Related Science News

Older adults are admitted to hospice for short duration despite experiencing symptoms months prior to the end of life, according to a Yale-led study. The finding highlights the need for earlier hospice admission or other strategies to address increasing symptoms and disability at the end of life, the researchers said. […]

Because anticancer drugs are designed to kill growing cells, they also affect normal, fast-growing cells—blood cells forming in the bone marrow, for example, and digestive, reproductive, and hair follicle cells. Chemotherapy may also affect cells in vital organs, such as the heart, kidney, bladder, lungs, and nervous system. Researchers at […]

Scientists working to develop new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases have been stymied by the inability to grow human motor neurons in the lab. Motor neurons drive muscle contractions, and their damage underlies devastating diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and spinal muscular atrophy, both of which ultimately lead to paralysis […]

Women who receive a breast cancer diagnosis while they are still young enough to bear children can take time to freeze their eggs and embryos without fear of delaying their cancer treatment, according to research by UC San Francisco scientists who have helped develop a faster fertility preservation technique that can […]

In a two-year study at UCLA, nearly two-thirds of people with advanced melanoma responded positively to a treatment that combines the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab with a herpes virus called talimogene laherpareovec, or T-VEC. Researchers led by Dr. Antoni Ribas found that the treatment’s side effects were manageable, and comparable to […]

While Zika virus causes devastating damage to the brains of developing fetuses, it one day may be an effective treatment for glioblastoma, a deadly form of brain cancer. New research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of California San Diego School of Medicine shows […]

UCLA biologists have developed an intervention that serves as a cellular time machine — turning back the clock on a key component of aging. In a study on middle-aged fruit flies, the researchers substantially improved the animals’ health while significantly slowing their aging. They believe the technique could eventually lead […]

Getting older is not something people admire. Your body becomes weaker and you generally start losing some of its capacities. For example, around 1 in 3000 middle-age people start experience reduction of sight. Why is that? A new study from The University of Edinburgh determined genetic reasons for the middle-age […]

At some point no vertebrates had brains and this is weird to think about it. At the beginning of the development of the new life, while it is still in mother‘s womb, vertebrates don‘t have brains and all of a sudden neurogenesis takes place and brain starts forming. How does […]

In developing fetuses, infection by the Zika virus can result in devastating neurological damage, most notably microcephaly and other brain malformations. In a new study, published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Washington University School of Medicine in St. […]

Just as many Danes die of cardiovascular diseases as cancer. However, the majority of funding ends in cancer screening. A major new study now shows that a combined screening for cardiovascular diseases delivers more lifespan per krone spent than, for example, cancer screening programmes. “National screening programmes have been implemented […]

The notorious genetic marker of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, ApoE4, may not be a lone wolf. Researchers from USC and The University of Manchester have found that another gene, TOMM40, complicates the picture. Although ApoE4 plays a greater role in some types of aging-related memory ability, the […]

There are many good ways of maintaining health of your heart. You should exercise, avoid prolonged periods of sitting, eat less fat food and so on. But did you know that staying in education for longer may help you avoiding heart disease? A new study from UCL has shown that […]

UW Medicine researchers recently lead a successful effort to create “designer” stem cells that might lead to advances in cancer and aging, they say. In a paper published this week in the journal PNAS, the scientists showed for the first time that a computer-generated protein can be inserted into stem cells to change their epigenetic memory, whose role is to […]

Cancer cells obtained from a blood test may be able to predict how early-stage lung cancer patients will fare, a team from the University of Michigan has shown. This information could be used to determine which patients are most likely to benefit from additional therapies to head off the spread […]

Can a cell show its biological age? And is it possible to foresee an animal’s lifespan? Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne discovered a connection between the size of the nucleolus – a tiny structure in the very center of the cell – and […]

Bone marrow contains hematopoetic stem cells, the precursors to every blood cell type. These cells spring into action following bone marrow transplants, bone marrow injury and during systemic infection, creating new blood cells, including immune cells, in a process known as hematopoiesis. A new study led by University of Pennsylvania […]

Osteoporosis is a disease which reduces bone density, increasing the risk of breaking. Osteoporosis sufferers are typically older people – it is the main reason of a broken bone among the elderly. Now scientists from The University of British Columbia have found a potential candidate for a new treatment – […]

More than one-and-a-half years after implantation, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and the San Diego Veterans Administration Medical Center report that human neural stem cells (NSCs) grafted into spinal cord injuries in laboratory rats displayed continued growth and maturity, with functional recovery beginning one year […]

A group of researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) at the University of Wollongong had developed a way of “printing” human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) using a custom bioink. The tem behind a paper documenting the new technique, published in the journal Advanced Healthcare […]

A drug developed by an Iowa State University biomedical researcher as a potential treatment for spinal muscular atrophy showed promising results in a recently published study. Ravindra Singh, a professor of biomedical sciences in the ISU College of Veterinary Medicine, has been studying spinal muscular atrophy, a leading genetic cause […]

Everyone knows that placebo is capable of effectively reducing pain, but people respond differently to placebo treatment. A new study from the University of Luxembourg revealed that it depends heavily on person‘s ability to reinterpret negative events and to control feelings. Interestingly, this was figured out using fMRI technology. Placebo […]

For Myrna Caroline Jacques, digital storytelling is her way of fighting Alzheimer’s. “I thought maybe if I do this and use my brain, the disease won’t take over as soon. “That’s my goal,” the 77-year-old grandma of five said. She may be onto something. A recent UAlberta study on digital […]

A pair of English bulldog puppies are the first patients to be successfully treated with a unique therapy — a combination of surgery and stem cells — developed at the University of California, Davis, to help preserve lower-limb function in children with spina bifida. Because dogs with the birth defect […]

Drawing on available data on people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), researchers at McGill University in Canada had trained a machine-learning algorithm to identify which patients will go on to develop dementia within a 24 month period with 84% accuracy. The data used […]

A mutation that helps make cells immortal is critical to the development of a tumor, but new research at UC Berkeley suggests that becoming immortal is a more complicated process than originally thought. The key to immortalization is an enzyme called telomerase, which keeps chromosomes healthy in cells that divide […]

Gastric carcinoma is one of the most common causes of cancer-related deaths, primarily because most patients present at an advanced stage of the disease. The main cause of this cancer is the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, which chronically infects around half of all humans. However, unlike tumour viruses, bacteria do not deposit […]

Scientists have identified a large group of biological ‘labels’ that guide nerves to ensure they make the correct connections and control different parts of the body. Although their research was conducted with fruit flies, the findings offer hope that we could one day reestablish nervous connections in people living with […]

A University of Queensland discovery may lead to new treatments for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). UQ Queensland Brain Institute scientists have discovered that new brain cells are produced in the adult amygdala, a region of the brain important for processing emotional memories. Disrupted connections in the amygdala, […]

Our modern lives are extremely stressful. We have to rush pretty much everywhere and are always haunted by a huge fear of getting late and being replaced. However, you may want to consider this – a new study showed that stress may be a major contributor to the development of […]