Intermittent fasting, and fasting in general, has been a popular fad health gimmick, but the science isn't on its side. Instead, proponents believe mice are little people so if mice weaned on starvation diets lived longer, people would also.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Living cells are capable of performing complex computations on the environmental signals they encounter.
These computations can be continuous, or analogue, in nature -- the way eyes adjust to gradual changes in the light levels. They can also be digital, involving simple on or off processes, such as a cell's initiation of its own death.
Synthetic biological systems, in contrast, have tended to focus on either analogue or digital processing, limiting the range of applications for which they can be used.
But now a team of researchers at MIT has developed a technique to integrate both analogue and digital computation in living cells, allowing them to form gene circuits capable of carrying out complex processing operations.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Most people encounter most things by sensing them in multiple ways. As we hear the words people speak, we also see their lips move. We smell, see and hear the onions as we chop them -- and we feel them with teary eyes.
It turns out that the ability to judge such sensory inputs as simultaneous, and therefore likely pertaining to the same thing, is something animal brains must develop through experience. A new study using tadpoles as a model organism shows how that appears to happen.
Heralded on the cover of Time magazine in 2000 as a genetically modified (GMO) crop with the potential to save millions of lives in the Third World, Golden Rice is still years - and millions of dollars in anti-science activism - away from field introduction. Vitamin A deficiencies leave millions at high risk for infection, diseases and other maladies, such as blindness, and Golden Rice produces the micronutrient beta carotene, so it is basically fortified, but using a natural process that increases Vitamin A rather than an additive.
Each injury means a little more as individuals age -- more impact and more healing time.
A group of scientists and dermatologists are now looking at the role sweat glands play in how aging skin recovers from wounds. It's a step to better learn about aging skin, in order to better treat -- and slow -- the process.
Their research, recently published in Aging Cell, compared 18 elderly subjects' skin to 18 young adults' skin, to see how each group healed from skin lesions. The lesions were smaller than the diameter of a pencil eraser, performed under local anesthesia.
Eight days. That's how long it takes for skin cells to reprogram into red blood cells. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden, together with colleagues at Center of Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona, have successfully identified the four genetic keys that unlock the genetic code of skin cells and reprogram them to start producing red blood cells instead.
"We have performed this experiment on mice, and the preliminary results indicate that it is also possible to reprogram skin cells from humans into red blood cells. One possible application for this technique is to make personalised red blood cells for blood transfusions, but this is still far from becoming a clinical reality", says Johan Flygare, manager of the research group and in charge of the study.
June 2, 2016 - Visual blurring -- like that produced by bifocals or multifocal lenses -- may cause errors in foot position when walking. And that could contribute to the risk of tripping and falling in older adults, suggests a study in the June issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.
It has been established that not all cancer cells are equally aggressive -- most can be neutralised with radiation and chemotherapy. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now discovered that some cancer cells can accumulate fat droplets, which appear to make them more aggressive and increase their ability to spread.
The interior of a cancer tumour is a hostile environment with oxygen deficiency, low pH levels and lack of nutrients. The cells that survive in this environment are called "stressed cells" and are considered to be more aggressive.
Men still outperform women in undergraduate introductory biology tests and humanities scholars are scrambling to blame the tests. And the wealth of families. Anything except the fact that on different tests in different classes at different times, test performance will vary and is not a problem that can be fixed by creating a test where women, or poor women, will be guaranteed to do better.
How is performance different? When it comes to memorization tests, facts, both genders are equal, but when tests include cognitively challenging questions that require elevated critical thinking, females and lower socioeconomic students score lower than their male or high-status peers. Publishing that result without hedging is a sure way to get through out of a university.
Infant formula was the great liberator for working moms who wanted to have careers but in the last decade there has been a backlash against it, often adopting the veil of scientific legitimacy.
Simon Fraser University researchers hope that a brain vital-sign test becomes as routine during a doctor's check-up as taking a blood pressure or heart rate measurement.
SFU researchers, led by professor Ryan D'Arcy with partners from the Mayo Clinic, Sheba Medical Centre in Israel and local high-tech company HealthTech Connex Inc., are developing a more accessible means to monitor brain health.
In a recent article published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, the team introduces the world's first advancement in physiology-based brain vital signs. Their discovery makes it possible to translate complex brainwaves into objective, practical and deployable brain vital signs, using longstanding brainwave technologies that have existed for nearly a century.
ATLANTA - June 2, 2016 -There were more than 15.5 million Americans with a history of cancer as of January 1, 2016, a number that is projected to reach more than 20 million by 2026. That's according to Cancer Treatment and Survivorship Statistics, 2016, published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, and its companion publication for consumers, Cancer Treatment & Survivorship Facts & Figures, 2016-2017. The report was released ahead of National Cancer Survivors Day, Sunday June 5, 2016.
The lungs contain a thin layer of fluid known as the airway surface liquid (ASL), which helps protect against pathogens. The appropriate ASL volume, pH, and ionic composition are required for optimal airway defense. Cystic fibrosis (CF) is caused by expression of a dysfunctional cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), which acidifies the ASL and renders CF patients more susceptible to lung infections. In this issue of JCI Insight, Joseph Zabner and colleagues at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine examined the effect of tromethamine, a drug that is currently approved to treat metabolic acidosis, on ASL pH and bacterial killing activity. They demonstrated that inhalation of aerosolized tromethamine raised ASL pH in both pigs and CF patients.
