General

Julie H. Simpson receives an NSF CAREER award to study how neural circuits coordinate behaviors. Everything we do comes down to a series of neural signals that translate into physical behaviors. We receive information through our senses, sensory neurons convert this information into electrical and chemical signals that are processed […]

Researchers use old equations coupled with new methods to help decode the massively complex gut microbiome. For something that has evolved with us over millions of years, and remains part of our physiology over our entire lives, our gut microbiome, oddly, remains somewhat of a mystery. Comprised of trillions of […]

Talk about motherly instincts: Biologists at the University of Iowa have learned that female roundworms can alert their future offspring of dangers they will encounter when born, and the mothers pass on these warnings even before the offspring have been conceived. The study shows that a mother roundworm releases a chemical […]

Drug that reduces swelling may help protect against brain and spinal cord injury. Every year, millions of people around the world suffer brain and spinal cord injuries resulting from trauma, accidents, infections, or stroke. These injuries trigger swelling that can lead to death or long-lasting disabilities, but current treatment options […]

An off-label experiment in mice using disulfiram, which has been used to treat alcohol use disorder for more than 50 years, consistently normalized body weight and reversed metabolic damage in obese middle-aged mice of both sexes. The international study was led by researchers at the National Institute on Aging (NIA), […]

A new tool invented by the University of Alberta biologists to sequence circular DNA will provide scientists with richer, more accurate data that could help advance research on viruses, agriculture, and perhaps even cancer. The tool—called CIDER-Seq, which uses DNA sequencing technology called PacBio—was made available online by the U of […]

A large international trial has confirmed previous findings that a commonly used antidepressant is not effective in supporting the recovery of patients who have had a stroke. The results of the study, led by researchers from The University of Western Australia and The George Institute for Global Health in Sydney, were […]

Prostate cancer therapies have shown significant advances during the past decade, with multiple new therapies being introduced for patients with advanced disease. Now, the early results of a clinical trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) reveals for the first time that therapies based on tumor genetics – specifically DNA repair […]

Early results for a potentially revolutionary brain disease therapy given under compassionate use to a 2 year-old has shown promise, a University of Manchester scientist will tell an international conference. Professor Brian Bigger will tell the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy that the safety and feasibility of the […]

A team of researchers from Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Socios En Salud, and the Broad Institute at Harvard and MIT report they have identified the single largest genetic contributor to height known to date. The findings, published in Nature, are based on an analysis of samples from […]

For decades, the enormous disease-curing potential of human stem cells has been thwarted by the inability to produce sufficient quantities of mature human cells in vivo — in a living organism. Now, a team led by University at Buffalo scientists has developed a method that dramatically ramps up the production […]

Promising Research May Have Been Sullied by Shoddy Science. A protocol comprising dietary supplements and lifestyle changes that claim to prevent or reverse Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline has drawn media fanfare and critical acclaim from health gurus and even physicians. But the endorsement of these claims is frequently based […]