Dr. Eric Dyken of the UI Sleep Disorders Center fields questions about the benefits and drawbacks of sharing a room with a sleeping partner. He also discusses how gene changes in an aging brain affect circadian rhythm, and new research on the dangers of giving melatonin to young children.

2015 was a busy, fruitful year at the University of Iowa. Take a couple of minutes to reflect on the research, service, academic, and athletic endeavors that made the past year one to remember.

January class offered by UI's John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center is taking a group of students to an eye clinic in India where they will look for efficiencies and cost savings so the clinic can expand the vision services it offers to the poor.

Dan Murphy graduated from the UI medical school and eventually became team doctor for UNI's basketball team, but now he's providing desperately needed health care services in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation of East Timor.

A UI music professor received an unique gift from her husband -- a kidney. Wayne and Kristin Thelander had the dual surgery around Thanksgiving. Doctors at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, where the procedure was performed, said about 10 percent of living donations happen between spouses.

A new University of Iowa-led study, published in "Cell Metabolism," has identified a hormone that appears to be linked to sugar cravings and consumption. The research could improve diet and help diabetic and obese patients.

In much of the developing world, fossil fuels and electricity are too expensive to be options for cooking. Instead, people there use wood burning stoves that create environmental impacts of their own, including desertification of the forests that supply the wood, and soot released when the wood doesn't burn completely.

A new University of Iowa study in mice shows that exercise causes muscle to release a peptide that builds the muscle’s capacity for energy production and increases physical endurance, allowing longer and more intense exercise.

A University of Iowa researcher who is looking to find a cancer treatment in a deep sea sponge is the first from UI to receive a $50,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to participate in a business development program.

A University of Iowa study in mice shows that drug-induced changes to the gut microbiome can cause obesity by reducing the resting metabolic rate, a term that refers to how quickly calories are burned while sleeping or resting.

Brian Dlouhy, MD, UI assistant professor of neurosurgery and member of the Pappajohn Biomedical Institute, has been named the first Getch Scholar by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the Congress of Neurosurgeons.

With the help of a robot developed by three UI undergrads, a neurosurgeon could complete a complicated, hours-long surgery without ever looking directly at the patient’s brain or the tumor that’s being removed.