Related Science News

Researchers have now obtained the long-sought after, resting-state structure of a voltage-gated sodium channel.  These types of channels in living cells form a voltage-regulated pore that allows rapid passage of positively charged sodium atoms across the cell membrane. This generates a tiny electrical signal. Electrical signals in nerve and muscle […]

Beta-amyloid plaques, the protein aggregates that form in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, disrupt many brain functions and can kill neurons. They can also damage the blood-brain barrier — the normally tight border that prevents harmful molecules in the bloodstream from entering the brain. MIT engineers have now developed a […]

In a nationwide study, researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of hundreds of participants in the National Institutes of Health’s Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) and found that intensively controlling a person’s blood pressure was more effective at slowing the accumulation of white matter lesions […]

Published in JAMA Network Openresearchers looked at six repeated bone scans from 6,389 children in Bristol’s Children of the 90s study between the ages of ten and 25 to assess if the timing of puberty had any influence on bone density throughout adolescence and into early adulthood. They found that […]

A new collaboration with an independent school in Menlo Park, Calif., is helping Stanford researchers better understand how different learning experiences drive changes in the brain. The Brainwave Learning Center at Synapse School brings together researchers, teachers and students to gain new insights into how young learners' brains transform as they acquire […]

Scientists studying a highly cancer-prone family have identified a rare, inherited gene mutation that dramatically raises the lifetime risk of pancreatic and other cancers. The discovery of the previously unknown mutation, reported in Nature Genetics by Harvard Medical School investigators at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, could lead to routine testing of individuals […]

Aided by a high-powered brain scanner and a 3D printer, NIH researchers peered inside the brains of hundreds of multiple sclerosis patients and found that dark rimmed spots representing ongoing, “smoldering” inflammation, called chronic active lesions, may be a hallmark of more aggressive and disabling forms of the disease. “We […]

Researchers and caregivers have noted that excessive daytime napping can develop long before the memory problems associated with Alzheimer’s disease begin to unfold. Prior studies have considered this excessive daytime napping to be compensation for poor nighttime sleep caused by Alzheimer’s-related disruptions in sleep-promoting brain regions, while others have argued that the […]

Rice University scientists have found a way to engineer a new kind of cell differentiation in bacteria, inspired by a naturally occurring process in stem cells. They have created a genetic circuit able to produce genetically distinguished cells of Escherichia coli as the bacterium divides. By controlling this process, it is possible […]

Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of dementia among the elderly, is characterized by plaques and tangles in the brain, with most efforts at finding a cure focused on these abnormal structures. But a University of California, Riverside, research team has identified alternate chemistry that could account for the various […]

Increasingly, Alzheimer’s disease research has focused on the preclinical stage, when people have biological evidence of Alzheimer’s but either no symptoms or minimal symptoms—the time when interventions might have the potential to prevent future decline of older adults. Harvard Medical School researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have shed new light on […]

People whose diets included high levels of vitamin A had a 17 percent reduction in risk for getting the second-most-common type of skin cancer, as compared to those who ate modest amounts of foods and supplements rich in vitamin A. That’s according to researchers from Brown University, who unearthed that […]

Glioblastoma is an aggressive form of brain cancer that infiltrates surrounding brain tissue, making it extremely difficult to treat with surgery. Even when chemotherapy and radiation successfully destroy the bulk of a patient’s glioblastoma cells, they may not affect the cancer stem cells. This small population of tumor cells have […]

Researchers have found a therapy to reduce the size of tumours where previous drugs have failed. Tumours develop from abnormal cells in the body that continue to grow forming lumps. These lumps can be benign, meaning they’re not harmful, or they can become malignant which leads to cancer. Malignant tumours, […]

Researchers at University of Washington and University of California, Los Angeles, have developed an artificial intelligence system that could help pathologists read biopsies more accurately, and lead to better detection and diagnosis of breast cancer. Doctors examine images of breast tissue biopsies to diagnose breast cancer. But the differences between […]

Growing evidence suggests that certain types of bacteria are capable of causing colorectal cancers, indicating that a sub-set of these cancers could be the result of infectious disease. But understanding how bacteria interact in the human gut – our microbiome – has been challenging because of the complex microbial mixture […]

Researchers from Northwestern University are using Argonne supercomputers to advance the development of an optical microscopy technique that can predict and quantify cancer risks at extremely early stages. The basic principle driving Allen Taflove’s computational electrodynamics research — which bears the potential to transform how we diagnose, and possibly treat, […]

You know you have a skeleton, but did you know that your cells have skeletons, too? Cellular skeletons, or cytoskeletons, are shapeshifting networks of tiny protein filaments, enabling cells to propel themselves, carry cargo, and divide. Now, an interdisciplinary team of Caltech researchers has designed a way to study and […]

Electromagnetic fields might help prevent some breast cancers from spreading to other parts of the body, new research has found. The study showed that low intensity electromagnetic fields hindered the mobility of specific breast cancer cells by preventing the formation of long, thin extensions at the edge of a migrating […]

A team of researchers from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), part of the National Institutes of Health, and collaborating academic research institutions developed a method to measure a type of gene mutation involved in the evolution of cancer. This type of mutation, called “repeat instability,” may be useful in […]

While the presence of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain may be a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, giving patients an amyloid PET scan is not an effective method for measuring their cognitive function, according to a new study from researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine and Thomas Jefferson University. The […]

Imagine standing in a lumberyard and being asked to build a house — without blueprints or instructions of any kind. The materials are all in front of you, but that doesn’t mean you have the first idea how to get from point A to point B. That was the situation […]

Novel high-sensitivity detector could aid in early diagnosis. A prime suspect in the onset of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases is a normally benign enzyme that is essential to proper development of the nervous system. Under certain conditions, however, its chemical structure changes and it goes rogue, contributing to the neural […]

Pretty much all of your cells have the same DNA code, yet they come in an astonishing number of forms. Some cells contract so the heart can beat or your muscles flex. Others have jobs in the immune system, tuned to recognize different threats. Cells can change their behavior, altering […]

Up to two decades before people develop the characteristic memory loss and confusion of Alzheimer’s disease, damaging clumps of protein start to build up in their brains. Now, a blood test to detect such early brain changes has moved one step closer to clinical use. Researchers from Washington University School […]

Brain metastases are the final, lethal consequence of many aggressive cancers, and researchers are racing to discover ways of preventing these intractable growths from developing. A new Tel Aviv University study finds a known adjuvant — an ingredient used in some vaccines that helps create a stronger immune response — that contains […]

“Music evokes emotion, and emotion can bring with it memory… it brings back the feeling of life when nothing else can.” This quote by well-known British neurologist Oliver Sacks (author of Awakenings) shows the power of music. Indeed, like the aroma of cookies baking, a familiar song can bring us back to […]

Contrary to popular belief, most older Americans with advancing dementia remain in their own homes — many until they die. But a new study by researchers at UC San Francisco has revealed that this population may endure more pain and have more complex or unaddressed medical needs than their counterparts […]

A quirk of the body clock that lures some people to sleep at 8 p.m., enabling them to greet the new day as early as 4 a.m., may be significantly more common than previously believed. So-called advanced sleep phase — previously believed to be very rare — may affect at […]

A combination of two different kinds of heart cells, derived from stem cells, might be key to designing an effective graft for repairing damaged hearts. During embryonic development, cells originating in the epicardium – the protective outer wall of the heart – are pivotal in certain aspects of how the […]