This Week in Science: Fussy Cats, Ghostly Sounds, And Much More!

This week in science: Why your cat won't eat; a possible explanation for why some places feel haunted; a simulated end of the Universe; and much more!

Scientists Reveal The Optimal Amount of Sleep to Lower Dementia Risk

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A major review study has pinpointed the optimal amount of sleep to reduce your dementia risk: seven to eight hours per night.

In addition, the researchers found that prolonged sitting (more than eight hours a day) and a lack of physical activity (less than 150 minutes a week) were also linked to a significant increase in the chances of getting dementia.

Read the full story here.

Scientists Discover Why Cats Suddenly Stop Eating Their Food

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New experiments have revealed that cats stop eating not because they're full, but because they're bored of their food. They like variety.

In experiments, scientists observed that when the cats repeatedly received the same food, their intake progressively decreased, regardless of the food.

Conversely, the cats ate more when they were presented with six sequentially different food choices.

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Popular Supplement May Have an Unexpected Downside, Study Finds

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Fish oil supplements may not be as universally beneficial as we thought. A new study suggests too much can affect brain repair after injury.

"This idea of fish oil being a one-size-fits-all benefit doesn't work once you start investigating interactions," says neuroscientist Onur Eskiocak, from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

"But that doesn't mean it's bad for you."

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Hidden Phenomenon Could Explain Why Old Buildings Feel Haunted, Study Finds

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Some supposedly paranormal activity could be explained by sounds just below the range of human hearing, which induce feelings of dread.

"In an old building, there is a good chance that infrasound is present, particularly in basements where aging pipes and ventilation systems produce low-frequency vibrations," says Rodney Schmaltz, a psychologist at MacEwan University in Canada.

"If you were told the building was haunted, you might attribute that agitation to something supernatural. In reality, you may simply have been exposed to infrasound."

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Common Gout Medications Linked to Lower Risk of Heart Attack And Stroke

Gout causes severe soreness in body joints. (Sebastian Kaulitzki/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)

Patients who take allopurinol to control their gout symptoms have a nine percent lower risk of heart attack or stroke, according to new research.

"This is the first study to find that medicines such as allopurinol that are used to treat gout reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke if they are taken at the right dose," says rheumatologist Abhishek Abhishek, from the University of Nottingham in the UK.

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Physicists Simulated a Quantum Process That Could End The Universe

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A phenomenon called 'false vacuum decay' could be how the Universe ends – and physicists in China have now simulated it in a lab.

The experiment doesn't directly tell us anything new about false vacuum decay, but it does confirm theoretical predictions about how it would play out. Maybe one day it will also tell us how worried we need to be about the Universe as we know it suddenly transforming into something else entirely.

Read the full story here.