A new cancer vaccine platform works by enhancing the ability of the immune system to recognize cancer by leveraging anti-viral memories it already has - due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the worst outbreak of the last 70 years.
A University of Leicester research team is working on a new technique for growing nanoparticles which could have extraordinary implications in electronics, medicine, the measurement of atmospheric air and the cleansing of car exhausts.
Dr Andrew Ellis and Dr Shengfu Yang, both of the University’s Department of Chemistry, have discovered a niche way of making nanoparticles that cannot be formed in any other way.
Working with Professor Chris Binns and Dr Klaus von Haeften in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, they are developing a technique involving the use of helium nanodroplets.
For the first time, scientists have extracted human DNA from ancient artifacts. The work potentially opens up a new universe of sources for ancient genetic material, which is used to map human migrations in prehistoric times.
Before this, archaeologists could only get ancient DNA from relics of the human body itself, including prehistoric teeth, bones, fossilized feces, or — rarely — preserved flesh. Such sources of DNA are hard to find, poorly preserved, or unavailable because of cultural and legal barriers.
By contrast, the genetic material used in the Harvard study came from two types of artifacts — 800 to 2,400 years old — that are found by the hundreds at archaeological sites in the American Southwest.
A new study authored by Tore Nielsen, PhD, of the Sleep Research Centre at the Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur de Montréal in Montréal, Québec, Canada, found that expectant mothers had their dream content impact impacted and it wasn't always good.
Maternal responsibility and concern led to anxiety in the mother that often spilled over into wakefulness. These kinds of dreams were also accompanied by complex behaviors in new moms such as motor activity, speaking and expressing emotion.
Combining radiation therapy with a drug that helps destroy blood vessels nourishing malignant tumors has been shown in mice to be significantly more effective in treating lung cancer than either approach alone, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
The study, involving human lung-cancer cells implanted in mice, appears in the Sept. 1 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.
In the study, Dr. Philip Thorpe, professor of pharmacology at UT Southwestern, and his colleagues found that radiation generates a chemical reaction in the membranes of endothelial cells, which line the blood vessels that feed tumors. The reaction causes membrane components called anionic phospholipids to flip inside out, exposing them. In normal blood vessels, they face the interior of the cell.
Studying the DNA of 889 people, gene hunters at the Mayo Clinic and H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Centers have identified a region on chromosome 5p that is significantly associated with dense breast tissue, a known risk factor for breast cancer. The findings, published in the September 1 issue of Cancer Research, a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, suggest that genes which influence breast density could serve as a predictive marker for disease and provide a biological target for agents that may reduce breast cancer risk by reducing breast density.
Scientists are researching new ways of harnessing the sun’s rays which could eventually make it cheaper for people to use solar energy to power their homes.
The experts at Durham University are developing light-absorbing materials for use in the production of thin-layer solar photovoltaic (PV) cells which are used to convert light energy into electricity.
The four-year project involves experiments on a range of different materials that would be less expensive and more sustainable to use in the manufacturing of solar panels.
By mapping a specialized sensory organ that the malaria mosquito uses to zero in on its human prey, an international team of researchers has taken an important step toward developing new and improved repellants and attractants that can be used to reduce the threat of malaria, generally considered the most prevalent life-threatening disease in the world.
The sensory organ is the maxillary palp. It is one of three structures extending from the mosquito’s head that together provide it with its sense of smell and taste.
A team of scientists led by young Croatian evolutionary geneticist Tomislav Domazet-Lošo from Ruder Boškovic Institute (RBI) in Zagreb, Croatia, developed a novel methodological approach in evolutionary studies.
Using the method they named 'genomic phylostratigraphy', its authors shed new and unexpected light on some of the long standing macroevolutionary issues, which have been puzzling evolutionary biologists since Darwin.
The only direct method of research in evolutionary history involves analyzing the fossil remains of once living organisms, excavated in various localities throughout of the world. However, that approach often cannot provide the full evolutionary pathway of some species, as it requires uncovering of many fossils from various stages of its evolutionary history.
A new method for fighting skin wrinkles has been developed at the Hebrew University Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Quality Sciences.
In her doctoral research at the university, Dr. Orit Bossi succeeded in isolating a plant-based antioxidant that delays the aging process by countering the breakdown of collagen fibers in the skin. Dr. Bossi conducted her research under the supervision of Zecharia Madar, the Karl Bach Professor of Agricultural Biochemistry at the Hebrew University, and Prof. Shlomo Grossman of Bar-Ilan University.
Antioxidants operate against free radicals which cause a breakdown of many tissues in the body, including the skin. When found in small quantities in the body, free radicals are not harmful and are even involved in various physical processes.
Large continental ice sheets did not exist in both hemispheres around 41 million years ago during the warmer-than modern conditions of the time.
This is the finding of scientists from the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS), reported in Nature.
The Eocene epoch (55 to 34 million years ago) was the last interval of sustained global warmth in Earth's history, a likely consequence of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels much higher than today. It has been known for some time that, at the end of the Eocene, ice sheets on Antarctica first expanded to close their modern size.
Expect to see a lot of headlines like "Get drunk, stay cancer free" from science sites that shoot for headlines rather than fact after a university study showed a compound in red wine may help reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer.. The plain truth is the anti-oxidant compound in red wine, resveratrol, is also found in grapes, raspberries, peanuts and blueberries.
You can still get drunk, but it isn't necessary.
Male mice in the study were fed resveratrol and showed an 87 percent reduction in their risk of developing prostate tumors that contained the worst kind of cancer-staging diagnosis. The mice that proved to have the highest cancer-protection effect earned it after seven months of consuming resveratrol in a powdered formula mixed with their food.
One year ago ESA's SMART-1 landed on the moon.
For researchers, the moon is a geophysical laboratory where impacts, volcanism, tectonics and effects of space weather can be studied to put together the story of the Moon’s past. The geochemistry and thus the origins of the Moon, the evolution of the Earth-Moon system and the bombardment of the inner solar system are topics addressed under lunar formation and evolution.
Experts from the SMART-1 team are now working on data calibration, analysis, archival and distribution for the scientific community and are supporting collaborations with upcoming lunar missions.
