When someone you know is wearing an unfamiliar hat, you might not recognize them. Georgia Institute of Technology researchers are using just such a disguise to sneak biomaterials containing peptide signaling molecules into living animals.
In a study published today by Nature, researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center used a microscopic worm (C. elegans) to identify a new path that could lead to drugs to slow aging and the chronic diseases that often accompany it—and might even lead to better cosmetics.
UT Southwestern Medical Center neurology researchers have identified an important cell signaling mechanism that plays an important role in brain cancer and may provide a new therapeutic target.
Researchers have developed a method for spying on the activity of every gene within a cell at once. The breakthrough allows them to determine the order in which the three layers of cells in animal embryos evolved. Other applications include cancer research.
Researchers at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus have used motion-capture technology to reveal new insight into the sophisticated information processing and acrobatic skills of dragonflies on the hunt.
Researchers at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus have used motion-capture technology to reveal new insight into the sophisticated information processing and acrobatic skills of dragonflies on the hunt.
While many different combinations of genetic traits can cause autism, brains affected by autism share a pattern of ramped-up immune responses, an analysis of data from autopsied human brains reveals. The study, a collaborative effort between Johns Hopkins and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, included data from 72 autism and control brains.
Near-perfect replications of human and animal cells enables improved study of certain cancers and stem cells, as well as the creation of complex durable objects without machinery.
An important study conducted in part at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory may lead to new, more effective vaccines and medicines by revealing detailed information about how a flu antibody binds to a wide variety of flu viruses.
A new treatment for adult-onset diabetes and obesity developed by researchers at Indiana University and the German Research Center for Environmental Health has essentially cured lab animals of obesity, diabetes and associated lipid abnormalities through improved glucose sensitivity, reduced appetite and enhanced calorie burning.
Brown adipose tissue, widely known as brown fat, is located around the collarbone and acts as the body’s furnace to burn calories. It also keeps the body warm. Obese people have less of it, and its activity is decreased with age. Until now, researchers haven’t understood why.
Research led by Devon Burr, an associate professor in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at UT, shows that winds on Titan must blow faster than previously thought to move sand. The discovery may explain how the dunes were formed.
New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis challenges the view that cancer treatment in itself is a direct cause of a fatal form of leukemia that can develop several years after chemotherapy or radiation.
There is cloud hanging over climate science, but one Cornell University expert on communication and environmental issues says he knows how to help clear the air. In the December issue of Nature Climate Change, Jonathon Schuldt, assistant professor of communication, argues that only by creating a “science of climate diversity” can climate science and the larger climate change movement overcome a crippling lack of ethnic and racial diversity.
Scientists have discovered an unusual form of electronic order in a new family of unconventional superconductors, giving scientists a new group of materials to explore to understand ability to carry current with no energy loss.
The average animal cell is 10 microns across but why? Princeton bioengineers take their story of gravity in cells one step further at ASCB, describing how cells manage to support thousands of membrane-less compartments inside the nucleus
An experiment at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory provided the first fleeting glimpse of the atomic structure of a material as it entered a state resembling room-temperature superconductivity – a long-sought phenomenon in which materials might conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency under everyday conditions.
An experiment at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory provided the first fleeting glimpse of the atomic structure of a material as it entered a state resembling room-temperature superconductivity – a long-sought phenomenon in which materials might conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency under everyday conditions.
Scientists at Penn State College of Medicine, working alongside an international team of researchers, have produced the most complete encyclopedia of functional elements in the mouse genome to date and compared it to the human genome. The findings, published recently in Nature, uphold the mouse model of human disease, but pinpoint important differences in gene expression that will guide future health research.
“This new research tool offers us a more profound view of the immune responses that are involved in a range of diseases, such as HIV infection. At the level of gene transcription, this had been difficult, complex and costly to do with current technologies, such as microscopy” - Dr. Daniel Kaufmann, University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre
In a first, Prof. Nachum Ulanovsky’s lab has identified the neurons that help us know where we’re going. Working with bats, which move in three dimensions, the team found that bats’ brains contain a sort of 3D compass, enabling them to orient themselves in space. They believe that the brains of non-flying mammals – including humans – also have the compass.
In a first, Prof. Nachum Ulanovsky’s lab has identified the neurons that help us know where we’re going. Working with bats, which move in three dimensions, the team found that bats’ brains contain a sort of 3D compass, enabling them to orient themselves in space. They believe that the brains of non-flying mammals – including humans – also have the compass.
A team of biomedical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis, led by Lihong Wang, PhD, has developed the world’s fastest receive-only 2-D camera, a device that can capture events up to 100 billion frames per second.
A team led by biologists at The Scripps Research Institute has solved a long-standing mystery in neuroscience by identifying the “mechanoreceptor” protein that mediates the sense of touch in mammals.
Case Western Reserve scientists have developed a new chemical compound that shows extraordinary promise in restoring function lost to spinal cord injury. The compound allowed paralyzed muscles to activate in more than 80 percent of the animals tested. The study appears in the Dec. 3 journal Nature.
To stop the spread of HIV in Africa, researchers at UCLA, using a complex mathematical model, have developed a strategy that focuses on targeting “hot zones,” areas where the risk of HIV infection is much higher than the national average.
SWAPPS - Standing Wave Ambient Pressure Photoelectron Spectroscopy – is a new X-ray technique developed at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source that provides sub-nanometer resolution of every chemical element to be found at heterogeneous interfaces, such as those in batteries, fuel cells and other devices.
Chronic kidney disease affects at least one in four Americans who are older than 60 and can significantly shorten lifespan. Yet the few available drugs for CKD can only modestly delay the disease’s progress towards kidney failure. Now, a team has found an aspect of CKD’s development that points to a promising new therapeutic strategy.
Researchers can now explore viruses, bacteria and components of the human body in more detail than ever before with software developed at The Scripps Research Institute. In a study published December 1 in the journal Nature Methods, the researchers demonstrated how the software, called cellPACK, can be used to model viruses such as HIV.
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects at least one in four Americans who are older than 60 and can significantly shorten lifespan. Yet the few available drugs for CKD can only modestly delay the disease’s progress towards kidney failure. Now, a team has found an aspect of CKD’s development that points to a promising new therapeutic strategy.
UCLA researchers have pioneered a new methodology to predict why some patients battling advanced melanoma respond well or not at all to the new breakthrough drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda).
El Nino is not a contemporary phenomenon; it’s long been the Earth’s dominant source of year-to-year climate fluctuation. But as the climate warms and the feedbacks that drive the cycle change, researchers want to know how El Nino will respond. A team of researchers led by the University of Wisconsin’s Zhengyu Liu published the latest findings in this quest Nov. 27, 2014 in Nature.
Materials scientists from Drexel University’s College of Engineering invented the clay, which is both highly conductive and can easily be molded into a variety of shapes and sizes. It represents a turn away from the rather complicated and costly processing—currently used to make materials for lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors—and toward one that looks a bit like rolling out cookie dough with results that are even sweeter from an energy storage standpoint.
The presence of an immune-suppressing protein in non-cancerous immune cells may predict how patients with different types of cancer respond to treatment, a multi-center phase I study using an investigational immune therapy drug has found.
The study, led by a Yale Cancer Center investigator, is described in the Nov. 27 edition of the journal Nature.
In the near future, physicians may treat some cancer patients with personalized vaccines that spur their immune systems to attack malignant tumors. New research led by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has brought the approach one step closer to reality.
An international team of scientists predicts that a phenomenon known in physics as Fano resonance can exist in materials that are used in electronic devices.
Using a new imaging technique, National Institutes of Health researchers have found that the biological machinery that builds DNA can insert molecules into the DNA strand that are damaged as a result of environmental exposures. These damaged molecules trigger cell death that produces some human diseases, according to the researchers. The work, appearing online Nov. 17 in the journal Nature, provides a possible explanation for how one type of DNA damage may lead to cancer, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular and lung disease, and Alzheimer’s disease.
A team led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute has found a simple method to convert human skin cells into the specialized neurons that detect pain, itch, touch and other bodily sensations and are affected by spinal cord injury and involved in Friedreich’s ataxia.
Scientists have identified four new genes associated with the severe food allergy eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE). Because of the genes' apparent functional roles, the findings may point toward potential new treatments for EoE.
A protein kinase or enzyme known as PKM2 has proven to control cell division, potentially providing a molecular basis for tumor diagnosis and treatment.
Fast facts:
• In order to distinguish self from other, the immune system processes proteins from inside and outside the body in different ways.
• A new study revises understanding of how the process works and sheds light on autoimmune disease.
Moffitt Cancer Center researchers are taking a unique approach to understanding and investigating cancer by utilizing evolutionary principles and computational modeling to examine the role of specific genetic mutations in the Darwinian struggle among tumor and normal cells during cancer growth.
Bank employees are not more dishonest than employees in other industries. However, the business culture in the banking industry implicitly favors dishonest behavior, according to a new economic study.
Working at the edge of a coal mine in India, a team of Johns Hopkins researchers and colleagues have filled in a major gap in science’s understanding of the evolution of a group of animals that includes horses and rhinos. That group likely originated on the subcontinent when it was still an island headed swiftly for collision with Asia, the researchers report Nov. 20 in the online journal Nature Communications.
Tufts University School of Engineering researchers and collaborators from Texas A&M University have published the first research to use computational modeling to predict and identify the metabolic products of gastrointestinal (GI) tract microorganisms. Understanding these metabolic products, or metabolites, could influence how clinicians diagnose and treat GI diseases, as well as many other metabolic and neurological diseases increasingly associated with compromised GI function.
In a study published Wednesday, Nov. 19, in Nature, scientists at Boston University, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and McGill University show that a steep rise in the productivity of crops grown for food accounts for as much as 25 percent of the increase in this carbon dioxide (CO2) seasonality.
As hands come in left and right versions that are mirror images of each other, so do the amino acids and sugars within us. But unlike hands, only the left-oriented amino acids and the right-oriented sugars ever make into life as we know it.