ROCKVILLE, MD – Improving the way scientists can see the microscopic structures of the brain can improve our understanding of a host of brain diseases, like Alzheimer’s or multiple sclerosis. Studying these diseases is challenging and has been limited by accuracy of available models. To see the smallest parts of cells, scientists often use a technique called electron microscopy.  Electron microscopy historically involves adding chemicals and physically cutting the tissue. However, this approach can change the way the cells and structures look, perturbing their natural state, and can limit resolution. ...

ROCKVILLE, MD – Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is a rare viral disease that is spread through physical contact between people. Currently, testing for mpox requires lab equipment and can take a few hours to get test results. But new research suggests a way for faster testing that could be done in any clinic soon. Md. Ahasan Ahamed, a graduate student mentored by Weihua Guan at Pennsylvania State University will present this research at the 68th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, to be held February 10 - 14, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Though mpox symptoms are generally mild with fever, rash, and swollen lymph nodes, severe cases can occur and require medical attention. ...

New research by Joseph Reiner and colleagues at Virginia Commonwealth University shows promise for a urine-based test for ovarian cancer. Reiner will present their research at the 68th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, to be held February 10 - 14, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Previous research showed that there are thousands of small molecules, called peptides, in the urine of people with ovarian cancer. While it is possible to detect those molecules using certain well-established techniques, ...

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have come up with a new way of rolling atomically thin sheets of atoms into “nanoscrolls.” Their unique approach uses transition metal dichalcogenide sheets with a different composition on either side, realizing a tight roll that gives scrolls down to five nanometers in diameter at the center and micrometers in length. Control over nanostructure in these scrolls promises new developments in catalysis and photovoltaic devices.   Nanotechnology is giving us new tools to control the structure of materials at ...

New test for improving population-based colorectal cancer screening A new stool test appears to detect colorectal cancer precursors better than the current test. This could further reduce the number of new colorectal cancer cases as well as the number of people dying from the disease. A study led by the Netherlands Cancer Institute compared both tests. The results are published today in The Lancet Oncology.   Each year worldwide, approximately 1.9 million people are diagnosed with colorectal cancer, and 935,000 people ...

People who quit smoking see major gains in life expectancy after just a few years, according to a new study by University of Toronto researchers at Unity Health Toronto. The study, published in NEJM Evidence, shows that smokers who quit smoking before age 40 can expect to live almost as long as those who never smoked. Those who quit at any age return close to never-smoker survival 10 years after quitting, and about half that benefit occurs within just three years. “Quitting smoking is ridiculously effective in reducing ...

Researchers at the University of São Paulo’s Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ-USP) and the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV) in Brazil have shown for the first time that bixin or annatto powder, a carotenoid pigment extracted from the seeds of the achiote or annatto tree (Bixa orellana), is not produced only in the seeds but also in other organs, and that the process intensifies in the plant’s adult phase. An article on the study published in the Journal of Experimental Botany, also describes genetic modifications in the species that can optimize production of the pigment, which is widely used in the food ...

Humans are still evolving, and Tatum Simonson, PhD, founder and co-director of the Center for Physiological Genomics of Low Oxygen at University of California School of Medicine, plans to use evolution to improve healthcare for all. Her latest research, which was published February 9, 2024 in Science Advances, reveals that a gene variant in some Andean people is associated with reduced red blood cell count at high altitude, enabling them to safely live high in the mountains in low-oxygen conditions. Simonson’s UC San Diego lab is applying those findings toward understanding whether there may be a genetic component ...

Waltham — February 9, 2024 — For Black men with prostate cancer, racial representation is a key factor affecting trust in websites offering information on prostate cancer, reports a study in the March issue of The Journal of Urology®, an Official Journal of the American Urological Association (AUA). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.  "Our study shows that representation matters to Black patients seeking prostate cancer information online," comments lead author Stacy Loeb, MD, MSc, PhD (Hon), of New York University Langone Health. "Not only does it impact trust in the information, but a lack ...

From work to school to socializing, COVID-19 has impacted just about every part of our lives—and now Boston University research has shown that also includes what happens in the bedroom. A study of more than 2,000 cisgender women found the coronavirus disease can impair sexual function, with long COVID having an especially detrimental effect. “If you’re sick with COVID, you’re probably less interested in sex and maybe your body is less prepared to have sex,” says Amelia M. Stanton, a BU College of Arts & Sciences assistant ...

“A fundamental hypothesis we sought to test was whether biomarkers from the TGF-β signaling pathway might be of novel value in risk stratification of HCC in the clinical cirrhotic setting.” BUFFALO, NY- February 9, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Genes & Cancer on February 5, 2023, entitled, “Mechanistically based blood proteomic markers in the TGF-β pathway stratify risk of hepatocellular cancer in patients with cirrhosis.” Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third leading cause of death from cancer worldwide but is often diagnosed at an advanced incurable stage. Yet, despite the urgent need for ...

There may, as they say, be plenty of fish in the sea — but angling opportunities on Utah’s streams, rivers and lakes are getting more crowded. The number of anglers trying their luck on Utah waters has consistently increased over the years, meanwhile it’s getting more expensive for state managers to raise and stock gamefish and increasingly difficult to access water-based recreation during the ongoing megadrought. Managers of fisheries in the state are being asked to do more with less these days, and they’re working more strategically to create sustainable opportunities for everyone picking up a rod and ...

Research Highlights: In the EMBOLISE clinical trial, obstructing (or blocking) an artery that supplies blood to the dura, the protective covering of the brain, along with surgery to remove pooled blood reduced the chances by nearly 3-fold that blood would reaccumulate and require additional surgery. According to researchers, complications related to the embolization procedure were low, and neurological function was comparable to those without embolization. Chronic subdural hematoma, a pooling of blood between the brain and one of its outer coverings, is one ...

Waltham — February 8, 2024 — For patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty (THA), the use of robotic-assisted surgery and surgical navigation techniques is not associated with an increased risk of periprosthetic joint infection (PJI), suggests a study in The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.  Computer navigation (CN) and robotic assistance (RA) do not alter the risk of PJI after total hip replacement surgery, according to the new research by Alberto V. Carli, MD, and colleagues of Hospital for Special Surgery, New York.  Could CN and RA increase risks during hip replacement?  Computer ...

In a recent publication released by PubMed, American scientists led by Dr. Dufault at the Food Ingredient and Health Research Institute, reported the results of a clinical trial in which parents who received nutritional epigenetics education significantly reduced their consumption of ultra-processed foods while increasing their intake of whole and/or organic foods. The education intervention used curriculum focused on the constructs of the nutritional epigenetics model that explains how autism and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may develop from the excess consumption of ultra-processed ...

· First-of-its-kind study of immune genes in Alzheimer’s patients’ blood · Immune T cells are altered and entering brain · Uncertain whether changes precipitate the disease   CHICAGO --- A new Northwestern Medicine study has found the immune system in the blood of Alzheimer’s patients is epigenetically altered. That means the patients’ behavior or environment has caused changes that affect the way their genes work.  Many of these altered immune genes are the same ones that increase an ...

ROCKVILLE, MD – Erdinc Sezgin, of Karolinska Institutet, Sweden will be honored as the recipient of the Biophysical Journal Paper of the Year-Early Career Investigator Award at the 68th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society, held February 10-14 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This award recognizes the work of outstanding early career investigators in biophysics. The winning paper is titled “Influence of the Extracellular Domain Size on the Dynamic Behavior of Membrane Proteins.” The paper was published in Volume 121, Issue ...

In writing a good online dating profile, the average love-seeker is likely to fill it up with all the appealing qualities and interests that make them special. They paraglide and do hot yoga on the weekends; enjoy Riesling on the beach or seeing indie bands in basements; are a Libra with Scorpio rising; or have a dog or three kids or an iguana. There’s one thing they routinely leave out, however: what they want to know about their potential partner. Yet, that detail might the most important thing to include, according ...

Snail shells are often colourful and strikingly patterned. This is due to pigments that are produced in special cells of the snail and stored in the shell in varying concentrations. Fossil shells, on the other hand, are usually pale and inconspicuous because the pigments are very sensitive and have already decomposed. Residues of ancient colour patterns are therefore very rare. This makes this new discovery by researchers from the University of Göttingen and the Natural History Museum Vienna (NHMW) all the more astonishing: they found pigments in ...

There are no substitutes for native vegetation, but replacing large areas of monoculture with diversified crops in places where agricultural activities are widespread can have beneficial effects on the mammals that still inhabit the region. This is one of the conclusions of a study conducted by researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) supported by FAPESP. They focused on the northeast of São Paulo state, where the predominant biome is the Cerrado (Brazilian savanna). The region is one of the nation’s agribusiness centers. An article on the study is published in the Journal of Applied Ecology. The study showed that ...

Semiconductors are ubiquitous in modern technology, working to either enable or prevent the flow of electricity. In order to understand the potential of two-dimensional semiconductors for future computer and photovoltaic technologies, researchers from the Universities of Göttingen, Marburg and Cambridge investigated the bond that builds between the electrons and holes contained in these materials. By using a special method to break up the bond between electrons and holes, they were able to gain a ...

“This paper presents the rationale for adding five already approved and marketed generic drugs from general medical practice to the current standard current first line chemotherapy for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).”   BUFFALO, NY- February 9, 2024 – A new research perspective was published in Oncoscience (Volume 11) on February 7, 2024, entitled, “IPIAD- an augmentation regimen added to standard treatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma using already-marketed repurposed drugs irbesartan, pyrimethamine, itraconazole, azithromycin, and dapsone.” In this new paper, researcher Richard E. Kast from IIAIGC Study Center presents the ...

SAN ANTONIO, Feb. 9, 2024 – The UT Health San Antonio School of Dentistry has opened a special-care dental clinic, the first of its kind in an academic setting in South Texas that will serve people of all ages with intellectual, developmental, cognitive or physical disabilities. With spacious, specially designed treatment rooms featuring adjustable sound and lighting and even a “Zen Den” multi-sensory room to help reduce anxiety, the Phil and Karen Hunke Special Care Clinic occupies approximately ...

MIT engineers have developed a small ultrasound sticker that can monitor the stiffness of organs deep inside the body. The sticker, about the size of a postage stamp, can be worn on the skin and is designed to pick up on signs of disease, such as liver and kidney failure and the progression of solid tumors.  In an open-access study that will appear in Science Advances, the team reports that the sensor can send sound waves through the skin and into the body, where the waves reflect off internal organs and back out to the sticker. The pattern of the reflected waves can be read as ...

New Haven, Conn. — A Yale-led research team has picked a side in the “Snowball Earth” debate over the possible cause of planet-wide deep freeze events that occurred in the distant past. According to a new study, these so-called “Snowball” Earth periods, in which the planet’s surface was covered in ice for thousands or even millions of years, could have been triggered abruptly by large asteroids that slammed into the Earth. The findings, detailed in the journal Science Advances, may answer a question ...