General

Researchers have long known that some genes can cause cancer when overactive, but exactly what happens inside the cell nucleus when the cancer grows has so far remained enigmatic. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have found a new mechanism that renders one canonical driver of cancer overactive. The […]

A diet high in fiber and yogurt is associated with a reduced risk for lung cancer, according to a study by Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers published in JAMA Oncology. The benefits of a diet high in fiber and yogurt have already been established for cardiovascular disease and gastrointestinal cancer. The new […]

There are a number of health risks that come with going to space. Aside from the increased exposure to solar radiation and cosmic rays, there are the notable effects that microgravity can have on human physiology. As Scott Kelly can attest, these go beyond muscle and bone degeneration and include […]

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive cancers – by the time most cases are diagnosed, the cancer is advanced and spreading to other parts of the body. But what if these spreading cancer cells could, in fact, hold the key to guiding better treatment? Dr. Omid Faridani, recipient […]

Have you noticed that many older people love playing cards and board games. This is their way to socialize and have some fun. However, what they may not know is that this fun freetime activity also helps them protecting their thinking skills. This what a new study from the University […]

Women in their 70s and 80s who were exposed to higher levels of air pollution experienced greater declines in memory and more Alzheimer’s-like brain atrophy than their counterparts who breathed cleaner air, according to USC researchers. The findings of the nationwide study, published in the journal Brain, touch on the […]

Most of us know camels as curiosities at zoos. As beasts of burden highly adapted to hot and dry climates, they’ve served the trade routes that helped build civilizations, and may indeed flourish in our increasingly hot and dry world. We value their hide, meat, and especially their milk. Camels […]

Cytotoxic lymphocytes are the real MVPs. They guard our bodies from cancerous and virus-infected cells by killing them. In this way they are aggressive defenders, but how their actions do not kill them? A new study from UCL might have found the answer. Cytotoxic lymphocytes to you may be better […]

The timing of colonoscopy after acute lower gastrointestinal bleeding may not need to be rushed, according to a recent study in Japan. Researchers discovered no significant health differences between patients who received a colonoscopy within 24 hours of their arrival at the hospital and those who waited up to 96 […]

A new, portable breast imaging system under development in Buffalo has the potential to better identify breast cancer in women with dense breast tissue. That is among the findings of a study published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. The study was led by University at Buffalo researchers in […]

Time can be measured in many ways: a watch, a sundial, the body’s natural circadian rhythms. What about the sexual behavior of a fruit fly? “If you ask a bunch of scientists whether animals can keep time, many would say they cannot—that things happen over time, but time itself is […]

A new study by an international team of researchers, led by scientists from the University of Bristol and Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, has discovered that animal-like embryos evolved long before the first animals appear in the fossil record. Animals evolved from single-celled ancestors, before diversifying into 30 or […]

Changes in the genes that control development can potentially make large contributions to evolution by generating new morphologies in plants and animals. However, because developmental genes frequently influence many different processes, changes to their expression carry a risk of “collateral damage”. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding […]

New insight into how genetic information stored in human mitochondria is passed from one generation to the next could have important implications for genetic counseling of women planning pregnancies, according to a study by researchers at Penn State and the University of California, Berkeley. The findings are especially relevant to […]

When your immune system is exposed to a vaccine, an allergen, or an infectious microbe, subsets of T cells that can recognize a foreign intruder leap into action. Some of these T cells are primed to kill infected cells, while others serve as memory cells that circulate throughout the body, […]

Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA encodes information, not only in its sequence but also in its shape. Building upon previous revelatory work, a team of scientists, led by researchers at University of California San Diego, the UC San Diego branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Stanford University and the […]

A simple blood test could soon become the latest monitoring tool for the early detection of melanoma in the eye. University of Queensland scientists have discovered markers in the blood that can differentiate between a benign mole and a melanoma, while also identifying if the cancer has spread to other areas […]

Hitachi, Ltd. has announced that Hitachi developed a new automation technology of 3D culture(2), solving problems of the previous 3D culture using Hitachi's Automated Cell Culture Equipment for iPS cells(3). Automation of both 2D culture(4) and 3D culture using this equipment makes it possible to automatic massive manufacture a variety […]

Ketamine has recently been studied in terms of its antidepressant effects, with fairly promising results, yet some new studies have also pointed out its potential (yet admittedly mild and transient) side effects, putting more large-scale clinical deployment on hold. However, a new study published on Wednesday, 26 November 2019, in […]

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed a new method to separate between two different types of a common herpes virus (HHV-6) that has been linked to multiple sclerosis. By analyzing antibodies in the blood against the most divergent proteins of herpesvirus 6A and 6B, the researchers were able to show […]

How often should women get a mammogram? A new study makes a case for getting screened every year instead of every other year. Women diagnosed with breast cancer after receiving yearly mammograms had smaller tumors and less-advanced disease than women who had mammograms every other year, researchers from the University of […]

Scientists have determined that La Crosse virus (LACV), which can cause inflammation of the brain in children, affects brain cells differently depending on their developmental stage. Neurons—the primary brain cells of the central nervous system—evolve from neural stem cells and during development “commit” to becoming neurons. A new National Institutes […]

Researchers believe that autism is caused by mutations that occur sporadically in the egg or sperm or during pregnancy. Activity-dependent neuroprotective protein (ADNP) is a dominant gene whose de novo (during pregnancy) mutations are known to cause autism-related intellectual disabilities. A new Tel Aviv University study has found that ADNP mutations continue to occur […]

The immune system must learn from early in life to tolerate bacteria that normally populate healthy skin, while still defending against more dangerous “bugs,” but how immune cells make this distinction has long been a mystery. In a study of young mice, UC San Francisco scientists found that an early-life […]

More and more people choose to live in cities. They are looking for more opportunity, bigger salaries and a different standard of living. However, they are putting themselves in harms way of pollution. A new  UCL-led study revealed that people who live in areas with greater air pollution are at […]

Oregon State University research has provided the first complete, cellular-level look at what’s going on in joints afflicted by osteoarthritis, a debilitating and costly condition that affects nearly one-quarter of adults in the United States. The study, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, opens the door to better understanding how interventions […]

By the second trimester, long before a baby’s eyes can see images, they can detect light. But the light-sensitive cells in the developing retina — the thin sheet of brain-like tissue at the back of the eye — were thought to be simple on-off switches, presumably there to set up […]

The highly contagious norovirus causes diarrhea and vomiting and is notorious for spreading rapidly through densely populated spaces, such as cruise ships, nursing homes, schools, and daycare centers. Each year, it is responsible for some 200,000 deaths, mostly in the developing world. There are no treatments for this intestinal virus, […]

From gene therapies to cancer immunotherapies to cancer vaccines, recent biomedical advances have redefined what is possible in medicine. Yet, despite the advent of such transformative therapies, bottlenecks in the discovery pipeline and backlogs in production remain pressing challenges that hamper the rapid and widespread delivery of new lifesaving treatments […]

Two genes that appear to help stem cells in the intestine burn dietary fat may play a role in colon cancer, according to a Rutgers study. The study, published in the journal Gastroenterology, describes a new connection between the way cells consume fat and how genes regulate stem cell behavior in the […]