Preprints in Motion

Episode 22: Caloric Restriction: The Difference Sex and Age Can Make

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Episode notes

CW:// This week's episode touches on some themes revolving around caloric restriction which some listeners may find difficult.

This week we speak to Ben Thomas @BenThomasSci, a final year PhD student at the University of Edinburgh @EdinburghUni about the benefits of caloric restriction, the impact in male and female mice as well as the effect of age. We highlight the ingrained sexisim within the biological sciences: often only male mice are used and we discuss how this can impact the results of various studies.

In addition, we discuss the Edinburgh Open Research Initiative @edinburgh_open which promotes awareness and training of open research principles and lobby’s for these to become formalized within the University of Edinburgh. We also discuss how incentives in science have led to a potentially flawed system and how his experience as a teacher has helped him in academic science.

Read the full preprint:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.20.481222v1.full