Robot

The UCSF scientists who identified the two known human genes that promote “natural short sleep” – nightly sleep that lasts just four to six hours but leaves people feeling well-rested – have now discovered a third, and it’s also the first gene that’s ever been shown to prevent the memory […]

You have to learn to be grateful for what you have, but it is impossible to deny that some people have it much more difficult than others. Living in disadvantaged situations can and will hurt you eventually. Scientists from the University of Edinburgh and NHS Lothian found that children from […]

Squids, octopuses, cuttlefish, amphibians, and chameleon lizards are among the animals that can change the color of their skin in a blink of an eye.  They have photoreceptors in their skin that operate independently of their brains. The photoreceptors are part of a family of proteins known as opsins. Mammals […]

Researchers have discovered that a key cell type involved in liver injury and cancer consists of two cellular families with different origins and functions. The research by academics from the Universities of Edinburgh and Bristol and funded by the Wellcome Trust and Medical Research Council is published in Nature Communications. […]

Children born to women who underwent gastric bypass surgery before becoming pregnant had a lower risk of major birth defects than children born to women who had severe obesity at the start of their pregnancy. That’s according to a matched cohort study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Örebro University […]

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences have investigated the effects of testosterone supplementation in young athletically active women in a randomized, placebo-controlled trial. The results, which are published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, show that there is a causal relationship between […]

UCLA research identifies a potential strategy that may lead to treatment for the disorder. A new study examining the role that star-shaped brain cells called astrocytes play in Huntington’s disease has identified a potential strategy that may halt the disease and repair some of the damage it causes. Astrocytes interact […]

Eye gaze helps infants communicate. Through everyday interactions, eye gaze establishes a social connection between parent and child and is linked to early word learning. But can learn experiences before a baby’s first birthday prompt babies to pay more attention to their parent’s eye gaze? To test this, a research […]

A therapy developed by Yale researchers stimulates immune cells to shrink or kill tumors in mice, according to a new study published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. The therapy is effective alone or in combination with existing cancer immunotherapies, and it appears to have lasting effects, the researchers said. The […]

Cancer cells are masters at avoiding detection, but a new system developed by Yale scientists can make them stand out from the crowd and help the immune system spot and eliminate tumors that other forms of immunotherapies might miss, the researchers report in the journal Nature Immunology. The new system […]

The search for effective biological tools is a marathon, not a sprint, even when the distances are on the microscale. A discovery at Rice University on how engineered communities of cells communicate is a long step in the right direction. The Rice lab of synthetic biologist Matthew Bennett has designed […]

Many people are looking forward to their retirement. You have so much spare time once you stop working and can finally dedicate yourself to the things you love doing the most. But did you know that the time you spend retired actually differs if you earn more or less? Scientists […]