More men than women develop Parkinson’s disease and new work presented at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies says that it is do to sex differences in how brain cells change. Parkinson’s disease affects about 9 million people and becomes increasingly prevalent with age.
In recent years, the incidence of breast cancer has been increasing worldwide, and breast cancer is becoming a serious object of public concern. The onset of breast cancer is closely related to the sex hormone estrogen, and estrogen antagonists such as tamoxifen have been used as anti-breast cancer drugs.
During pregnancy, the elevated blood estrogen level induces the proliferation of mammary epithelial cells, leading to the development of the mammary gland in preparation for lactation. The mammary epithelial cells eventually stop proliferation at late stages of pregnancy, impairment of which potentially results in breast tumorigenesis . However, the regulatory mechanisms of mammary epithelial cell proliferation during pregnancy have been unclear.
Yoshinori Ohsumi of the Tokyo Institute of Technology has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2016 "for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy", the body's recycling system. Autophagy can rapidly provide fuel for energy and building blocks for renewal of cellular components, and is therefore essential for the cellular response to starvation and other types of stress. Despite the bizarre claims of supernaturalists like Joe Mercola, D.O., or writers on Livestrong, the controlled digestion of damaged organelles within a cell are complex. Autophagy kills the cells
A type of immune antibody that can rapidly evolve to neutralize a wide array of influenza virus strains - including those the body hasn't yet encountered - suggests potential strategies for creating improved or even "universal" influenza vaccines.
The novel infection-fighting protein, named 3I14 mAb, is a "broadly neutralizing antibody," so-called because it can recognize and disable a diverse group of the 18 different strains of influenza virus that circulate around the globe.
According to the new report, the 3I14 antibody demonstrated it could neutralize the two main types of influenza A virus, group 1 and 2, and protected mice against lethal doses of the virus.
Microsporidia are typically found in the intestinal tracts of animals and humans, which are made up of millions of cells, which is why studying their mode of reproduction has been so difficult. Yet it's important. Microsporidia cause diarrhea, an illness called microsporidiosis, and even death in immune-compromised individuals.
In spite of those known widespread medical problems, scientists were uncertain about how these single-celled fungi reproduced in human or animal cells. In a study that employed transparent roundworms, biologists at the University of California San Diego succeeded in directly observing how these microorganisms replicate and spread. And what they saw surprised them.
ESA’s Rosetta mission has concluded as planned, with the controlled impact onto the small lobe of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, close to a region of active pits in the Ma’at region, which it had been investigating for more than two years. Confirmation of the end of the mission arrived at ESA’s control centre in Darmstadt, Germany at 11:19 GMT (13:19 CEST) with the loss of Rosetta’s signal upon impact, but the descent gave Rosetta the opportunity to study the comet’s gas, dust and plasma environment very close to its surface, as well as take very high-resolution images. Pits are of particular interest because they play an important role in the comet’s activity. They also provide a unique window into its internal building blocks.
Some loss of memory is often considered an inevitable part of aging, but new research reveals how some people appear to escape that fate. A study older adults whose memory performance is equivalent to that of younger individuals and finds that certain key areas of their brains resemble those of young people.
Russian scientists at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), the Joint Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences (JIHT RAS), and Gamaleya Research Centre of Epidemiology and Microbiology found that treating cells with cold plasma leads to their regeneration and rejuvenation. This result can be used to develop a plasma therapy program for patients with non-healing wounds. The paper has been published in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics.
Using experimental techniques, researchers have made the first ever direct observation of the elusive dewetting process, which takes place when a liquid film retracts to form a bead-shaped drop. The achievement could now spark a new line of research and lead to breakthroughs involving the use of liquids, such as better coatings and more effective self-cleaning surfaces.
Research published today in Research in Veterinary Science reveals that vitamin D supplementation reduces the incidence and severity of tuberculosis (TB) in wild boar and red deer. The pilot study of 40 animals was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of scientists from the University of Surrey (UK), Universidad de Extremadura (Spain), and SME Ingulados (Spain).
Wild boar and red deer are key hosts of bovine tuberculosis – a chronic, infectious disease mainly caused by Mycobacterium bovis - in southern Europe, with the incidence of TB in these animals particularly high in certain areas of Spain. The research could therefore have a positive impact on animal health and – since these species are valuable in the hunting and meat products industries – local economies.
It is common to equate high levels of immigration with increases in the crime rate because there are increases in the crime rate according to every statistic, but the opposite can be true, according to University of Huddersfield criminology lecturer Dr. Dainis Ignatans, who carried out statistical analysis of UK communities.
His latest article, in the International Review of Victimology, analyzes the changed distribution of crime by offenze type and is based on data extracted from a total of almost 600,000 respondents to the Crime Survey for England and Wales between 1982 and 2012.
What do police not think is worth very much? Asking people on surveys about crime, especially when actual crime is different than what people claim on surveys.
A new paper shows that recent rises in levels of methane in our atmosphere is being driven by biological sources, such as swamp gas, cow burps, or rice fields, rather than fossil fuel emissions.
Atmospheric methane is a major greenhouse gas that traps heat in our atmosphere, contributing to global warming. Its levels have been growing strongly since 2007, and in 2014 the growth rate of methane in the atmosphere was double that of previous years, largely driven by biological sources as opposed to fossil fuel emissions.
Conventional wisdom refuted
New fossils from the Late Triassic period (235 to 201 million years ago) are changing scientists' understanding of what drastically different forms can evolve in the tetrapod forelimb, including skeletal adaptations never before seen in land animals.
