Research from Indiana University published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has identified a genetic mechanism that is likely to drive mutations that can lead to cancer.
There’s apparently safety in numbers, even for cancer cells. New research in mice suggests that cancer cells rarely form metastatic tumors on their own, preferring to travel in groups since collaboration seems to increase their collective chances of survival.
Using a new methodology that measures how closely words’ meanings are related within and between languages, an international team of researchers has revealed that for many universal concepts, the world’s languages feature a common structure of semantic relatedness.
It has long been thought that cancer metastasizes, or spreads, when a single cancer cell escapes from the original tumor, travels through the bloodstream and sets up shop in distant organs. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that these bad actors don’t travel alone; instead they migrate through the body in cellular clusters, like gangs.
Why do humans and dolphins evolve large brains relative to the size of their bodies while blue whales and hippos have brains that are relatively puny?
While there has been much speculation regarding brain size and intelligence, a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences confirms that species with brains that are large relative to their body are more intelligent.
Researchers, including Carnegie Mellon University President Subra Suresh and collaborators Tony Jun Huang from the Pennsylvania State University and Ming Dao from MIT, have demonstrated that acoustic tweezers can be used to non-invasively move and manipulate single cells along three dimensions, providing a promising new method for 3-D bioprinting.
UT Southwestern Medical Center chemists have successfully used synthetic nanoparticles to deliver tumor-suppressing therapies to diseased livers with cancer, an important hurdle scientists have been struggling to conquer.
Whitehead Institute researchers have created a new mouse-human modeling system that could be used to study neural crest development as well as the modeling of a variety of neural crest related diseases, including such cancers as melanoma and neurofibromatosis. Mouse-human chimeras would fill an important gap in disease research, as existing models do not accurately mimic key disease processes, including solid tumor initiation and progression, and are of little value for studying diseases with long latencies, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
A new study suggests that current ‘hotspots’ of shark activity are at risk of overfishing, and that the introduction of catch quotas might be necessary to protect oceanic sharks.
Latest research reveals why geckos are the largest animals able to scale smooth vertical walls - even larger climbers would require unmanageably large sticky footpads.
Working with mice, researchers have contributed significant new evidence to support the idea that high doses of cocaine kill brain cells by triggering overactive autophagy, a process in which cells literally digest their own insides. Their results, moreover, bring with them a possible antidote.
Biophysicists have discovered why the bacteria that cause tuberculosis (TB) are naturally somewhat resistant to antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones. Their findings also suggest how drug developers can make fluoroquinolones more efficacious against mutations that make the lung disease drug resistant.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have discovered that a lipid (fat molecule) in brain cells may act as a “switch” to increase or decrease the motivation to consume nicotine.
A hormone that extends lifespan in mice by 40% is produced by specialized cells in the thymus gland, according to a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers. The team also found that increasing the levels of this hormone, called FGF21, protects against the loss of immune function that comes with age.
Nearly every girl and woman on Earth carries two X chromosomes in nearly every one of her cells – but one of them does (mostly) nothing. That’s because it’s been silenced, keeping most of its DNA locked up and unread like a book in a cage.
Scientists thought they had figured out how cells do this, but a new piece of research from the University of Michigan Medical School shows the answer isn’t quite that clear.
Penn State scientists have discovered a novel drug target and have rescued functional deficits in human nerve cells derived from patients with Rett Syndrome, a severe form of autism-spectrum disorder.
Curbing school bullying has been a focal point for educators, administrators, policymakers and parents, but the answer may not lie within rules set by adults, according to new research led by Princeton University. Instead, the solution might actually be to have the students themselves, particularly those most connected to their peers, promote conflict resolution in school.
A National University of Singapore study identified the rapid expansion of rice agriculture in Myanmar, as well as sustained conversion of mangroves to oil palm plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia, as increasing and under-recognised threats to mangrove ecosystems in Southeast Asia. This is the first study to systematically quantify the conversion of mangroves to different land use types in the region and identify the key drivers of mangrove deforestation over the last decade.
Prehistoric human populations of hunter-gatherers in a region of North America grew at the same rate as farming societies in Europe, according to a new radiocarbon analysis involving researchers from the University of Wyoming and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Princeton University researchers have captured among the first recordings of neural activity in nearly the entire brain of a free-moving animal. The three-dimensional recordings could provide scientists with a better understanding of how neurons coordinate action and perception in animals.
A technique to combine the ultrasensitivity of surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with a slippery surface invented by Penn State researchers will make it feasible to detect single molecules of a number of chemical and biological species from gaseous, liquid or solid samples.
A study led by Ángel Rubio, the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country professor and head of the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg, shows that it is possible to predict the effects of photons on materials.
Field study of police lineups suggests courts must pay attention to initial witness confidence ratings and police departments should continue using traditional, simultaneous procedure.
The first national study to map U.S. wild bees suggests they're disappearing in many of the country's most important farmlands. If losses of these crucial pollinators continue, the new nationwide assessment indicates that, over time, the problem could destabilize the nation's crop production.
Understanding how tiny molecular motors called myosins use energy to fuel biological tasks like contracting muscles could lead to therapies for muscle diseases and cancers, say a team of researchers led by Penn State College of Medicine scientists.
Accelerating rates of sea-level rise linked to climate change pose a major threat to coastal marshes and the vital carbon capturing they perform. But a new Duke University study finds marshes may be more resilient than previously believed.
Researchers are proposing a new "hydricity" concept aimed at creating a sustainable economy by not only generating electricity with solar energy but also producing and storing hydrogen from superheated water for round-the-clock power production.
Wyss Institute's human gut-on-a-chip technology used to co-culture gut microbiome and human intestinal cells could lead to new therapies for inflammatory bowel diseases.
A new study by University of Guelph researchers that narrows down where and how estrogens affect the brain may help in understanding how the hormones affect cognition and memory in women.
The team found that adding the hormone to female mouse brains helps boost short-term learning, likely through a “use-it-or-lose-it” process.
Using photography and laboratory simulations, researchers studied how dogs raise fluids into their mouths to drink. They discovered that sloppy-looking actions at the dog bowl are in fact high-speed, precisely timed movements that optimize a dogs’ ability to acquire fluids.
A new study, led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute, shows how different pharmaceutical drugs hit either the “on” or “off” switch of a signaling protein linked to asthma, obesity and type 2 diabetes.
UAB researchers have found that, contrary to current thinking, astrocytes are repelled by the amyloid plaques that are linked to the disease. pplying mathematical models used for studying the galaxies or interactions between elementary particles, researchers at the Institute of Neuroscience of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, have analysed the spatial distribution of astrocytes: brain cells that are essential for the correct functioning of neurons.
Researchers at Umeå University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences have discovered that increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have shifted photosynthetic metabolism in plants over the 20th century. This is the first study worldwide that deduces biochemical regulation of plant metabolism from historical specimens. The findings are now published in the leading journal PNAS and will have an impact on new models of future CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
A new study by a team of scientists from Argentina, Brazil, California and the Natural History Museum of Utah at the University of Utah has determined that the time elapsed between the emergence of early dinosaur relatives and the origin of the first dinosaurs is much shorter than previously believed.
Spermatozoa need to crane their necks to turn right to counteract a left-turning drive caused by the rotation of their tails, new research has found.
Led by Dr Vasily Kantsler of the University of Warwick’s Department of Physics, the researchers discovered that all sperm tails (flagella) rotate in a counter-clockwise motion as they beat to enable them to move through and against the motion of a fluid.
Spermatozoa need to crane their necks to turn right to counteract a left-turning drive caused by the rotation of their tails, new research has found.
Led by Dr Vasily Kantsler of the University of Warwick’s Department of Physics, the researchers discovered that all sperm tails (flagella) rotate in a counter-clockwise motion as they beat to enable them to move through and against the motion of a fluid.
The ebb and flow of intracellular calcium concentrations is a universal mode of communication in mammalian cells. Researchers at La Jolla Institute identified the matchmaker that brings two critical calcium channel components together, thus allowing calcium to rush into the fluid-filled space known as cytosol.
Mitochondria, the tiny structures inside our cells that generate energy, may also play a previously unrecognized role in mind-body interactions. Based on new studies of stress responses in animals, this insight may have broad implications for human psychology and for the biology of psychiatric and neurological diseases.
According to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, brains can't really fit into the categories of "male" or "female" -- their distinguishing features actually vary across a spectrum. Researchers led by University of Tel-Aviv studied brain scans of some 1,400 individuals and could not find a single pattern that distinguishes between a male brain and a female brain.
According to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, brains can't really fit into the categories of "male" or "female" -- their distinguishing features actually vary across a spectrum. Researchers led by University of Tel-Aviv studied brain scans of some 1,400 individuals and could not find a single pattern that distinguishes between a male brain and a female brain.