Culture
What The Study Did: Researchers investigated how stress-related disorders (such as posttraumatic stress disorder, adjustment disorder and stress reactions) were associated with risk for neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer and Parkinson disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), using data from national health registers in Sweden.
Authors: Huan Song, M.D., Ph.D., of Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, is the corresponding author.
What The Study Did: Researchers in this observational study of 43,000 twins born in Scotland used linked maternal and educational data to identify the optimal gestation week for the birth of infant twins associated with the lowest risk of short- and long-term adverse outcomes, specifically perinatal death and special education needs later on in school.
Author: Sarah Murray, Ph.D., M.R.C., of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, is the corresponding author.
In a new publication in Nature Plants, assistant professor of Plant Science at the University of Maryland Yiping Qi has established a new CRISPR genome engineering system as viable in plants for the first time: CRISPR-Cas12b. CRISPR is often thought of as molecular scissors used for precision breeding to cut DNA so that a certain trait can be removed, replaced, or edited. Most people who know CRISPR are likely thinking of CRISPR-Cas9, the system that started it all.
A research group led by Simone Fabiano at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Linköping University, has created an organic material with superb conductivity that doesn't need to be doped. They have achieved this by mixing two polymers with different properties.
Astronomers working on 'first light' results from a newly commissioned telescope in Chile made a chance discovery that led to the identification of a rare eclipsing binary brown dwarf system.
Researchers at Princeton University have identified a set of human proteins that the hepatitis B virus (HBV) uses to establish itself permanently inside liver cells. The study, published in the journal Nature Microbiology, could suggest new directions for therapies to treat chronic HBV infection, a condition that increases the risk of developing liver cancer and is responsible for almost 900,000 deaths worldwide each year.
Skin diseases affect half of the world's population, but many treatments are not effective, require frequent injections, or cause significant side effects. But what if there was a treatment that eliminated injections, reduced side effects, and increased drug effectiveness? A skin therapy with these properties may be on the horizon from Mark Prausnitz's Drug Delivery Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have discovered a gene associated with about half of glucocorticoid resistance in children with the most common pediatric cancer. Researchers have also identified a drug that may counter resistance. The research appears today in the journal Nature Cancer.
St. Jude researchers developed a novel strategy to identify genes that cause leukemia cells to be resistant to chemotherapy. The approach extends the momentum generated by whole genome sequencing and shows the power of incorporating other dimensions of the genome.
A master control region of a protein linked to Parkinson's disease has been identified for the first time.
The finding, made by scientists from the University of Leeds' Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology, provides a new target for the development of therapies to try and slow down or even prevent the disease.
Parkinson's affects more than 10 million people across the world, causing neurodegeneration and difficulties with movement, which increase over time. There is currently no cure for the disease.
Patients in a hospital's intensive care unit are kept under close observation: clinicians continuously monitor their vital signs such as their pulse, blood pressure and blood oxygen saturation. This furnishes doctors and nurses with a wealth of data about the condition of their patients' health. Nevertheless, using this information to predict how their condition will develop or to detect life-threatening changes far in advance is anything but easy.
Québec City, March 9, 2020 - Bacteria may be involved in the development of type 2 diabetes, according to a study published today in Nature Metabolism by researchers from Université Laval, the Québec Heart and Lung Institute (IUCPQ), and McMaster University.
The authors found that the blood, liver, and certain abdominal fat deposits in diabetics have a different bacterial signature than in non-diabetics.
Natural environments are constantly changing. If the change is a familiar one--like the shift from day to night or fluctuation in food supply--organisms use gene regulation to adapt, allowing individual genes to be turned on and off as needed. However, an organism may face fundamentally new conditions for which it has not yet evolved an adequate gene regulation mechanism.
CHAPEL HILL, NC - March 9, 2020 - Scientists at the UNC School of Medicine and colleagues created a new computational tool called H-MAGMA to study the genetic underpinnings of nine brain disorders, including the identification of new genes associated with each disorder.
Boston, MA - Proposed changes to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) may result in as many as one in ten U.S. families losing SNAP benefits, and potential impacts are unknown. A new study led by the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute examines the potential effects of the proposed SNAP eligibility changes on health and health care affordability. The study, "Socioeconomic and Health Characteristics of Families at Risk for Losing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Benefits", appears in JAMA Internal Medicine on March 9.
A star that pulsates on just one side has been discovered in the Milky Way about 1500 light years from Earth. It is the first of its kind to be found and scientists expect to find many more similar systems as technology to listen inside the beating hearts of stars improves.