Researchers from the lab of Hans Clevers (Hubrecht Institute) and the UMC Utrecht used organoid technology to grow miniature human tear glands that actually cry. The organoids serve as a model to study how certain cells in the human tear gland produce tears or fail to do so. Scientists everywhere can use the model to identify new treatment options for patients with tear gland disorders, such as dry eye disease. Hopefully in the future, the organoids can even be transplanted into patients with non-functioning tear glands. The results will be published in Cell Stem Cell on the 16th of March. The tear gland is located in the upper part of the eye socket. It secretes tear fluid, which is essential for lubrication and nutrition of the cornea and has antibacterial components. Rachel Kalmann ...

Like a well-trained soldier, a white blood cell uses specialized abilities to identify and ultimately destroy dangerous intruders, including creating a protrusion to effectively reach out, lock-on, probe, and possibly attack its prey. Researchers reporting March 16 in Biophysical Journal show in detail that these cells take seconds to morph into these highly rigid and viscous defensive units. Senior author Julien Husson (@_julienhusson), a biophysicist at École Polytechnique near Paris, and collaborators showed previously that certain white blood cells, called T cells, ...

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2021 -- Men and women are impacted differently by brain diseases, like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Researchers are urging their colleagues to remember those differences when researching treatments and cures. In APL Bioengineering, by AIP Publishing, University of Maryland scientists highlight a growing body of research suggesting sex differences play roles in how patients respond to brain diseases, as well as multiple sclerosis, motor neuron disease, and other brain ailments. That is progress from just a few years ago, said Alisa Morss ...

Stem-cell-derived organoids that swell up with tears could shed light on the biology of crying and dry-eye disease, suggests a study publishing March 16 in the journal Cell Stem Cell. Although regenerative therapies using human tear-gland organoids will not be possible anytime soon, these researchers have demonstrated that the organoids can engraft, integrate, and produce mature tear products upon transplantation into mouse tear glands. "We hope that scientists will use our model to identify new treatment options for patients with tear-gland disorders by either testing new drugs on a patient's organoids or expanding healthy cells and, one day, using them for transplantation," says senior study author Hans Clevers (@HansClevers) of the Hubrecht Institute. The ...

Wealthier northeastern US states and Western European countries tended to have significantly lower mortality rates during second-wave COVID-19 infections, new research from the University of Sydney and Tsinghua University has shown. However, the pattern was not as general as expected, with notable exceptions to this trend in Sweden and Germany. Researchers say mortality change could have several explanations: European first-wave case counts were underestimated; First-wave deaths disproportionately affected the elderly; Second-wave infections tended to affect younger people; With some ...

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2021 -- Cancerous cells exhibit several key differences from healthy cells that help identify them as dangerous. For instance, the pH -- the level of acidity -- within a cancerous cell is not the same as the pH within a healthy cell. Researchers from the National University of Singapore developed a method of using machine learning to determine whether a single cell is cancerous by detecting its pH. They describe their work in the journal APL Bioengineering, from AIP Publishing. "The ability to identify single cells has acquired a paramount importance in the field of precision and personalized medicine," ...

What The Study Did: The findings of this study suggest that, based on a sample from an otherwise healthy population, the overall number of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the U.S. may be substantially higher than estimates based on public health case reporting. Authors: Robert L. Stout, Ph.D., of Clinical Reference Laboratory Inc. in Lenexa, Kansas, 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.2021.1552) 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, ...

What The Study Did: Researchers examined nursing homes in communities with the highest COVID-19 prevalence to identify characteristics associated with resident infection rates. Authors: Hye-Young Jung, Ph.D., of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, 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.2021.1555) Editor's Note: The article includes funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including ...

The first systematic study of its kind describes how human viruses including SARS-CoV-2 are better adapted to infecting certain types of tissues based on their ability to hijack cellular machinery and protein synthesis. Carried out by researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), the findings could help the design of more effective antiviral treatments, gene therapies and vaccines. The study is published today in the journal Cell Reports. Living organisms make proteins inside their cells. Each protein consists of single units of amino acids which are stitched together according to instructions encoded within DNA. The basic units of these instructions are known as a codons, each of which corresponds ...

When scientists at the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria looked at developing zebrafish embryos, they observed an abrupt and dramatic change: within just a few minutes, the solid-like embryonic tissue becomes fluid-like. What could cause this change and, what is its role in the further development of the embryo? In a multidisciplinary study published in the journal Cell, they found answers that could change how we look at key processes in development and disease, such as tumor metastasis. To learn more about how a tiny bunch of cells develops into complex systems ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- In the past few years, several medications have been found to be contaminated with NDMA, a probable carcinogen. This chemical, which has also been found at Superfund sites and in some cases has spread to drinking water supplies, causes DNA damage that can lead to cancer. MIT researchers have now discovered a mechanism that helps explain whether this damage will lead to cancer in mice: The key is the way cellular DNA repair systems respond. The team found that too little activity of one enzyme necessary for DNA repair leads to much higher cancer rates, while too much activity can produce tissue damage, especially in the liver, which can be fatal. Activity ...

Several oceans' worth of ancient water may reside in minerals buried below Mars' surface, report researchers. The new study, based on observational data and modeling, shows that much of the red planet's initial water - up to 99% - was lost to irreversible crustal hydration, not escape to space. The findings help resolve the apparent contradictions between predicted atmospheric loss rates, the deuterium to hydrogen ratio (D/H) of present-day Mars and the geological estimates of how much water once covered the Martian surface. Ancient Mars was a wet planet - dry riverbeds and relic shorelines record a time when vast volumes of liquid water flowed across the surface. Today, ...

Birds breathe with greater efficiency than humans due to the structure of their lungs--looped airways that facilitate air flows that go in one direction--a team of researchers has found through a series of lab experiments and simulations. The findings will appear Fri., March 19 in the journal Physical Review Letters (to be posted between 10 and 11 a.m. EDT). The study, conducted by researchers at New York University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology, also points to smarter ways to pump fluids and control flows in applications such as respiratory ventilators. "Unlike the air flows deep in the branches of our lungs, which oscillate back and forth as we breathe in and out, the flow moves in a single direction in ...

PHILADELPHIA - Imposter syndrome is a considerable mental health challenge to many throughout higher education. It is often associated with depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and self-sabotage and other traits. Researchers at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University wanted to learn to what extent incoming medical students displayed characteristics of imposter syndrome, and found that up to 87% of an incoming class reported a high or very high degree of imposter syndrome. "Distress and mental health needs are critical issues among medical ...

PITTSBURGH (March 16, 2021) ... During the swarming of birds or fish, each entity coordinates its location relative to the others, so that the swarm moves as one larger, coherent unit. Fireflies on the other hand coordinate their temporal behavior: within a group, they eventually all flash on and off at the same time and thus act as synchronized oscillators. Few entities, however, coordinate both their spatial movements and inherent time clocks; the limited examples are termed "swarmalators"1, which simultaneously swarm in space and oscillate in time. Japanese tree frogs are exemplar swarmalators: each frog changes both its location and rate of croaking ...

How much do people have to pay for a travel permit to another country? A research team from Göttingen, Paris, Pisa and Florence has investigated the costs around the world. What they found revealed a picture of great inequality. People from poorer countries often pay many times what Europeans would pay. The results have been published in the journal Political Geography. Dr Emanuel Deutschmann from the Institute of Sociology at the University of Göttingen, together with Professor Ettore Recchi, Dr Lorenzo Gabrielli and Nodira Kholmatova (from Sciences Po Paris, CNR-ISTI Pisa and EUI Florence respectively) compiled a new dataset on visa costs for travel between countries worldwide. The analysis shows that on average people ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The link between psychological stress and physical health problems generally relates to a stress-induced immune response gone wild, with inflammation then causing damage to other systems in the body. It's a predictable cascade - except in pregnancy, research suggests. Scientists exploring the negative effects of prenatal stress on offspring mental health set out to find the immune cells and microbes in stressed pregnant mice most likely to trigger inflammation in the fetal brain - the source for anxiety and other psychological problems identified in previous research. Instead, the researchers found two simultaneous conditions ...

Wearable electronic devices like fitness trackers and biosensors, are very promising for healthcare applications and research. They can be used to measure relevant biosignals in real-time and send gathered data wirelessly, opening up new ways to study how our bodies react to different types of activities and exercise. However, most body-worn devices face a common enemy: heat. Heat can accumulate in wearable devices owing to various reasons. Operation in close contact with the user's skin is one of them; this heat is said to come from internal sources. Conversely, when a device is worn outdoors, sunlight acts as a massive external source of heat. These sources combined can easily raise the temperature ...

The vast majority of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 clear the virus, but those with compromised immunity--such as individuals receiving immune-suppressive drugs for autoimmune diseases--can become chronically infected. As a result, their weakened immune defenses continue to attack the virus without being able to eradicate it fully. This physiological tug-of-war between human host and pathogen offers a valuable opportunity to understand how SARS-CoV-2 can survive under immune pressure and adapt to it. Now, a new study led by Harvard Medical School scientists offers a look into this interplay, shedding light on the ways in which ...

A Florida State University professor's research could help quantum computing fulfill its promise as a powerful computational tool. William Oates, the Cummins Inc. Professor in Mechanical Engineering and chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, and postdoctoral researcher Guanglei Xu found a way to automatically infer parameters used in an important quantum Boltzmann machine algorithm for machine learning applications. Their findings were published in Scientific Reports. The work could help build artificial neural networks ...

Prof. HUANG Weixin and ZHANG Qun from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), together with domestic collaborators, probed into the photocatalytic oxidation of methanol on various anatase TiO2 nanocrystals. The results were published on Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Semiconductor-based photocatalysis has attracted extensive attention since its discovery, owing to its environmentally friendly production of chemical fuel utilizing solar energy. A photocatalytic reaction consists of light absorption and charge generation within photocatalysts, ...

Nanozymes, a group of inorganic catalysis-efficient particles, have been proposed as promising antimicrobials against bacteria. They are efficient in killing bacteria, thanks to their production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Despite this advantage, nanozymes are generally toxic to both bacteria and mammalian cells, that is, they are also toxic to our own cells. This is mainly because of the intrinsic inability of ROS to distinguish bacteria from mammalian cells. In a study published in Nature Communications, the research team led by XIONG Yujie and YANG Lihua from University of Science and Technology (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) proposed a novel method to construct efficient-while-little-toxic nanozymes. The researchers showed that nanozymes ...

Females who are fit and healthy tend to burn more fat when they exercise than men, according to new research from a team of sports nutritionists. The research, comprising two new studies from academics led by the University of Bath's Centre for Nutrition, Exercise & Metabolism, analysed the factors that most influenced individuals' capacity to burn body fat when undertaking endurance sports. How the body burns fat is important to all of us for good metabolic health, insulin sensitivity and in reducing the risk of developing Type II diabetes. But, for endurance sport ...

Research led by the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge has identified a material that could help tackle speed and energy, the two biggest challenges for computers of the future. Research in the field of light-based computing - using light instead of electricity for computation to go beyond the limits of today's computers - is moving fast, but barriers remain in developing optical switching, the process by which light would be easily turned 'on' and 'off', reflecting or transmitting light on-demand. The study, published in Nature Communications, shows that a material known as Ta2NiSe5 could switch between a window and a mirror in a quadrillionth of a second when struck by a short laser pulse, paving the way for the development ...

The bacterial equivalent of a traffic jam causes multilayered biofilms to form in the presence of antibiotics, shows a study published today in eLife. The study reveals how the collective behaviour of bacterial colonies may contribute to the emergence of antibiotic resistance. These insights could pave the way to new approaches for treating bacterial infections that help thwart the emergence of resistance. Bacteria can acquire resistance to antibiotics through genetic mutations. But they can also defend themselves via collective behaviours such as joining together ...