Related Science News

Air pollution — especially ozone air pollution which is increasing with climate change — accelerates the progression of emphysema of the lung, according to a new study led by the University of Washington, Columbia University and the University at Buffalo. While previous studies have shown a clear connection of air pollutants with […]

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 […]