Culture
Like fishermen, Rice University bioengineers are angling for their daily catch. But their bait, biomolecules in a hydrogel scaffold, lures microscopic stem cells instead of fish.
These, they say, will seed the growth of new tissue to heal wounds.
The team led by Brown School of Engineering bioengineer Antonios Mikos and graduate student Jason Guo have developed modular, injectable hydrogels enhanced by bioactive molecules anchored in the chemical crosslinkers that give the gels structure.
Consumers who get a web-based product or mobile app for free are more likely to give it a word-of-mouth boost than a product they buy, suggesting they feel "one good turn deserves another."
That's according to new research from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin by Wen Wen, an assistant professor of information, risk and operations management. She collaborated with the Georgia Institute of Technology's Samuel Bond and West Virginia University's Stephen He on the study, which was recently published in the Journal of Marketing Research.
Scientists at Harvard University and the Broad Institute's Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research have made a major advance in the development of human brain 'organoids': miniature, 3D tissue cultures that model a patient's own brain cells in a dish. Their new method, published in Nature, consistently grows the same types of cells, in the same order, as the developing human cerebral cortex. The advance could change the way researchers study neuropsychiatric diseases and test the effectiveness of drugs.
In the first days after the tuberculosis (TB) bacteria infect the body, a flurry of immune cells are activated to fight the infection. Now, researchers have identified a master cell that coordinates the body's immune defenses in those crucial early days, according to a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Africa Health Research Institute in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the United States. If you could visibly see signs of skin cancer on your body, would you be more likely to visit the doctor? A group of professors from BYU and the University of Utah asked that exact question as they looked for the most effective ways to influence people to screen themselves for cancer.
New ALMA observations reveal a never-before-seen disk of cool, interstellar gas wrapped around the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. This nebulous disk gives astronomers new insights into the workings of accretion: the siphoning of material onto the surface of a black hole. The results are published in the journal Nature.
Scientists from Trinity College Dublin have discovered how the highly infectious and sometimes deadly Hepatitis C virus (HCV) "ghosts" our immune system and remains undiagnosed in many people. They report their findings today [Wednesday June 5th] in the international FASEB journal.
U.S. hemp production is soaring, but government oversight hasn't kept up, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. The industry is scrambling to find common ground between states, which each have a different set of rules for hemp growers and processors.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Nearly a third of birthing moms now deliver babies via caesarean section -- and many of them go home with powerful opioid painkillers.
A new study has surprised the medical world, finding that smoking does not shorten the length of telomeres - a marker at the end of our chromosomes that is widely accepted as an indicator of ageing.
This suggests that adult telomere length should be considered a static biomarker that changes relatively little during adult life.
The meta-analysis of 18 previously collected datasets led by researchers at Newcastle University is published in the Royal Society journal Open Science today.
There is concern about the misuse of the sedative anti-anxiety medication alprazolam (Xanax®) because of the "high" it can create. A new British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology study found that non-medical use of alprazolam in the United Kingdom is a significant issue, and it appears to be more prevalent in younger adults.
A European Journal of Cancer Care study found that listening to music at home reduced the severity of symptoms, pain intensity, and fatigue experienced by patients with breast cancer.
For the study, 60 participants listened to music in five 30-minute sessions per week. After 6, 12, and 24 weeks, the music therapy reduced symptom severity, pain intensity, and overall fatigue. Furthermore, it instantaneously reduced physical and mental fatigue.
A new study has uncovered an increased risk of behavioral problems in children of mothers with epilepsy who took common antiepileptic drugs during pregnancy.
In the Epilepsia study, behavioral questionnaires were completed for 181 children aged 6 to 7 years, and for most children both parents completed behavioral questionnaires.
In a Journal of Internal Medicine study that followed older adults with prediabetes for 12 years, most remained stable or reverted to normal blood sugar levels, and only one-third developed diabetes or died.
Research linking economic conditions and health often does not consider children's mental health problems. In a new Health Economics study, investigators found that U.S. children's mental health worsened as the economy weakened. The use of special education services for emotional problems also rose when economic conditions worsened.