Scientists have reported that an experimental vaccine targeting one of the most common genetic drivers of pancreatic cancer, called mutant KRAS, is safe and generated a durable immune responses aimed at preventing the cancer.
A novel approach to obstructing the runaway inflammatory response implicated in some types of asthma has shown promise in a Phase IIa clinical trial, according to researchers.
The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial tested the efficacy and safety of the monoclonal antibody, dupilumab, in patients with "persistent, moderate-to-severe asthma" and elevated eosinophils, which are immune cells that mobilize in response to allergens and infections and are commonly seen in asthma.
Dupilumab, a fully human monoclonal antibody discovered by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and being developed by Regeneron and Sanofi, thwarts activation of the Th2 immune response implicated in asthma by blocking two cytokines, interleukin-4 and interleukin-13.
A new analysis shows that America could produce almost 9% of its annual energy needs - 25 billion gallons of fuel - using algae.
But it will take a lot of water.
Algae are plump with oil and various research teams and companies are pursuing ways to improve the creation of biofuels based on algae – growing algae composed of more oil, creating algae that live longer and thrive in cooler temperatures, or devising new ways to separate out the useful oil from the rest of the algae.
Are you among the 60% of UK television viewers who admit to a Television Tryst behind your partner's back?
A survey of Netflix customers found that the freedom to watch what we want, when we want can be a romantic minefield. Netflix has 36 million members in 40 countries so the pool of people is obviously there.
Tiotropium delivered by the Respimat(R) Soft Mist(TM) Inhaler (SMI) increases time to first severe exacerbation and first episode of asthma worsening across a broad spectrum of patients who remain symptomatic despite at least inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) / long-acting beta2-agonists (LABA) therapy.
The results are from pre-planned subgroup analyses of data from the PrimoTinA-asthma(TM) Phase III studies being presented for the first time today at the 2013 American Thoracic Society (ATS) congress in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Decades of focus on genes may have led the scientific community away from a balanced exploration of the organisms that those genes define - whether they be plants, animals or microorganisms - and more toward gene-focused directions: inward, toward the world of cellular and molecular biology, and outward, toward the broad-scale evolutionary issues of population and quantitative genetics. We've become too genetic variation heavy.
During the Bush administration, NASA began monitoring the Moon for explosions - they have turned out to be more common than previously believed, happening hundreds of times each year. Smart Science 2.0 readers are already wondering how there can be an 'explosion' when the Moon has no oxygen atmosphere. Lunar meteors hit the ground with so much kinetic energy that even a pebble can make a crater several feet wide and so the flash of light comes not from combustion but rather from the thermal glow of molten rock and hot vapors at the impact site. No oxygen or combustion needed.
A new strain of photosynthetic cyanobacteria have been engineered to grow without the need for light.
In order for research to be most effective, the people included need to be as diverse as possible. That is why the hundreds of papers each year that are surveys of psychology undergraduates who got extra credit come up with the kind of crazy conclusions mainstream media love to write about, but don't have the credibility of clinical trials.
In America, diversity in research is a struggle. Black and female patients are less likely to agree to participate in research, despite being offered more frequent opportunities to participate.
In Europe, the arrival of the farmers who replaced Mesolithic hunter-gatherers happened in force 9,000 years ago but it was happening elsewhere prior to that. In Syria, there is even evidence of scientific trait selection in grains in 10,000 B.C. but in other parts of the world agriculture came much later.
A region in sub-tropical China which did not have agriculture until the arrival of domesticated rice from elsewhere may have gotten agriculture prior to that - as far back as 3,000 B.C., according to a new paper.
Because energy resources in the body must be optimized as much as possible, a new paper says, tasks inherently related to survival, like immune function, take priority. Any leftover energy is then dedicated to reproduction.
By simply manipulating chemical gradients in a beaker of fluid, researchers have been able to create delicate flower structures - not at the scale of inches, but microns.
These minuscule sculptures don't resemble the cubic or jagged forms normally associated with crystals, though that's what they are. Rather, fields of carnations and marigolds seem to bloom from the surface of a submerged glass slide, assembling themselves a molecule at a time.
Do you see music the same way as your neighbor? Apparently so. U.C. Berkeley psychologists say people in both the United States and Mexico linked the same pieces of classical orchestral music with the same colors, suggesting that humans share a common emotional palette – when it comes to music and color – that appears to be intuitive and can cross cultural barriers. They suggest that
our brains are wired to make music-color connections depending on how the melodies make us feel
