In a sharp and pointy world, wound healing is a critical and marvelous process. Despite a tremendous amount of scientific study, many outstanding mysteries still surround the way in which cells in living tissue respond to and repair physical damage. One prominent mystery is exactly how wound-healing is triggered: A better understanding of this process is essential for developing new and improved…
Being under stress diminishes our abilities to predict new dangers that we face, a team of psychology researchers finds. Its work runs counter to the conventional view that stress enhances our ability to detect and adjust to these changing sources of threat. “Stress does not always increase perceptions of danger in the environment, as is often assumed,” explains Candace Raio, a postdoctoral…
Up to 6.6 million premature deaths could be prevented in the US if smokers switched to e-cigarettes over a ten year period, suggests a study published in Tobacco Control, and those smokers who switched to vaping would live for a collective total of up to 86.7 additional million years. A research team, led by Dr David Levy at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington DC, modelled the…
A long-term study of nearly 3,000 adults, aged 57 to 85, found that those who could not identify at least four out of five common odors were more than twice as likely as those with a normal sense of smell to develop dementia within five years. Although 78 percent of those tested were normal – correctly identifying at least four out of five scents – about 14 percent could name just three out…
Early research results suggest scientists might be on to a way to preserve heart function after heart attacks or for people with inherited heart defects called congenital cardiomyopathies. Researchers at the Cincinnati Children’s Heart Institute report in Nature Communications that after simulating heart injury in laboratory mouse models, they stopped or slowed cardiac fibrosis, organ…
CAU research team proves, for the first time, that there is close cooperation between the nervous system and the microbial population of the body.
A new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent being tested by researchers at Case Western Reserve University not only pinpoints breast cancers at early stages but differentiates between aggressive and slow-growing types.
For years, medical investigators have tried and failed to develop vaccines for a type of staph bacteria associated with the deadly superbug MRSA. But a new study by Cedars-Sinai investigators shows how staph cells evade the body’s immune system, offering a clearer picture of how a successful vaccine would work.
People with both high and low levels of magnesium in their blood may have a greater risk of developing dementia, according to a study published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Older people who use steroid inhalers for asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are more likely to suffer particular bacterial infections, according to a large study published in the European Respiratory Journal.
Scientists have helped provide a way to better understand how to enable drugs to enter the brain and how cancer cells make it past the blood brain barrier.
Cells can be programmed like a computer to fight cancer, influenza, and other serious conditions – thanks to a breakthrough in synthetic biology by the University of Warwick.
It had already been known that the enzyme known as phosphatidic acid phosphatase plays a crucial role in regulating the amount of fat in the human body. Controlling it is therefore of interest in the fight against obesity. But scientists at Rutgers University-New Brunswick have now found that getting rid of the enzyme entirely can increase the risk of cancer, inflammation and other ills.
Researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) are tackling Alzheimer’s disease with a new study that intervenes decades before the disease develops.
Brain scientists from Edinburgh have identified a genetic programme that controls the way our brain changes throughout life. The programme controls how and when brain genes are expressed at different times in a person’s life to perform a range of functions, the study found.
A team under the direction of chemist Prof. Dr Peter Comba is investigating radioactive metal complexes for use in the diagnosis and treatment of tumors.
Scientists are honing in on a potential treatment for osteoporosis, after performing the largest ever genetic study of the common age-related bone-thinning disease.
Compounds in a fermented fish paste used as a condiment in Indonesia efficiently inhibit an enzyme involved in cholesterol synthesis, reports a study published in the Pertanika journal Tropical Agricultural Science.
Researchers have developed an automated and affordable system to diagnose early-stage Parkinson’s disease through a simple drawing task.
The taller you are, the more likely you may be to develop blood clots in the veins, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics.
Researchers in Germany have demonstrated that hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplants can be improved by treatments that temporarily prevent the stem cells from dying.
Respiratory tract infections in young children are linked to an increased risk of asthma and worse lung function in later life, according to new research to be presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress.
A team of scientists and engineers at The University of Texas at Austin has invented a powerful tool that rapidly and accurately identifies cancerous tissue during surgery, delivering results in about 10 seconds—more than 150 times as fast as existing technology.
As cancer grows, it evolves. Individual cells become more aggressive and break away to flow through the body and spread to distant areas. What if there were a way to find those early aggressors? How are they different from the rest of the cells? And more importantly: Is there a way to stop them before they spread?
Dr. Wolf M. Harmening from University Eye Hospital Bonn, together with American colleagues, studied color vision by probing individual sensory cells – photoreceptors – in the human eye. The results reveal that proximity effects play a key role in how we perceive colors.
