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Tasmanian tree skinks, as the name suggests, are lizards native to Tasmania. They live in a huge variety of habitats – from rocky coastlines to actual trees. They eat insects, spiders and sand hoppers, while sometimes enjoying an occasional amphipod. Now scientists at the University of Tasmania found that Tasmanian […]

COVID-19 is a common pandemic disease. In fact, it is likely that you know several people who had it or you had it yourself. After you get better from this infection, your body’s immune system knows how to protect you from COVID-19 for quite some time. But how long does […]

Regular physical activity has positive effects on children's developing brain circuits, finds a Boston Children's Hospital study using neuroimaging data from nearly 6,000 early adolescents. Physical activity of any kind was associated with more efficiently organized, flexible, and robust brain networks, the researchers found. The more physical activity, the more “fit” […]

Salk research shows how to optimize the production of insulin-producing cells from stem cells. Type 1 diabetes, which arises when the pancreas doesn’t create enough insulin to control levels of glucose in the blood, is a disease that currently has no cure and is difficult for most patients to manage. […]

Salk research reveals clues about molecular changes underlying muscle loss tied to aging. One of the many effects of aging is loss of muscle mass, which contributes to disability in older people. To counter this loss, scientists at the Salk Institute are studying ways to accelerate the regeneration of muscle […]

Young infants show strong immune responses to SARS-CoV-2, new research has found. In particular, compared with adults, young infants produce relatively high levels of antibodies and immune cells that can specifically protect against COVID-19. The study led by academics and paediatricians at the University of Bristol and Bristol Royal Hospital […]

Throwing out one’s back is a universal, albeit clichéd, a sign of middle age. What’s less common is 50-year-old men with the fragile bone strength of men in their 80s. Researchers at Michigan Medicine found a subset of middle-aged men with cerebral palsy is up to 5.6 times more likely […]

By making a game out of getting their daily steps, new research points to the possibility that people with diabetes could be nudged toward increasing their physical activity, with changes lasting for a full year. Since many now use apps or other digital means to manage their diabetes, this program […]

It’s often cancer’s spread, not the original tumour, that poses the disease’s most deadly risk. “And yet metastasis is one of the most poorly understood aspects of cancer biology,” says Kamen Simeonov, an M.D.-Ph.D. student at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. In a new study, a team led by Simeonov and School of […]

Researchers detail another gene target that could be the crucial link to curing different cancers.  The scientific world has been delving ever deeper into cancer, scourging for even the tiniest biomolecule that could amp up the cure for the deadly disease. A recent discovery in this regard is the gene […]

Study suggests that turning molecular switch off could be a strategy to treat deadly type of skin cancer. Despite only accounting for about 1 percent of skin cancers, melanoma causes the majority of skin cancer-related deaths. While treatments for this serious disease do exist, these drugs can vary in effectiveness […]

New ways to classify and study spinal cord neurons could inform therapies for illness or injury. Spinal cord nerve cells branching through the body resemble trees with limbs fanning out in every direction. But this image can also be used to tell the story of how these neurons, their jobs […]

Medulloblastoma is a rare but devastating childhood brain cancer. This cancer can spread through the spinal fluid and be deposited elsewhere in the brain or spine. Radiation therapy to the whole brain and spine followed by an extra radiation dose to the back of the brain prevents this spread and […]

UC San Francisco is launching a new initiative to propel the development of living therapeutics – a category of treatments broadly defined as human and microbial living cells that are selected, modified, or engineered to treat or cure disease – and bring them quickly to patients. The Living Therapeutics Initiative (LTI) will […]

In 2014, Dudley Lamming was reading a study out of Australia that looked at how mice responded to dozens of controlled diets when one thing caught his attention: The mice fed the least amount of protein were the healthiest. “That was really interesting because it goes against a lot of health information that people […]

The findings on cellular communication hold promise for early human development, disease progression and aging, as well as organ transplantation and for testing therapeutics. The ability to grow the cells of one species within an organism of a different species offers scientists a powerful tool for research and medicine. It’s […]

Tiny nano-sized robots and vehicles that can navigate through blood vessels to reach the site of a disease could be used to deliver drugs to tumours that are otherwise difficult to treat. Once injected or swallowed, most drugs rely upon the movement of body fluids to find their way around […]

Salk scientists reveal new insights into neurodegenerative disorders and potential for genetic therapies. Neurons lack the ability to replicate their DNA, so they’re constantly working to repair damage to their genome. Now, a new study by Salk scientists finds that these repairs are not random, but instead focus on protecting […]

More people survive heart attacks now than ever before. And that is great news, even though these people continue living with damaged hearts. Scientists at UCL are working on new methods to repair them. One of the more promising techniques would be a stem cell therapy to repair damaged tissues. […]

Gene editing, or purposefully changing a gene’s DNA sequence, is a powerful tool for studying how mutations cause disease, and for making changes in an individual’s DNA for therapeutic purposes. A novel method of gene editing that can be used for both purposes has now been developed by a team […]

Most people who had COVID-19 experienced a mild case of the disease. This made other people less afraid to contract COVID-19, because they started thinking that it is more of an annoyance rather than an actual health concern. However, as this new study from UCL has shown, even mild cases […]

The life-saving diabetic medication insulin, developed at the University of Toronto 100 years ago, was the first biologic therapy – a protein to treat disease. Now, a new biologic therapy developed by U of T researchers has the potential to reverse a common diabetes complication. A team led by Stéphane Angers, professor […]

A new study conducted by the researchers at the University of Liverpool reveals how the ancient photosynthetic organisms – cyanobacteria – evolve their photosynthetic machinery and organise their photosynthetic membrane architecture for the efficient capture of solar light and energy transduction. Oxygenic photosynthesis, carried out by plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, […]

Smokers needed their blocked arteries fixed nearly a decade earlier than non-smokers, and patients with obesity underwent these procedures four years earlier than non-obese patients, according to a new statewide study. The research included patients without a history of heart attack who were treated at hospitals across Michigan participating in BMC2, […]

An interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Alberta will develop a cannabis use decision tool for the estimated 20 per cent of Canadians who live with arthritis, thanks to a $300,000 award from Alberta Innovates. People with arthritis are more likely than others to use cannabis for pain, mood […]

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among men, according to the American Cancer Society. It’s also one of the trickiest cancers to diagnose and treat. But new research from the University of Georgia has identified a protein that appears to prevent cancer from spreading to and colonizing the bone, […]

Heart attacks and strokes – the leading causes of death in human beings – are fundamentally blood clots of the heart and brain. Better understanding how the blood-clotting process works and how to accelerate or slow down clotting, depending on the medical need, could save lives. New research by Georgia […]

New technique models brain cells in older patients more accurately than ever before. Despite the prevalence of Alzheimer’s, there are still no treatments, in part because it has been challenging to study how the disease develops. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have uncovered new insights into what goes awry […]

Salk scientists find brain’s immune cells form some plaques as a defense in Alzheimer’s, suggesting a new therapeutic direction. One of the characteristic hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the buildup of amyloid-beta plaques in the brain. Most therapies designed to treat AD target these plaques, but they’ve largely failed […]

Like thousands of other people you may be starting your day with a cup of coffee. Maybe you consume more caffeine as your day goes by. But did you ever think that it might be seriously bad for you? Scientists at UCL found that big doses of daily caffeine may […]