammal by National Geographic magazine in 2012, has died at the age of 15. The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical...

British vets warn against throwing sticks for dogs

British vets on Wednesday warned against throwing sticks for dogs to chase, saying that thousands of pets every year impale themselves or get dangerous infections from biting into the...

Improving preschoolers’ memory skills can help them succeed at school

A recent Canadian study, published in the journal Intelligence, has found that improving preschoolers' memory skills may contribute to their success at school. The research suggests that using...

Physical therapy no help for Parkinson’s patients, study says

Routinely assigning people with mild to moderate Parkinson's disease to physical or occupational therapy offers no improvement to their quality of life, said a British study out Tuesday. The...

Study finds famous fairy tales are thousands of years old

Fairy tales such as "Beauty And The Beast" are much older than previously thought and actually thousands of years old, academics found in research published on Wednesday. Their analysis...

Study quantifies faulty gene’s role in ovarian cancer risk

Women who carry an inherited fault in the BRIP1 gene are three times more likely to develop ovarian cancer than those without it, researchers said on Tuesday. The gene variant had already been...

Expecting mothers should eat omega-3 and -6 for child’s development

The health benefits of fish as a rich source of omega-3 are already well known, but a new Japanese study has now found further evidence to suggest that ensuring adequate consumption of omega-3...

Students think best on their feet, says new study

It seems that the expression "thinking on your feet" might have some scientific evidence behind it, with a new American study finding that students who stand rather than sit in the classroom are...

Training taste buds to detect fat could help fight obesity

A team of researchers think they may have found a new method to help combat the rising levels of obesity, by training taste buds to be more sensitive to the taste of fat. A team of sensory...

Sound of your voice can affect your mood

A study from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) journal, has found that we are unaware of our...

Art and the empowerment of women in Nepal

A black, rugged mountain ridge stands silhouetted against a white sky. This stark landscape could easily be mistaken as an alien world, but it's actually a photo taken by Malaysian photographer...

Study links food allergies to hyperactive immune system at birth

An Australian study, published this week in Science Translational Medicine, establishes a link between food allergies and an overactive immune system at birth. The findings could help scientists...

Food advertising associated with increased eating in children

A Yale University study has found more evidence to support the claims that food advertising has a strong influence on the eating behaviour of children, particularly when it comes to junk...

A fragmented reflection, SonaOne and me

“The more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it gets.” – Vladimir Nabokov. Eminent emcee SonaOne’s latest single, “Firefly”, has set the Malaysian charts aglow as it fluttered to...

Is happiness in your DNA?

Happiness is a state of mind, the gurus say. Well, actually, it could be more a function of genes, the authors of an unusual scientific study asserted on Thursday. Nations whose inhabitants...

Blueberries, citrus fruits, red wine can help reduce erectile dysfunction

A new collaborative study between Harvard University in the US and the University of East Anglia in the UK has found that a diet full of flavonoid-rich foods can help reduce the risk of erectile...

The decades-long quest to cure cancer

US President Barack Obama's announcement of a “moonshot” bid to cure cancer, continues a centuries-long quest to defeat a disease which kills over eight million people every year. Cancer...

Mid-life crisis just myth, says new study

New research released this week challenges the long-held belief that our happiness levels hit a low point in middle age, causing us to embark on a spending spree of sports cars as part of the...

Hookah tobacco smoke contains more toxins than cigarette smoke

New research has found that smoking tobacco from hookahs, the traditionally Middle-Eastern pipes that involve drawing tobacco smoke through water before being inhaled, causes the user to inhale a...

Sugary soft drinks associated with higher visceral fat, says research

According to new research published in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation, drinking sugary soft drinks every day can increase a type of fat in the body associated with diabetes...