Biosingularity

Why is it that some obese people are healthier than others? This was one of the main questions Dr. Chaodong Wu of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences — Texas A&M University System — and a group of researchers tried to answer in a recent study. The study, which will appear in a July [...]

Scientists have unlocked the secrets of the zebra fish’s ability to heal its spinal cord after injury, in research that could deliver therapy for paraplegics and quadriplegics in the future. A team from Monash University’s Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI), led by Dr Yona Goldshmit and Professor Peter Currie, discovered the role of a protein [...]

Researchers have shown in mice how immune cells in the brain target and remove unused connections between brain cells during normal development. This research, supported by the National Institutes of Health, sheds light on how brain activity influences brain development, and highlights the newly found importance of the immune system in how the brain is [...]

Researchers at New York University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered new ways neurons work together to ease the transition between sleep and wakefulness. Their findings, which appear in the journal Neuron, provide additional insights into sleep-wake patterns and offer methods to explore what may disrupt them. Their study explored [...]

In a medical first, scientists in Haifa, Israel, took skin cells from two heart failure patients and reprogrammed them into stem cells that generated healthy, beating heart muscle cells in the lab. Though human testing is likely a decade off, the hope is that such cells can be used to help people with heart failure [...]

HIV patients treated with genetically modified T cells remain healthy up to 11 years after initial therapy, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania report in the new issue of Science Translational Medicine. The results provide a framework for the use of this type of gene therapy as a powerful [...]

Older adults who drank coffee — caffeinated or decaffeinated — had a lower risk of death overall than others who did not drink coffee, according a study by researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and AARP. Coffee drinkers were less likely to die from heart disease, respiratory [...]

A study from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers suggests that specific populations of tumor cells have different roles in the process by which tumors make new copies of themselves and grow.  In their report in the May 15 issue of Cancer Cell, researchers identify a tumor-propagating cell required for the growth of a pediatric muscle [...]

For decades, scientists have studied Caenorhabditis elegans – tiny, transparent worms – to glean clues about how neurons develop and function. A new Harvard study suggests that the worms’ nervous system is much more capable and complex than previously thought, and has a way to monitor its own motion, a model one day could serve [...]

A novel mechanism for anxiety behaviors, including a previously unrecognized inhibitory brain signal, may inspire new strategies for treating psychiatric disorders, University of Chicago researchers report. By testing the controversial role of a gene called Glo1 in anxiety, scientists uncovered a new inhibitory factor in the brain: the metabolic by-product methylglyoxal. The system offers a [...]

Researchers have identified a compound that could correct a mutation and stop cancer from spreading — a development that could eventually be used to treat tens of thousands of cancer patients in the United States each year. In a study published today in the journal Cancer Cell, four scientists from the Cancer Institute of New [...]

Medicine’s focus has long been on treating specific diseases. We have radiation treatments to combat cancer tumors, cholesterol-lowering drugs to stave off heart attacks, and insulin to control diabetes. But imagine if there were a drug that would slow down the aging process itself, a drug that didn’t just treat a single disease but instead [...]

A group of American researchers from MIT, Indiana University, and Tufts University, led by Erin Treacy Solovey, have developed Brainput — pronounced brain-put, not bra-input — a system that can detect when your brain is trying to multitask, and offload some of that workload to a computer. The idea of using computers to do our [...]

Positive emotions like joy and compassion are good for your mental and physical health, and help foster creativity and friendship. But people with bipolar disorder seem to have too much of a good thing. In a new article to be published in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the [...]

Humans walk on two feet and (mostly) lack hair-covered bodies, but the feature that sets us furthest apart from other apes is a brain capable of language, art, science, and other trappings of civilisation. Now, two studies published online today in Cell1, 2 suggest that DNA duplication errors that happened millions of years ago might [...]

A pill that has long been used to treat HIV has moved one step closer to becoming the first drug approved to prevent healthy people from becoming infected with the virus that causes AIDS. The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that Gilead Sciences’ Truvada appears to be safe and effective for HIV prevention. It [...]

Chemotherapy saves lives, but it can take a considerable toll on the body. Now, by inserting a mutated gene into cancer patients, researchers have found a way to protect them against the side effects of chemotherapy and boost their odds of surviving a particularly aggressive type of cancer. Patients with glioblastoma, a fast-growing and usually [...]

The typical naked mole rat lives 25 to 30 years, during which it shows little decline in activity, bone health, reproductive capacity and cognitive ability. What is the secret to this East African rodent’s long, healthy life? Scientists from the United States and Israel found a clue. From infancy to old age, naked mole rats are [...]

Magnet-making bacteria may be building biological computers of the future, researchers have said. A team from the UK’s University of Leeds and Japan’s Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have used microbes that eat iron. As they ingest the iron, the microbes create tiny magnets inside themselves, similar to those in PC hard drives. The research [...]

If you’re counting calories to lose weight, that may be only part of the weight loss equation says a new research report published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org). In the report, French scientists show that impairments to a gene known to be responsible for our internal body clocks, called “Rev-Erb alpha,” leads to excessive [...]

British researchers writing in the journal Nature said they had found a major pathway leading to brain cell death in mice with prion disease, the mouse equivalent of Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease (CJD). They then worked out how to block it, and were able to prevent brain cells from dying, helping the mice live longer. The finding, [...]

Researchers have remotely activated genes inside living animals, a proof of concept that could one day lead to medical procedures in which patients’ genes are triggered on demand. The work, in which a team used radio waves to switch on engineered insulin-producing genes in mice, is published today in Science1. Jeffrey Friedman, a molecular geneticist [...]

Gaining access to the inner workings of a neuron in the living brain offers a wealth of useful information: its patterns of electrical activity, its shape, even a profile of which genes are turned on at a given moment. However, achieving this entry is such a painstaking task that it is considered an art form; [...]

Worrywarts, fidgety folk and the naturally nervy may have a real cause for concern: accelerated cancer. In a new study led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, anxiety-prone mice developed more severe cancer then their calm counterparts. The study, to be published online April 25 in PLoS ONE, found that after hairless [...]

Researchers have rejuvenated aged hematopoietic stem cells to be functionally younger, offering intriguing clues into how medicine might one day fend off some ailments of old age. Scientists at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the Ulm University Medicine in Germany report their findings online May 3 in the journal Cell Stem Cell. The paper [...]

The U.S. government is looking for the next AZT, Viagra and thalidomide — substances that washed out as treatments for one disease but later turned out to work well against a totally different ailment. AZT failed as a cancer drug but became the first antiviral to work against HIV. Viagra didn’t succeed as a treatment [...]

Whether someone is a “go-getter” or a “slacker” may depend on individual differences in the brain chemical dopamine, according to new research in the May 2 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings suggest that dopamine affects cost-benefit analyses. The study found that people who chose to put in more effort — even in [...]

The first blind patients to be fitted with electronic eye implants in a UK clinical trial have regained “useful vision” only weeks after surgery. Chris James was able to see outlines of objects for the first time in 20 years after surgeons fitted him with the device during an eight-hour operation. The 51-year-old from Wiltshire, [...]

Researchers have found new evidence showing that resveratrol, a compound found in red wine, may play a role in preventing cell aging. The study in rodents found that when mice had a particular gene — SIRT1 — knocked out, or turned off, resveratrol had no effect on them. But tests of muscle tissue in mice [...]

Scientists have discovered that they can dramatically increase the life span of mice with progeria (premature aging disease) and heart disease (caused by Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy) by reducing levels of a protein called SUN1. This research was done by A*STAR’s Institute of Medical Biology (IMB) in collaboration with their partners at the National Institute of [...]

Aggressive pancreatic tumours may be treatable with a new class of drugs, according to Cancer Research UK Less than one in five people with this form of cancer are still alive a year after being diagnosed. A study, published in the journal Nature, showed that a gene was being switched off in the cancerous cells. [...]

Blueberries and strawberries, which are high in flavonoids, appear to reduce cognitive decline in older adults according to a new study published today in Annals of Neurology, a journal of the American Neurological Association and Child Neurology Society. The study results suggest that cognitive aging could be delayed by up to 2.5 years in elderly [...]

UC Santa Barbara researchers have discovered Salmonella bacteria that are up to 100 times more capable of causing disease. Their findings may help prevent food poisoning outbreaks that continue to plague public health and the food industry. These “hypervirulent” bugs can override vaccines and pose a risk to food safety –– and mitigation efforts are [...]

Every year, millions of people are born with debilitating genetic disorders, a result of inheriting just one faulty gene from their parents. They may have been dealt a dud genetic hand, but they do not have to stick with it. With the power of modern genetics, scientists are developing ways of editing these genetic errors [...]

Specialized compounds that naturally reduce inflammation in mice also help clear bacterial infections. A combination of these inflammation-resolving factors and antibiotics lowers the antibiotic dose needed to clear E. coli and Staphylococcus, according to a new paper in Nature. The finding suggests it would be possible to stimulate a person’s own defenses to enhance the [...]

Traumatic experiences in early life can leave emotional scars. But a new study suggests that violence in childhood may leave a genetic mark as well. Researchers have found that children who are physically abused and bullied tend to have shorter telomeres—structures at the tips of chromosomes whose shrinkage has been linked to aging and disease. [...]

Scientists have created artificial genetic material that can store information and evolve over generations in a similar way to DNA – a feat expected to drive research in medicine and biotechnology, and shed light on how molecules first replicated and assembled into life billions of years ago. Ultimately, the creation of alternatives to DNA could [...]

Scientists at the Allen Institute for Brain Science have identified similarities and differences among regions of the human brain, among the brains of human individuals, and between humans and mice by analyzing the expression of approximately 1,000 genes in the brain. The study, published online today in the journal Cell, sheds light on the human [...]

A new technique for analyzing brain images offers the possibility of using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to predict the rate of progression and physical path of many degenerative brain diseases, report scientists at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco. The technique, developed by SFVAMC scientists in collaboration with [...]

Two Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)-based research teams, along with a group from the University of California at San Diego, have discovered that animals have a previously unknown system for detecting and responding to pathogens and toxins. In three papers published in the journals Cell and Cell Host & Microbe, the investigators describe finding evidence that [...]

Worrying may have evolved along with intelligence as a beneficial trait, according to a recent study by scientists at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and other institutions. Jeremy Coplan, MD, professor of psychiatry at SUNY Downstate, and colleagues found that high intelligence and worry both correlate with brain activity measured by the depletion of the nutrient [...]

Ripe for biomedical applications Until recently, the production of pluripotent “multipurpose” stem cells from skin cells was considered to be the ultimate new development. In the meantime, it has become possible to directly convert cells of the body into one another – without the time-consuming detour via a pluripotent intermediate stage. However, this method has [...]

Working together can hasten brain evolution, according to a new computer simulation. When programmed to navigate challenging cooperative tasks, the artificial neural networks set up by scientists to serve as mini-brains “learned” to work together, evolving the virtual equivalent of boosted brainpower over generations. The findings support a long-held theory that social interactions may have [...]

Brain tumors and head trauma, including concussions, can elevate pressure inside the skull, potentially crushing brain tissue or cutting off the brain’s blood supply. Monitoring pressure in the brains of such patients could help doctors determine the best treatment, but the procedure is so invasive — it requires drilling a hole through the skull — [...]

Pregnant women might now have one more good reason to watch their diet and exercise: A new study links autism and developmental delays in young children to metabolic conditions, like obesity and diabetes, in their mothers. The findings, published in Monday’s edition of the journal Pediatrics, found that women who had diabetes or hypertension or [...]

Killing harmful bacteria in hospitals is difficult; out in the field, it can be an even bigger problem. Now, researchers may have a means for remote disinfection in a portable “flashlight” that shines a ray of cold plasma to kill bacteria in minutes. Medical scientists have high hopes for plasmas. Produced in electrical discharges, these [...]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave the O.K. last Friday to a new radioactive dye that helps doctors scan the brain for Alzheimer’s disease. The dye, called Amyvid (florbetapir), made by Eli Lilly & Co., binds to the sticky amyloid proteins that build up in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s. The dye can be [...]

Scientists at Novartis AG (NOVN) have discovered a compound that spurred cartilage growth from stem cells to fix damaged joints of mice, a finding that may point to a novel therapy for the arthritis that afflicts most elderly. Researchers tested 22,000 drug-like molecules using a robotic screen, applying each one to bone marrow stem cells [...]