Biosingularity

Until now, there have been no witnesses to the death of brain cells in people with Parkinson’s disease. And like any murder mystery, this has slowed the search for the killer. In a big break in the case, Stanford University scientists say they have re-enacted this tragedy in a petri dish — growing the young [...]

There are billions of neurons in the brain and at any given time tens of thousands of these neurons might be trying to send signals to one another. Much like a person trying to be heard by his friend across a crowded room, neurons must figure out the best way to get their message heard [...]

Researchers have developed a way to create uniformly sized cell membranes, small cellular packages that can be used like tiny terrariums to study the inner workings of the cell and even create new molecules. Sandro Matosevic and Brian Paegel of the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida, have developed a chip-based method that creates uniformly [...]

A sleepless night can make us cranky and moody. But a lesser known side effect of sleep deprivation is short-term euphoria, which can potentially lead to poor judgment and addictive behavior, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley. Researchers at UC Berkeley and Harvard Medical School studied the brains of healthy young [...]

By mutating a single gene, researchers at MIT and Duke have produced mice with two of the most common traits of autism — compulsive, repetitive behavior and avoidance of social interaction. They further showed that this gene, which is also implicated in many cases of human autism, appears to produce autistic behavior by interfering with [...]

A novel approach to pancreatic cancer treatment that activates the immune system works in some patients, according to a new study. The treatment works by destroying the ”scaffolding” around cancer cells, says researcher Robert H. Vonderheide, MD, DPhil, an associate professor of medicine in the division of hematology/oncology and the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, [...]

By comparing the genome sequence of healthy and cancerous cells in 38 people diagnosed with multiple myeloma—an aggressive blood cancer—scientists have created a molecular map of what goes awry in this disease. The findings, published today in Nature, point to new targets for drug development, and also suggest that some patients will respond to drugs [...]

Biological systems, including cells, tissues and organs, can function properly only when their parts are working in harmony. These systems are often dauntingly complex: Inside a single cell, thousands of proteins interact with each other to determine how the cell will develop and respond to its environment. To understand this great complexity, a growing number [...]

Researchers in Japan have made fertile mammalian sperm in a culture dish, a feat long thought to be impossible. The technique, reported today in Nature1, could help to reveal the molecular steps involved in sperm formation and might even lead to treatments for male infertility. Biologists have been trying to make sperm outside the body [...]

An experimental gene therapy injected into the brains of patients with Parkinson’s disease improved tremor, stiffness, and other movement symptoms and was safe with few side effects over six months of follow-up, a study shows. The small study represents the first successful clinical trial comparing a gene-based treatment to sham treatment in Parkinson’s or any [...]

Although it won’t be obvious to UCSF Medical Center patients, behind the scenes a family of giant robots now counts and processes their medications. With a new automated hospital pharmacy, believed to be the nation’s most comprehensive, UCSF is using robotic technology and electronics to prepare and track medications with the goal of improving patient [...]

With the flick of a precisely placed light switch, mice can be induced to cower in a corner in fear or bravely explore their environment. The study highlights the power of optogenetics technology—which allows neuroscientists to control genetically engineered neurons with light—to explore the functions of complex neural wiring and to control behavior. In the [...]

Women who drink a cup or more of coffee each day may be less likely to have a stroke, compared to women who drink less coffee, according to new research in the journal Stroke. The new findings should not be taken to mean that everyone should start drinking coffee to lower their stroke risk, as [...]

Eating fatty fish one or more times a week may reduce your risk for developing age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of vision loss in people aged 60 and older. The new findings appear online in the Archives of Opthalmology.About 9 million Americans aged 40 and older show signs of age-related macular degeneration AMD and 7.3 [...]

Just about every week, it seems, a new study warns of another potential health risk linked to soft drinks. The most recent headlines have raised concerns that diet sodas boost stroke risk. Diet and regular sodas have both been linked to obesity, kidney damage, and certain cancers. Regular soft drinks have been linked to elevated [...]

Researchers in Australia have identified four molecular characteristics, or biomarkers, of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which they say could lead to better ways to diagnose the respiratory conditions. The biomarkers were discovered using a relatively new field of science known as proteomics, which is the study of the proteins that are involved [...]

During about 30 percent of all heart attacks, the patient experiences no symptoms. However, unmistakable signs of the attack remain in the bloodstream for days. MIT researchers, working with Massachusetts General Hospital’s Cardiovascular Research Center, have now designed a tiny implant that can detect those signs, which could help doctors more rapidly determine whether a [...]

When designing new cancer drugs, biologists often target specific gene mutations found only in cancer cells, or in a subset of cancer cells. A team of MIT biologists is now taking a slightly different approach, targeting a trait shared by nearly all cancer cells — they have too many chromosomes. MIT biology professor Angelika Amon [...]

Filling up on fiber — particularly fiber from whole grains — may reduce your risk of dying from heart disease, infections, and respiratory diseases, says a new study published online in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Men and women who ate the most dietary fiber were 22% less likely to die from any cause when [...]

Adult cells that have been reprogrammed into stem cells harbor a number of genetic mutations, some of which appear in genes that have been linked to cancer. While scientists don’t yet know how this might affect the use of the cells in medicine, they say the findings show that the cells need to be studied [...]

Memories fade with time, often to the annoyance of those who can’t recall important details. But scientists have now found a way to boost the recall of memories even after they’ve started to fade. Unfortunately, the method involves injecting an engineered virus directly into the brain, so those of us who are bad with names [...]

New research lends support to the idea that exposure to a wide range of microbes explains why farm kids have lower asthma rates than city kids. School-aged children in the studies who lived on farms were about 30% to 50% less likely to have asthma than non-farm children who lived nearby. Farm-dwelling children were also [...]

When your brain encounters sensory stimuli, such as the scent of your morning coffee or the sound of a honking car, that input gets shuttled to the appropriate brain region for analysis. The coffee aroma goes to the olfactory cortex, while sounds are processed in the auditory cortex. That division of labor suggests that the [...]

High-resolution images from a laser-based tool developed at Duke University could help doctors better diagnose melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. The improved diagnoses could potentially save thousands of lives and millions of dollars in unnecessary healthcare costs each year. The tool probes skin cells using two lasers to pump small amounts of energy, [...]

In the brains of people blind from birth, structures used in sight are still put to work — but for a very different purpose. Rather than processing visual information, they appear to handle language. Linguistic processing is a task utterly unrelated to sight, yet the visual cortex performs it well. “It suggests a kind of [...]

A handheld device that detects proteins produced by tumor cells could give doctors a fast, accurate way to diagnose and monitor cancer. Tumor-marker testing usually requires pea-size tissue samples and can take days in a laboratory to yield results. The new detector, by contrast, requires a tiny speck of tissue, takes less than an hour [...]