Trends in overweight and obesity by socioeconomic status in Year 6 school children, Australian Capital Territory, 2006-2018.

Background: Due to the high prevalence and adverse consequences, overweight and obesity in children continues to be a major public health concern worldwide. Socioeconomic background and health-related behaviours (such as diet, physical activity and sedentary behaviors) are important factors associated with weight status in children. Using a series of height and weight assessments from the Australian Capital Territory Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey (ACTPANS), trends in prevalence of overweight and obesity by socioeconomic status were examined in ACT Year 6 school children between 2006 and 2018.

Rapid divergence and convergence of life-history in experimentally evolved Drosophila melanogaster.

Laboratory selection experiments are alluring in their simplicity, power, and ability to inform us about how evolution works. A longstanding challenge facing evolution experiments with metazoans is that significant generational turnover takes a long time. In this work, we present data from a unique system of experimentally evolved laboratory populations of Drosophila melanogaster that have experienced three distinct life-history selection regimes.

An evolutionary and genomic approach to challenges and opportunities for eliminating aging.

While solutions to major scientific and medical problems are never perfect or complete, it is still reasonable to delineate cases where both have been essentially solved. For example, Darwin's theory of natural selection provides a successful solution to the problem of biological adaptation, while the germ theory of infection solved the scientific problem of contagious disease. Likewise in the context of medicine, we have effectively solved the problem of contagious disease, reducing it to a minor cause of death and disability for almost everyone in countries with advanced medicine and adequate resources.