Related Science News

A Virginia Tech research team has discovered insights into the stabilizing forces of amyloid fibrils that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease and type 2 diabetes. These findings were recently published in the Journal of Molecular Biology. Amyloids are aggregates of proteins that form a shape that allows many copies of that protein […]

A major study has found that medicines used to treat diabetes in adults are not effective on youth. Researchers say the finding is disturbing because type 2 diabetes among youth is a growing problem. In youth with impaired glucose tolerance or recent-onset type 2 diabetes, neither initial treatment with long-acting insulin followed by the drug […]

Immune cells commonly blamed in Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases are actually precision cleaning machines protecting the central nervous system, new research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine shows. The discovery adds nuance and complexity to our understanding of immune cells known as microglia. By appreciating the role of these cells in full, […]

A first-ever tissue implant to safely treat a common jaw defect, known as temporomandibular joint dysfunction, has been successfully tested by UCI-led researchers in animals. “We were able to show that we could achieve exceptional healing of the TMJ area after eight weeks of treatment,” said UCI Distinguished Professor of […]

A new microscope system can image living tissue in real time and in molecular detail, without any chemicals or dyes, report researchers at the University of Illinois. The system uses precisely tailored pulses of light to simultaneously image with multiple wavelengths. This enables the researchers to study concurrent processes within […]

Poor protein in a mother’s diet in early pregnancy, around the time of conception, can have a lasting effect on brain development, according to research recently published by University of Southampton academics. The project, led by Dr Sandrine Willaime-Morawek, in collaboration with Professor Tom Fleming, is the first to clearly […]

From the spatter analysis made famous in the TV show Dexter to the frequent DNA profiling of CSI and the real cases covered in the FBI Files, blood tests are ubiquitous in forensic science. Now, researchers report in ACS Central Sciencethat a new blood test, which could be performed at a crime scene, could help determine […]

Discovery could be a step toward developing treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases. UCLA researchers have developed synthetic T lymphocytes, or T cells, that are near-perfect facsimiles of human T cells. The ability to create the artificial cells could be a key step toward more effective drugs to treat cancer […]

Analysis of large data sets from post-mortem brain samples of people with and without Alzheimer’s disease has revealed new evidence that viral species, particularly herpesviruses, may have a role in Alzheimer’s disease biology. Researchers funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, made […]

Scientists seeking to unlock the secrets of cellular aging have identified a gene that triggers senescence, a phenomenon in which cells stop dividing. Senescence is a natural occurrence in the life of a cell, and researchers have sought to learn about it for a couple of reasons. First, it’s connected […]

The disappearance of an entire brain region should be cause for concern. Yet, for decades scientists have calmly maintained that one brain area, the subplate, simply vanishes during the course of human development. Recently, however, research has revealed genetic similarities between cells in the subplate and neurons implicated in autism—leading a […]

A so-called “jumping gene” that researchers long considered either genetic junk or a pernicious parasite is actually a critical regulator of the first stages of embryonic development, according to a new study in mice led by UC San Francisco scientists and published in Cell. Only about 1 percent of the human […]