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There is no shortage of wonders that our central nervous system produces—from thought and language to movement to the five senses. All of those dazzling traits, however, depend on an underappreciated deep brain mechanism that Donald Pfaff, head of the Laboratory of Neurobiology and Behavior at The Rockefeller University, calls generalized arousal, or […]

The creation of artificial embryos has moved a step forward after an international team of researchers used mouse stem cells to produce artificial embryo-like structures capable of ‘gastrulation’, a key step in the life of any embryo. The team, led by Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz at the University of Cambridge, previously […]

We know instinctively that our experiences shape the way we learn. If we are highly familiar with a particular task, like cooking for example, learning a new recipe is much easier than it was when we were a novice. New research from the University of California, Davis, shows that experience […]

Two current drugs used to treat psychosis and depression showed anti-cancer activity in mice by blocking the movement of cholesterol within drug-resistant cancer cells, according to Penn State Cancer Institute researchers. Certain types of cancers need high levels of cholesterol to survive. In this study, 42 drugs, anti-psychotics or anti-depressants, were compared […]

A global review involving almost 20 million people has shown that having diabetes significantly raises the risk of developing cancer, and for women the risk is even higher. Researchers from The George Institute for Global Health also found diabetes conferred an additional risk for women, compared to men, for leukaemia […]

Researchers from the University of Liverpool have identified a new compound that protects against neurodegeneration in nematode worms. The discovery may enable novel treatments for human neurodegenerative diseases to be developed in the future. With the predicted growth of the global ageing population, cases of age-associated neurodegenerative diseases such as […]

A comprehensive genetic analysis of metastatic prostate cancer has, for the first time, revealed a number of major ways in which abnormal alterations of the genome propel this aggressive form of the disease. As reported in the issue of Cell, a team led by investigators at UC San Francisco has discovered […]

Researchers in the University of Minnesota Medical School have developed a process to regenerate skeletal muscle cells in animal models with muscular dystrophy. The unlikely source of those cells is a type of benign tumor called a teratoma that produces cells of all types, including glands and hair follicles. Michael Kyba, Ph.D., […]

Over 1.7 million new cancer cases and more than 600,000 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States in 2018. Could that number be reduced if microbes were used to treat cancer? Katherine Broadway, a Virginia Tech graduate student in the Department of Biological Sciences is researching a […]

Royal jelly, or milky-white “bee milk,” has long been known for its mysterious growth effects on future queen honey bees, while also hailed by some as an anti-aging, cholesterol-lowering super supplement. But how this “queen magic” actually happens, and its potential benefit to humans, has remained a mystery to scientists. […]

Normal scar tissue forms to heal an internal wound and quietly retreats when the job is done. But in many common diseases — kidney, liver and lung fibrosis — the scar tissue goes rogue and strangles vital organs. These diseases are largely untreatable and ultimately fatal. A new Northwestern Medicine […]

A team of Sydney scientists has made a ground-breaking discovery in telomere biology, with implications for conditions ranging from cancer to ageing and heart disease. The research project was led by Dr Tony Cesare, Head of the Genome Integrity Unit at Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) at Westmead, in collaboration […]

In cancer cells, genetic errors wreak havoc. Misspelled genes, as well as structural variations—larger-scale rearrangements of DNA that can encompass large chunks of chromosomes—disturb carefully balanced mechanisms that have evolved to regulate cell growth. Genes that are normally silent are massively activated and mutant proteins are formed. These and other […]

Drinking artificially sweetened beverages is associated with a significantly lower risk of colon cancer recurrence and cancer death, a team of investigators led by a Yale Cancer Centerscientist has found. The study was published in PLOS ONE. “Artificially sweetened drinks have a checkered reputation in the public because of purported health risks […]

People who received complementary therapy for curable cancers were more likely to refuse at least one component of their conventional cancer treatment, and were more likely to die as a result, according to researchers from Yale Cancer Center and the Cancer Outcomes, Public Policy and Effectiveness Research Center (COPPER) at Yale School of Medicine. The […]

Age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in the developed world. Scientists are estimating that by 2020 there will be about 200 million people worldwide with the condition. Its numbers are increasing due to the population ageing, but scientists at the University of Birmingham are one step closer […]

There is a highly sophisticated way to treat some breast and ovarian cancers—a class of drugs called PARP inhibitors, designed to exploit the very defects that make tumors with certain mutations especially deadly. Yet this targeted approach to cancer therapy sometimes fails, and scientists have anxiously sought to understand why. […]

UC San Francisco researchers were recently surprised to discover fully formed gut and skin cells in the thymus, a lemon-sized organ that sits in front of the heart and is responsible for training the T cells of the immune system not to attack the body’s own tissues. The finding, based on […]

Omega 3 supplements have little or no effect on the risk of heart disease, stroke or death – according to new research from the University of East Anglia. Increased consumption of omega 3 fats is widely promoted globally because of a common belief that that it will protect against heart […]

Society is becoming older and more vulnerable to chronic diseases that result in a poor quality of life. Life stress, which before being a scientific notion is instinctively clear to most due to its universality, is an important risk factor promoting the vulnerability to disease. So far, there is limited […]

High bitter-taste sensitivity is associated with a significantly increased risk of cancer in older British women, according to researchers who conducted a unique study of 5,500 women whose diet, lifestyle and health has been tracked for about 20 years. The research examined the relationship between the ability to taste the […]

There are many different types of cancer and all of them are terrible. It is quite interesting because they are technically different diseases and are treated using different therapies. But they still have a lot in common and scientists from the University of Adelaide have now designed a new molecule, […]

A magnetic wire used to snag scarce and hard-to-capture tumor cells could prove to be a swift and effective tactic for early cancer detection, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The wire, which is threaded into a vein, attracts special magnetic nanoparticles engineered to […]

The largest coordinated research effort to study biological and non-biological factors associated with aggressive prostate cancer in African-American men has begun. The $26.5 million study is called RESPOND, or Research on Prostate Cancer in Men of African Ancestry: Defining the Roles of Genetics, Tumor Markers, and Social Stress. It will […]

Kids who experience severe stress are more likely to develop a host of physical and mental health problems by the time they reach adulthood, including anxiety, depression and mood disorders. But how does early life stress put children at risk when they grow up? To find out, researchers from the […]

The lungs are made up of some 30 to 40 different types of cells. “When you get sick, these cells can change. New cells can come in and resident cells can change over,” says Naftali Kaminski, MD, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Endowed Professor of Medicine (Pulmonary), and chief of the […]

Two-thirds of the 5.5 million Americans with Alzheimer’s disease are women, and without effective prevention and treatments, that number will triple by 2050. Now, thanks to an innovative partnership, two UCI researchers have been awarded $100,000 to dig into why such a huge gender disparity exists. Sunil Gandhi and Mathew […]

Yale researchers have tested a new method for directly measuring synaptic loss in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease. The method, which uses PET imaging technology to scan for a specific protein in the brain linked to synapses, has the potential to accelerate research for new Alzheimer’s treatments, the researchers said. The […]

Researchers have identified a key protein involved in the irregular brain cell activity seen in autism spectrum disorders and epilepsy. The protein, p53, is well-known in cancer biology as a tumor suppressor. The findings, reported in the journal Human Molecular Genetics and Neuropharmacology, will open new avenues for understanding the […]

Our cells tend to lose their shape as we grow older, contributing to many of the effects we experience as aging. This poses particular problems for the heart, where aging can disrupt the protein network within muscle cells that move blood around the body. A new discovery in how heart […]