General

There’s no doubt that you can lose fat by eating less or moving more—yet after decades of research, the biology underlying this equation remains mysterious. What really ignites the breakdown of stored fat molecules are nerves embedded in the fat tissue, and a new study now reveals that these fat-burning […]

Fighting cancer often means employing a suite of techniques to target the tumor and prevent it from growing and spreading to other parts of the body. It’s no small feat — the American Cancer Society predicts roughly 1.8 million new cases of cancer in the country in 2020, underscoring the […]

Scientists from the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre (VIDO-InterVac) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) and Temple University in Philadelphia, Penn., have demonstrated that a salmonella biofilm protein can cause autoimmune responses and arthritis in animals. Salmonella was previously thought to only form biofilms in the environment, such […]

A research group led by Daniel Aili, associate professor at LiU, has developed a bioink to print tissue-mimicking material in 3D printers. The scientists have developed a method and a material that allow cells to survive and thrive. “Bioprinting is a new and exciting technology to manufacture three-dimensional tissue-mimicking cell […]

Rathke’s cleft cysts are benign, fluid-filled growths that develop in the pituitary gland, a small oval-shaped gland near the underside of the brain. Usually, these cysts don’t cause symptoms.  However, if they become large enough to compress the organ and surrounding tissues, then they can cause problems with vision and […]

Biology is rife with examples of collective behavior, from flocks of birds and colonies of bacteria to schools of fish and mobs of people. In a study with implications from oncology to ecology, researchers from Rice University and the University of Georgia have shown that data science can unlock subtle […]

Rare inherited mutations in the body’s master regulator of the DNA repair system – the TP53 gene – can leave people at a higher risk of developing multiple types of cancer over the course of their lives. Now, for the first time, a team led by researchers in the Basser Center for BRCA at […]

Seniors who can identify smells like roses, turpentine, paint-thinner and lemons, and have retained their senses of hearing, vision, and touch may have half the risk of developing dementia as their peers with marked sensory decline. In a study by UC San Francisco, researchers tracked close to 1,800 participants in […]

A new study reveals intricate details about the biology of the huntingtin protein (HTT), which is responsible for Huntington’s disease. The research focuses on axonal transport — the way in which vital materials travel along pathways called axons inside nerve cells, or neurons. Scientists found that HTT sometimes journeys along these […]

A new blood test that reliably predicts outcomes for heart failure patients could lead to new diagnostics and treatments for COVID-19 patients as well, according to newly published research from cardiologists at the University of Alberta. The researchers examined circulating angiotensin peptide levels in the blood of 110 people who were experiencing […]

Preliminary findings from Harvard Medical School researchers at Massachusetts Eye and Ear may pave the way for trials to test bone density medications for hearing loss. Hearing loss caused by damaged nerves, whether from sound exposure or aging, is irreversible. There are currently no medications approved by the Food and […]

In a new study of human ear tissues, hearing scientists at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Eye and Ear have demonstrated that age-related hearing loss, also called presbycusis, is mainly caused by damage to hair cells, the sensory cells in the inner ear that transform sound-induced vibrations into electrical signals […]

As the most common form of dementia and the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S., Alzheimer's disease is not foreign to Americans. Many of us know someone battling the disease— a disease that doctors are still continuing to understand. While the majority of previous research has been focused on treatment, researchers […]

Osteoarthritis – the most common chronic joint condition, which causes joints to become painful and stiff. It’s been known for a long time that osteoarthritis is a somewhat of an occupational condition – people from some jobs are more likely to suffer from it. Now scientists the Universities of Sydney, […]

Before the days of rote texting and email, if you wanted to communicate with a friend you might have personalized and assembled a physical letter. Similarly, the individual cells in our bodies communicate with each other by sending tailored “letters”—not with paper and pen, but in the form of proteins […]

The antidepressant fluoxetine has been suggested as a means to improve brain recovery after acute stroke. However, a large randomized study on stroke patients at 35 Swedish hospitals shows that the drug has no such effect. The study, which was led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, is published in The […]

A group of researchers from the University of Toronto has developed a credit-card-sized tool for growing cancer cells outside the human body, which they believe will enhance their understanding of breast cancer metastasis. The device, described in a paper published in Science Advances, reproduces various environments within the human body where […]

Across the globe, approximately 50 million people are living with dementia. The two most common forms are Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), which develop when neurons in specific parts of the brain stop functioning – triggering memory loss and other behavioral or personality changes. Without a cure, the […]

In addition to responding to electrical and chemical stimuli, many of the body’s neural cells can also respond to mechanical effects, such as pressure or vibration. But these responses have been more difficult for researchers to study because there has been no easily controllable method for inducing such mechanical stimulation […]

A study by MIT neuroscientists into how seemingly similar neuronal subtypes drive locomotion in the fruit fly reveals an unexpected diversity as the brain’s commands were relayed to muscle fibers. A sequence of experiments found a dramatic difference between the two nerve cells: One neuron scrambled to adjust to different […]

Alzheimer's disease progressively degrades a person's memory and cognitive abilities, often resulting in dementia. Amid efforts to find novel treatments for this disease, a recent breakthrough study by scientists from Japan shows that oxytocin―the hormone that we commonly know to induce feelings of love and well-being―can also effectively reverse some […]

Researchers at ETH Zurich and ZHAW present a simple method to precisely map resistance exercise on machines and record missing comparative figures. This could help to develop optimized training strategies in the future, such as for age-associated muscular atrophy. Muscles play a critical role in life. Skeletal muscle mass alone […]

Scientists have discovered that one of the good bacteria found in the human gut has a benefit that has remained unrecognized until now: the potential to reduce the risk of heart disease. The bacteria’s activity in the intestines reduces the production of a chemical that has been linked to the […]

For the past several years, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and engineers have made significant progress in development of a three-dimensional “brain-on-a-chip” device capable of recording neural activity of human brain cell cultures grown outside the body. Now, LLNL researchers have a way to computationally model the activity and structures of neuronal communities […]

Infertility affects one in seven men of reproductive age worldwide. One idea for treating male sterility is spermatogonial stem cell (SSC) therapy. In this approach, sperm stem cells in the testis are transferred to a test tube, cultured and nudged into becoming fully fledged sperm. However, a key bottleneck has […]

Molecular biologists and bioengineers at the University of California San Diego have unraveled key mechanisms behind the mysteries of aging. They isolated two distinct paths that cells travel during aging and engineered a new way to genetically program these processes to extend lifespan. The research was described in the journal […]

A unique nanoparticle to deliver a localized cancer treatment inhibits tumor growth in mice, according to a team of Penn State researchers. The nanoparticles, developed by Daniel Hayes, associate professor of biomedical engineering, have a specific chemistry that allows a microRNA (miRNA) to attach to it. A miRNA is a […]

It might seem as though humans have little in common with the lowly yeast cell. Humans have hair, skin, muscles, and bones, among other attributes. Yeast has, well, none of those things. But besides their obvious differences, yeast, and humans, and much of life for that matter, have a great […]

Ultrasound imaging, as most people are familiar with it, is used for taking pictures of a fetus while it is still inside the womb, but it has other medical purposes, such as diagnosing diseases of organs and tissues. For years, Caltech's Mikhail Shapiro has been working to extend ultrasound imaging into […]

New study sheds light on how nutrient-starved cells recycle internal components. The idea of the cell as a city is a common introduction to biology, conjuring depictions of the cell’s organelles as power plants, factories, roads, libraries, warehouses and more. Like a city, these structures require a great deal of […]