What if you could predict which cells might become cancerous? Breast tissue changes dramatically throughout a woman's life, so finding markers for sudden changes that can lead to cancer is especially difficult. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Associate Professor Camila dos Santos and her team identified and cataloged thousands of normal human and mouse breast cell types. The new catalog redefines healthy breast tissue so that when something goes awry, scientists can pinpoint its origin. Any breast cell could become cancerous. Dos Santos says: "To understand breast cancer risk, you have to understand normal breast cells first, so when we think about preventive and even targeting therapies, ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - In a large-animal study, researchers have shown that heart attack recovery is aided by injection of heart muscle cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cell line, or hiPSCs, that overexpress cyclin D2. This research, published in the journal Circulation, used a pig model of heart attacks, which more closely resembles the human heart in size and physiology, and thus has higher clinical relevance to human disease, compared to studies in mice. An enduring challenge for bioengineering researchers is the failure of the heart to regenerate muscle tissue after a heart attack has killed part of its muscle wall. That dead tissue can strain the surrounding muscle, leading to a lethal heart enlargement. Heart experts thus have sought to create new tissue -- applying ...

Inspired by nature, researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), along with collaborators from Washington State University, created a novel material capable of capturing light energy. This material provides a highly efficient artificial light-harvesting system with potential applications in photovoltaics and bioimaging. The research provides a foundation for overcoming the difficult challenges involved in the creation of hierarchical functional organic-inorganic hybrid materials. Nature provides beautiful examples of hierarchically structured hybrid materials such as bones and teeth. These materials typically showcase a precise atomic ...

HOUSTON - (May 14, 2021) - Rice University bioengineers are fabricating and testing tunable electrospun scaffolds completely derived from decellularized skeletal muscle to promote the regeneration of injured skeletal muscle. Their paper in Science Advances shows how natural extracellular matrix can be made to mimic native skeletal muscle and direct the alignment, growth and differentiation of myotubes, one of the building blocks of skeletal muscle. The bioactive scaffolds are made in the lab via electrospinning, a high-throughput process that can produce single micron-scale fibers. The research could ease the burden of performing an estimated ...

Scientists have used fibre-optic sensing to obtain the most detailed measurements of ice properties ever taken on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Their findings will be used to make more accurate models of the future movement of the world's second-largest ice sheet, as the effects of climate change continue to accelerate. The research team, led by the University of Cambridge, used a new technique in which laser pulses are transmitted in a fibre-optic cable to obtain highly detailed temperature measurements from the surface of the ice sheet all the way to the base, more than 1000 metres below. In contrast to previous studies, which measured temperature from separate sensors located tens or even hundreds of metres apart, the new approach allows temperature ...

A microscope used by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek to conduct pioneering research contains a surprisingly ordinary lens, as new research by Rijksmuseum Boerhaave Leiden and TU Delft shows. It is a remarkable finding, because Van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) led other scientists to believe that his instruments were exceptional. Consequently, there has been speculation about his method for making lenses for more than three centuries. The results of this study were published in Science Advances on May 14. Previous research carried out in 2018 already indicated that some of Van Leeuwenhoek's microscopes contained common ground lenses. Researchers have now examined ...

In research made possible when COVID-19 sidelined other research projects, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine meticulously counted brain cells in fruit flies and three species of mosquitos, revealing a number that would surprise many people outside the science world. The insects' tiny brains, on average, have about 200,000 neurons and other cells, they say. By comparison, a human brain has 86 billion neurons, and a rodent brain contains about 12 billion. The figure probably represents a "floor" for the number needed to perform the bugs' complex behaviors. "Even though these brains are simple [in contrast to mammalian brains], they can do a lot of processing, even more than a supercomputer," says Christopher Potter, Ph.D., associate professor of neuroscience ...

Being treated fairly is important - but fairness alone isn't enough to make people feel valued in a workplace or other groups, new research suggests. Researchers found that "distinctive treatment" - where a person's talents and qualities are recognised - provides this sense of value while also reinforcing their sense of inclusion. It also promotes mental health. The findings suggest there is no conflict between "fitting in" and "standing out" in groups - in fact, they complement each other. But while the importance of fairness is widely accepted, the researchers say distinctive treatment is ...

AMES, Iowa - The field photos show the hard, rough country that some glaciers slide over: rocky domes and bumps in granite, rocky steps and depressions in limestone. The glacier beds dwarf the researchers and their instruments. (As do the high mountains pictured on the various horizons.) During their trips to glacier beds recently exposed by retreating glaciers in the Swiss Alps (Rhone, Schwarzburg and Tsanfleuron glaciers) and the Canadian Rockies (Castleguard Glacier), four glaciologists used laser and drone technology to precisely measure the rocky beds and record their very different contours. The researchers turned the measurements into high-resolution digital models of those glacier beds. Then they went to work with manageable but representative subunits of the ...

Better designed vaccines for insect-spread viruses like dengue and Zika are likely after researchers discovered models of immature flavivirus particles were originally misinterpreted. Researchers from The University of Queensland and Monash University have now determined the first complete 3D molecular structure of the immature flavivirus, revealing an unexpected organisation. UQ researcher Associate Professor Daniel Watterson said the team was studying the insect-specific Binjari virus when they made the discovery. "We were using Australia's safe-to-handle Binjari virus, which we combine with more dangerous viral genes to make safer and more effective vaccines," Dr Watterson ...

ITHACA, NY, May 13, 2021 -- Cyanobacteria are one of the unsung heroes of life on Earth. They first evolved to perform photosynthesis about 2.4 billion years ago, pumping tons of oxygen into the atmosphere - a period known as the Great Oxygenation Event - which enabled the evolution of multicellular life forms. Led by BTI faculty member END ...

The United States has witnessed a steep rise in reports, arrests, and media coverage of teachers' sexual misconduct with students. A new study investigated the impact of perpetrators' gender, sexuality, and age on perceptions of teacher sexual misconduct. The study found that responses to teachers' misconduct varied according to certain characteristics, which can influence whether victims report the misconduct. The study, by researchers at Prairie View A&M University and the University of Nevada, Reno, appears in Feminist Criminology. "Because sexual abuse of a child or adolescent in any context has substantial psychological, emotional, and physical consequences for the victim, teachers' sexual misconduct is a serious public health ...

Developing self-healing materials is nothing new for Nancy Sottos, lead of the Autonomous Materials Systems Group at the END ...

Three billion years ago, light first zipped through chlorophyll within tiny reaction centers, the first step plants and photosynthetic bacteria take to convert light into food. Heliobacteria, a type of bacteria that uses photosynthesis to generate energy, has reaction centers thought to be similar to those of the common ancestors for all photosynthetic organisms. Now, a University of Michigan team has determined the first steps in converting light into energy for this bacterium. "Our study highlights the different ways in which nature has made use of the basic reaction ...

May 14, 2021 - Two thirds of all pediatric spinal fractures, especially in the adolescent population, occur in motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) where seatbelts are not utilized, reports a study in Spine. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. "Over 60 percent of pediatric spinal fractures occur in children ages 15 to 17, coinciding with the beginning of legal driving," according to the new research by Dr. Vishal Sarwahi, MD, of Cohen Children's Medical Center, New Hyde Park, NY, and colleagues. They emphasize the need for measures to increase seatbelt usage, particularly by younger drivers, and outline the potential trauma that can be avoided through proper seatbelt use. Seatbelts save lives... and ...

May 14, 2021 - Two years ago, the Veterans Affairs healthcare system (VA) began rolling out a new benefit, enabling Veterans to receive urgent care from a network of community providers - rather than visiting a VA emergency department or clinic. Progress toward expanding community care services for Veterans is the focus of a special supplement to the May issue of Medical Care. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. The urgent care benefit "provides a new way to deliver unscheduled, low-acuity acute care to Veterans," according to the ...

A team led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and Children's National Hospital has developed a unique pre-clinical model that enables the study of long-term HIV infection, and the testing of new therapies aimed at curing the disease. Ordinary mice cannot be infected with HIV, so previous HIV mouse models have used mice that carry human stem cells or CD4 T cells, a type of immune cell that can be infected with HIV. But these models tend to have limited utility because the human cells soon perceive the tissues of their mouse hosts as "foreign," ...

The question of why we dream is a divisive topic within the scientific community: it's hard to prove concretely why dreams occur and the neuroscience field is saturated with hypotheses. Inspired by techniques used to train deep neural networks, Erik Hoel (@erikphoel), a research assistant professor of neuroscience at Tufts University, argues for a new theory of dreams: the overfitted brain hypothesis. The hypothesis, described May 14 in a review in the journal Patterns, suggests that the strangeness of our dreams serves to help our brains better generalize our day-to-day experiences. "There's obviously an incredible number of theories of why we dream," says Hoel. "But I wanted to bring to ...

Rodents and pigs share with certain aquatic organisms the ability to use their intestines for respiration, finds a study publishing May 14th in the journal Med. The researchers demonstrated that the delivery of oxygen gas or oxygenated liquid through the rectum provided vital rescue to two mammalian models of respiratory failure. "Artificial respiratory support plays a vital role in the clinical management of respiratory failure due to severe illnesses such as pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome," says senior study author Takanori Takebe (@TakebeLab) of the Tokyo Medical and Dental University and the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "Although the side effects and safety need to be thoroughly ...

Climate change is known to negatively affect agriculture and livestock, but there has been little scientific knowledge on which regions of the planet would be touched or what the biggest risks may be. New research led by Aalto University assesses just how global food production will be affected if greenhouse gas emissions are left uncut. The study is published in the prestigious journal One Earth on Friday 14 May. 'Our research shows that rapid, out-of-control growth of greenhouse gas emissions may, by the end of the century, lead to more than a third of current global food production falling into conditions in which no food is produced today - that is, out of safe climatic space,' explains Matti Kummu, professor of global water and food issues at Aalto University. According ...

What The Study Did: Researchers analyzed changes in filled prescriptions for naloxone (medication to reverse opioid overdoses) during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and compared them with changes in opioid prescriptions and overall prescriptions. Authors: Ashley L. O'Donoghue, Ph.D., of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/  (doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2021.0393) Editor's Note: The ...

What The Study Did: Associations of staffing and testing interventions with COVID-19 transmission in nursing homes are examined in this decision analytical modeling study. Authors: Rebecca Kahn, Ph.D., of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, is the  corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.10071) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, ...

What The Study Did: This is a qualitative study that evaluates a crowdsourcing open call to gather community input for engaging the university community in COVID-19 safety strategies. Authors: Suzanne Day, Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.10090) Editor's Note: This article includes funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. INFORMATION: Media ...

What The Study Did: Researchers evaluated the compliance of hospitals with a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ruling mandating that a list of charges for services, procedures and items be publicly available and in a machine-readable file. Authors: David Hsiehchen, M.D., of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.10109) Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, ...

Tokyo, Japan - Oxygen is crucial to many forms of life. Its delivery to the organs and tissues of the body through the process of respiration is vital for most biological processes. Now, researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) have shown that oxygen can be delivered through the wall of the intestine to compensate for the reduced availability of oxygen within the body that occurs in lung diseases that cause respiratory failure. To breathe is to live; for higher animals, respiration involves absorbing oxygen and excreting carbon dioxide at gills or in the lungs. However, some animals have evolved alternative ventilatory mechanisms: loaches, catfish, sea cucumbers and orb-weaving spiders can absorb oxygen through their hindgut to ...