Kiwifruit has proven itself as a powerful mood booster and new research has shown just how fast its effects can be.
Scientists uncovered a mechanism by which cancer cells prevent the immune system from activating and attacking the cancerous invaders. The study sheds light on why immunotherapy treatments don't work for all people or all diseases. For example, certain types of cancers -- including colon, pancreatic, prostate and brain cancers -- have stubbornly resisted immunotherapy. And while breast, esophageal and head and neck cancers often respond favorably, sometimes the treatments don't work as planned. Researchers still don't understand exactly why.
New research reveals that interventions which improve mood can reduce levels of inflammation in people with inflammatory bowel disease by 18 per cent, compared to having no mood intervention.
A novel gene therapy for hearing loss was administered to six children in China in a clinical trial. Each child had an inherited deafness caused by mutations in the OTOF gene, called DFNB9. The researchers report in a new study, after 26 weeks, five children demonstrated hearing recovery and dramatic improvements in speech perception and the restored ability to conduct normal conversation. With its first patient treated in December 2022, this research represents the first human clinical trial to administer gene therapy for treating this form of hearing loss, with the most patients treated and longest follow-up conducted to date.
Menopausal women who regularly swim in cold water report significant improvements to their physical and mental symptoms, finds a new study.
A significant bias in medical studies towards men of European origin means genetic variants in understudied populations don’t get the focus they deserve
Antiretroviral therapy (ART) does an excellent job at suppressing HIV to undetectable levels in the blood. However, small amounts of latent virus hide throughout the body, and when treatment is stopped, it opens the door for the virus to rebound. Researchers identified which tissues SIV, the nonhuman primate version of HIV, reemerges from first, just seven days after ART is stopped.
Migraine is often underdiagnosed and untreated, and even when it is treated, it can be difficult to treat early enough as well as find strategies to prevent attacks. A new study looks at ways to more accurately predict when a migraine will occur -- through the use of mobile apps to track sleep, energy, emotions and stress -- to enhance the ability to prevent attacks.
Emerging research suggests it may be easier to use fusion as a power source if liquid lithium is applied to the internal walls of the device housing the plasma. Past experiments studied solid lithium coatings and found they could enhance a plasma. The researchers were pleased they could yield similar results with liquid lithium, as it's better suited for use in a large-scale tokamak.
Scientists have succeeded in achieving the world's first pregnancy of a rhinoceros after an embryo transfer. The southern white rhino embryo was produced in vitro from collected egg cells and sperm and transferred into a southern white rhino surrogate mother at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya on September 24, 2023. The BioRescue team confirmed a pregnancy of 70 days with a well-developed 6.4 cm long male embryo. The successful embryo transfer and pregnancy are a proof of concept and allow to now safely move to the transfer of northern white rhino embryos -- a cornerstone in the mission to save the northern white rhino from extinction.
UNSW Sydney medical scientists have cracked a mystery whose solution has long eluded researchers. UNSW Sydney medical scientists have cracked a mystery whose solution has long eluded researchers.
Certain materials have desirable properties that are hidden and scientists can use light to uncover these properties. Researchers have used an advanced optical technique, based on terahertz time-domain spectroscopy, to learn more about a quantum material called Ta2NiSe5 (TNS).
Analysis of the remains of 24 individuals from the Wilamaya Patjxa and Soro Mik'aya Patjxa burial sites in Peru shows that early human diets in the Andes Mountains were composed of 80 percent plant matter and 20 percent meat.
Obesity is a problem in the United States. In fact, 42.5% of U.S. adults aged 20 and over have the disease. Not only is obesity the nation's second leading cause of preventable death (behind only smoking cigarettes), it also leads to other serious health issues, including an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, cancer, sleep apnea and liver disease. The disease and its side effects impose a significant financial burden on America's health care system.
An immune component of breast milk known as the complement system shapes the gut environment of infant mice in ways that make them less susceptible to certain disease-causing bacteria, according to a new study.
In a new study, researchers combined OCT retinal imaging, genetics and big data to estimate how likely a person is to develop eye and systemic diseases in the future. They found significant associations between the thinning of different retinal layers and increased risk of developing eye, neuropsychiatric, cardiac, metabolic, and pulmonary diseases and identified genes that are associated with retinal layer thickness. Their hope is one day patients can be provided more personalized risk assessments and referred to specialists for preventive and treatment plans for eye and other diseases.
Biomedical engineers have demonstrated that one of the most dangerous mutations found in skin cancers might moonlight as a pathway to mending a broken heart. The genetic mutation in the protein BRAF, a part of the MAPK signaling pathway that can promote cell division, is one of the most common and most aggressive found in melanoma patients. In a new study, researchers show that introducing this mutation to rat heart tissue grown in a laboratory can induce growth.
An estimated 1,600 people in the U.S. contract a serious infection from Listeria bacteria in food each year and, of those individuals, about 260 people die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers may now better understand how the bacteria, called Listeria monocytogenes, survive and persist in fruit-packing plants by evading and surviving sanitizers.
How does loss of habitat affect the animals still living there? A genetic study of saltwater-adapted Savannah sparrows around the San Francisco Bay Area shows that the 90% loss of tidal marsh habitat has led to more interbreeding with freshwater-adapted Savannah sparrows, diminishing their genetic adaptation to saltwater, such as enlarged kidneys and larger beak. This could lessen their ability to live in a saltwater habitat.
Model predictions showed a rapid increase in microplastic accumulation and contamination across the penguins' prey organisms resulting in Galapagos penguin showing the highest level of microplastics per biomass, followed by barracuda, anchovy, sardine, herring, and predatory zooplankton.
Pages