Brain
How do some mammals postpone the development of their embryos to await better conditions for having offspring? A recent study at the UW Medicine Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine explored this reproductive enigma, which can occur in more than 130 species of mammals as well as in some marsupials.
LA JOLLA, CA -- In a study with implications for the future of drug discovery, Scripps Research scientists showed they were able to turn simple chemicals into unique 3-D structures resembling those found in nature--structures with desirable properties for medicines.
In the process, they found a potential drug lead for inflammatory disease, which is now being investigated further. The research appears in Nature Chemistry.
About 55 million years ago, a rapidly warming climate decimated marine communities around the world. But according to new research, it was a different story for snails, clams and other mollusks living in the shallow waters along what is now the Gulf Coast of the United States. They were able to survive.
The findings, published on Feb. 7 in Scientific Reports, suggest that mollusks in the region may adapt yet again to the climate change of today.
Understanding the Earth's carbon cycle has important implications for understanding climate change and the health of biospheres.
But scientists don't yet understand how much carbon lies deep in the Earth's water reservoirs -- for example, in water that is under extreme pressure in the mantle -- because experiments are difficult to conduct under such conditions.
What if we could replace a patient's damaged blood vessels with brand new ones produced in a laboratory? This is the challenge set by Inserm researcher Nicolas L'Heureux, who is working on the human extracellular matrix - the structural support of human tissues that is found around practically all of the body's cells.
Once a vague scapegoat for a variety of ills, increasing evidence suggests a condition known as "leaky gut" -- in which microbes and other molecules seep out of the intestines -- may be more common, and more harmful, than previously thought.
Mindfulness-based therapy may help reduce stress, appetite and body weight in children with obesity and anxiety, according to a study published in Endocrine Connections. They reported that obese children on a calorie-restricted diet alongside mindfulness therapy lose more weight and are less stressed and hungry, than children on a calorie-restricted diet alone.
Scientists suggest a new strategy that uses induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to regulate immune reaction to transplanted tissues.
The team, led by Professor Ken-ichiro Seino of Hokkaido University's Institute for Genetic Medicine, found that thymic epithelium cells derived from mouse induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can regulate immune response to skin grafts, extending their survival.
A new reaction system can detect X-rays at the highest sensitivity ever recorded by using organic molecules. The system, developed by researchers at Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), Ikoma, Japan, and Centre National de la Recherche Scientfique (CNRS), Toulouse, France, involves the cycloreversion of terarylene, causing the molecule to switch reversibly between colorless and blue isoforms in the presence or absence of X-rays. With detection at safe doses, this reaction system is expected to detect even the faintest X-rays levels considered dangerous.
To classify the most important ecological and biological components of the deep sea, an international team including Professor Roberto Danovaro from Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn Napoli, Italy and Dr Moriaki Yasuhara from The Swire Institute of Marine Science (SWIMS) and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong (HKU) sent a questionnaire-based survey to the world's leading deep-sea scientists around the world.
Researchers at Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) report a photo-acid generator (PAG) that generates Lewis acids with a quantum yield that is vastly superior to PAGs that generate Brønsted acids. The new PAG is based on photo-chemical 6π-percyclization and is demonstrated to initiate the polymerization of epoxy monomers and catalyze Mukaiyama-aldol reactions.
PAGs are chemical species that release strong acids, either in solution or solid state, upon exposure to light. These acids can then be used to activate various biological and photo-polymer systems.
Learners of foreign languages can hear the errors in pronunciation that fellow learners tend to make, but continue to fall foul of them themselves despite years of practice. A new study of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich shows that everyone believes their own pronunciation to be best.
New Rochelle, NY, February 7, 2020--Two distinct approaches are predominantly used to recapitulate physiologically relevant in vitro human organ models. Organoids use stem cells to grow self-assembled replica organs through directed differentiation, whereas the organ-on-a-chip approach involves microfluidics and carefully controlled, 3D-printed architecture and assembly.
East Hanover, NJ. February 7, 2020. A multidisciplinary team of researchers at Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire, Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD), has authored a new article that describes the practices that employers use to facilitate the inclusion of employees with disabilities in their workplaces. "The effectiveness of employer practices to recruit, hire, and retain employees with disabilities: Supervisor perspectives, (DOI: 10.3233/JVR-191050) was published by the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation on November 19, 2019.
Photosensitizers are molecules that absorb sunlight and pass that energy along to generate electricity or drive chemical reactions. They're generally based on rare, expensive metals; so the discovery that iron carbenes, with plain old iron at their cores, can do this, too, triggered a wave of research over the past few years. But while ever more efficient iron carbenes are being discovered, scientists need to understand exactly how these molecules work at an atomic level in order to engineer them for top performance.