The ocean’s tiniest inhabitants — including bacteria, plankton, krill — are food for most everything that swims or floats. Now, scientists have completed a count of this vast and diverse hidden world.» E-Mail This
Category: Research
New Wi-Fi antenna enhances wireless coverage
Researchers have succeeded in using ionized gas in a common fluorescent light tube as an antenna for a Wi-Fi Internet router.
You And Yeast Have More In Common Than You Might Think
Genetically, at least, not that much has changed in the billion years since you two last shared a relative. Roughly half the 500 genes yeast need for life are interchangeable with the human versions.» E-Mail This
Premature aging: Scientists identify and correct defects in diseased cells
Scientists from the Institut Pasteur and CNRS, in collaboration with scientists from the Institut Gustave Roussy and CEA, have succeeded in restoring normal activity in cells isolated from patients with the premature aging disease Cockayne syndrome. They have uncovered the role played in these cells by an enzyme, the HTRA3 protease.
Measles-flu comparison yields insights for vaccine design
By comparing flu viruses to the virus that causes measles, researchers fine-tuned a tool that may enable faster vaccine design, according to a study led by Mount Sinai researchers and published online this week in the journal Cell Reports.
Scientists turn blood into neural cells
Scientists at McMaster University have discovered how to make adult sensory neurons from human patients simply by having them roll up their sleeve and providing a blood sample.
How our gut changes across the life course
Scientists and clinicians on the Norwich Research Park have carried out the first detailed study of how our intestinal tract changes as we age, and how this determines our overall health.
Ossur to announce clinical trials for implanted myoelectric sensors for brain-controlled prosthetics
Ossur, an Icelandic based prosthetics development company is set to announce the beginning of clinical trials for its Proprio foot, a new kind of brain controlled prosthetic ankle and foot. Instead of trying to connect the device to nerves, the robotic limb uses sensors to detect nerve signals in muscles near the point where the limb was removed. The limb then analyses those signals and converts them to movement in real time, which is reportedly very close to that of natural limbs.
Obesity and weight loss change splicing pattern of obesity and type 2 diabetes genes
Alternative splicing of obesity and type 2 diabetes related genes may contribute to the pathophysiology of obesity, according to research from the University of Eastern Finland. Obesity leads to changes in the splicing pattern of metabolically relevant genes such as TCF7L2 and INSR, resulting in impaired insulin action. However, weight loss, induced by either obesity surgery or a very low-calorie diet, reverses these changes. The findings, presented by Dorota Kaminska, MSc, in her doctoral dissertation, increase our understanding of splicing dysregulations in obesity and can result in a new, more targeted treatment and more accurate diagnostics of metabolic disorders.
Targeted drug delivery could transform therapies
A world expert in biomedical engineering will today argue that medical science has been focusing on the wrong problem for 30 years. Instead of inventing new drugs, making better use of the drugs we already have available by targeting them to the affected part of the body could hold the answer to tackling many of today’s life threatening diseases.
Pilot clinical trial finds injected immune cells safe in multiple myeloma patients
Thirteen of 22 patients experienced some reductions in cancerous white blood cellsThis image shows marrow-infiltrating lymphocytes in cell culture. Credit: Credit: Kimberly Noonan, Ph.D.