7 Things You Need To Know Today (September 14, 2018)

A new study found that committing to one set of weightlifting can be as effective as doing three to five—as long as you're completely fatiguing your muscles. "A lot of people probably do not push themselves that much [during a session at the gym]," the study's author explained. Time to get sweaty! (NYT)

The iPhone XR, which comes out on October 26, will incorporate 35 percent post-consumer recycled plastic in its speaker enclosures and 32 percent bio-based plastic in its frame. While this may not seem huge, Apple is saying it will prevent more than 10,000 tons of tin ore from being mined per year. Hey, progress is progress! (mindbodygreen)

This week, the trillion-dollar company announced the new Apple Watch will be equipped with advanced heart rate technology that lets people take their own ECG and share it with their doctors. Apple is calling the innovation "an intelligent guardian for your health." (NPR)

A research group in Sweden has identified three neurons in the peripheral auditory system that are totally new to science. Think of them as three different pathways to our central auditory system. The discovery will help scientists better understand how we hear and, potentially, how we treat certain hearing disorders (improving auditory aids like cochlear implants, for example) once we know more. (Science Daily)

And they're expected to keep booming. A new survey finds people are buying up plant-based foods, particularly meat alternatives, with total sales now exceeding $3.7 billion. Beyond Meat sales are up a whopping 70 percent, and 12 percent of all American households now purchase plant-based meats. (mindbodygreen)

Coral Vita, a coral farming project, purports to grow coral 50 times faster than it can in the ocean. Using pools on land, scientists call on a fragmenting technique to grow specific species of coral designed to be "replanted" into reefs that have degraded or completely died off. They have also found a way to desensitize the new corals to higher levels of acidity and heat, building up their resilience to the forces of climate change. (Fast Company)

According to a new study from Northwestern University, doctors can predict whether or not a person's chronic pain will improve with a placebo pill based on their brain anatomy and psychology. And the pill wasn't just a little bit successful: It reduced some patients' pain as much as pharmaceutical drugs did. (Science Daily)