General

Sperm start their sprint to the ovum when they detect changes in the environment through a series of calcium channels arranged like racing stripes on their tails. A team of Yale researchers has identified a key molecule that coordinates the opening and closing of these channels, a process that activates […]

About a third of us are walking around with the bacteria that causes tuberculosis (TB) in our bodies, but most don’t actually end up with TB. For children living with HIV – about 2 million at last estimate – it’s a different story. They’re much more likely to develop TB, […]

The human brain is “plastic”: it can adapt and rewire itself, often more easily when learning new things related to familiar skills. For example, it is probably easier for a professional tennis player to learn to play badminton than soccer. Seeking to discover basic limits on the brain's plasticity, a […]

Long before scientists test new medicines in animals or people, they study the effects of the substances on cells growing in Petri dishes. However, a 2D layer of cells is a poor substitute for the much more complex 3D structure of tissues in organs. Now, researchers reporting in the ACS […]

Researchers have linked some environmental pollutants with diseases, a decreased life span and signs of premature aging, such as wrinkles and age spots. But can accelerated aging be detected at the cellular level in healthy people exposed to pollutants? Now, researchers in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology report that […]

Discomfort: a word that no one wants to associate with a medical procedure. But sadly, it’s sometimes unavoidable. A new University of Michigan study — recently published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology, examined the short-term degree of discomfort associated with two different prostate cancer detection methods: prostate MRIs […]

More Americans are being diagnosed with eye complications of shingles, but older adults can call the shots on whether they are protected from the painful rash that can cost them their eyesight. Among a group of 21 million adults, occurrences of herpes zoster ophthalmicus (HZO), when shingles gets in the […]

New findings suggest an unexpected path to killing cancer cells could make the hottest cancer treatment — immunotherapy — more effective. Researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center looked at a little-understood type of cell death called ferroptosis. They found ferroptosis occurs in tumor cells and plays a role in […]

More than 50 million Americans are affected by an autoimmune disease, with women at an increased risk for developing one. “Autoimmune conditions can be debilitating for patients,” says Dinesh Khanna, M.D., M.Sc., a professor of rheumatology and the director of the Michigan Medicine Scleroderma Program. “As a National Institutes of Health Autoimmunity Center of Excellence site, […]

Known as the atopic or allergic march, it’s a familiar progression to pediatricians and parents alike: atopic dermatitis and food allergies emerge in infancy or early childhood, followed by rhinitis and asthma as the child gets older. But what if it were possible to stop this march in its tracks? […]

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found, in mice, that treatment with an antibiotic reduces the size of lesions caused by endometriosis. The researchers are planning a large, multicenter clinical trial to test the drug metronidazole in women who have the painful condition. The study […]

By age 40, almost everyone’s arteries have begun to harden as deposits of fat and cholesterol build up on the inside of the blood vessels. Clumps big enough to obstruct blood flow can starve tissues of needed oxygen and nutrients. But even small deposits can be lethal, if they release […]

Mobility is very important to us as humans. We want to move around, reach different parts of the city and generally enjoy our independency. However, as people age they become limited in this regard, because they stop driving and have to live from the retirement pension. Now scientists found that […]

The performance of different prosthetic implant combinations used in patients undergoing hip and knee replacements in England and Wales over the last 14 years have, for the first time, been directly compared in two new studies. The University of Bristol findings, published in the BMJ Open, reveal substantial variability in […]

The largest study of its kind, which has used genetic information from Bristol's Children of the 90s, has led to new insights into the complex relationships surrounding how mothers’ and babies’ genes influence birth weight. The research, published in Nature Genetics, identifies 190 links between our genetic code and birth weight, […]

People with good vision despite having center-involved diabetic macular edema can safely forego immediate treatment of their eye condition as long as they are closely monitored, and treatment begins promptly if vision worsens, according to clinical trial results. The findings are published online in the Journal of the American Medical […]

You are weighed for the first time almost immediately after birth. The weight of the newborn is a very important health indicator. Now scientists from the University of Queensland conducted a large study providing insights into genes and their role at determining the birth weight of a child. In total […]

A recently recognized brain disorder that mimics clinical features of Alzheimer’s disease has for the first time been defined with recommended diagnostic criteria and other guidelines for advancing and catalyzing future research. Scientists from several National Institutes of Health-funded institutions, in collaboration with international peers, described the newly-named pathway to […]

In the recent years cannabis has been getting a lot of scientific attention. Nowadays scientists agree that the potential of this plant is severely underutilized. While consequences of the legality of recreational use of marijuana are still debatable, its potential to become a modern and natural medicine is huge. Now […]

People who are really into sports swear by amino acids and protein shakes. They believe that these supplements are extremely important if you want to be healthy and grow muscle. But is that really the way to go? Scientists from the University of Sydney say that you shouldn’t so fast […]

Most of us nowadays have jobs that do not promote movement. In fact, more and more people spend their days sitting and not doing anything physical at all. We are well aware that this sort of behaviour is extremely harmful, but does working out after a prolonged period of sitting […]

You learn as you go. This is how you learned to walk, to speak, to read and to do pretty much everything else. You observe, you try and you do it. Scientists say that this is why it is very important that small children hear a lot of talking from […]

In a new study, Yale Cancer Center scientists have demonstrated a powerful method to analyze how tumor cells are altered as they metastasize, or spread, to the brain. The research, published in the journal Cell Reports, may eventually improve early diagnosis and treatment of metastatic brain cancer, whose incidence is climbing and whose […]

Nature can provide us with a lot of inspiration when it comes to science. For example, did you know that there is a species of microscopic roundworm, called c. elegans, which are able to repair damaged nerves? Scientists observed how this tiny creature spontaneously reconnects severed nerves. Researchers from the […]

A previously unknown autoimmune muscle disease involving sudden onset of debilitating muscle pain and weakness has been identified by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The syndrome easily could be mistaken for other muscle diseases that require different treatment, so the findings are expected to help […]

Prior studies have suggested that pain-relieving opioids such as methadone can markedly lower testosterone in men. And those contending with Type 2 diabetes are roughly twice as likely to see a decrease in active amounts of the male sex hormone. While explanations have proven elusive, researchers do have an intriguing […]

An interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has developed a promising new cell therapy with potential to improve tissue healing after orthopedic injuries. The new cell therapy, recently described in the journal Stem Cells, accelerated the recovery of ruptured Achilles tendons in a rodent model, and may similarly aid […]

A team of Florida State University researchers used a simple tumor model to show the importance of tissue microenvironment in primary tumor formation. In the journal Developmental Cell, FSU researchers explain how certain signaling pathways define tumor hotspots, tissue microenvironment favorable for tumorigenesis, and show that simple stimulation of a […]

Eating breakfast every day has always been considered an important part of a healthy lifestyle, but a new study from the University of Iowa shows just how important it is. The study, by Wei Bao, assistant professor of epidemiology in the University of Iowa College of Public Health, finds that people who […]

Researchers at the University of Iowa have discovered a link between sleep apnea and multiple myeloma, a deadly blood cancer, that could lead to earlier and more effective treatment of the disease. Mahmoud Ali, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at the UI, says the findings provide a better understanding […]