WASHINGTON, May 19, 2020 -- Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and other industrialized nations, and many patients face limited treatment options. Fortunately, stem cell biology has enabled researchers to produce large numbers of cardiomyocytes, the cells that make up the heart or cardiac muscle and have the potential to be used in advanced drug screens and cell-based therapies.
OAK BROOK, Ill. - Women with mammographically detected breast lesions that are probably benign should have follow-up surveillance imaging at six months due to the small but not insignificant risk that the lesions are malignant, according to a new study published in the journal Radiology.
WASHINGTON, May 19, 2020 -- As the infectious virus causing the COVID-19 disease began its devastating spread around the globe, an international team of scientists was alarmed by the lack of uniform approaches by various countries' epidemiologists to respond to it.
WASHINGTON, May 19, 2020 -- Airborne transmission of viruses, like the virus causing COVID-19, is not well understood, but a good baseline for study is a deeper understanding of how particles travel through the air when people cough.
In a paper published in Physics of Fluids, from AIP Publishing, Talib Dbouk and Dimitris Drikakis discovered that with even a slight breeze of 4 kph, saliva travels 18 feet in 5 seconds.
In the next three decades we will need a 30-70 percent increase in food availability to meet the demand from an increasing population. And the global food system will need to change profoundly if it is going to provide humanity with healthy food that is grown sustainably in ways that are not only resilient in the face of climate change but also do not surpass planetary boundaries.
As people shelter in place to slow the spread of COVID-19, daily carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have dropped by as much as 17 percent globally, according to a new study by the Global Carbon Project, an initiative led by Stanford University scientist Rob Jackson. Published in Nature Climate Change, the paper compiles government policies and activity data to pinpoint where energy demand has dropped off the most and to estimate the impact on annual emissions.
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE and BOSTON, Mass. (May 19, 2020) - A team of researchers at Tufts University's School of Engineering and its School of Medicine, and physicians at Tufts Medical Center have developed a method using fluorescence to detect precancerous metabolic and physical changes in epithelial cells lining the cervix. According to the researchers, the new imaging method opens the door to a non-invasive, early-stage bedside diagnostic.
Shimoda, Japan -- For some, sea urchins are a pretty addition to an aquarium, while for others they are simply an ingredient in a common type of sushi. However, for developmental biologists, they represent more than 100 years of research and education. Because their eggs are transparent, embryonic development and even the act of fertilization were easily viewed with microscopes in the 1800s. Beyond the embryo, sea urchins have long lives--some species living up to 200 years--making them interesting for developmental biologists who study aging.
The life cycle of insects consists of specific developmental stages. But, in response to adverse conditions, such as harsh winters, some insects arrest their own development at a particular stage. This process of seasonal adaptation is called "overwintering," in which the growth rate of the insect is either reduced or halted. This mechanism helps the insect to cope with extreme conditions that are unsuitable for its growth and reproduction. Overwintering usually occurs at a species-specific developmental stage.
Scientists from Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) have developed a novel technique that can produce pure therapeutic drugs without the associated side effects.
The approach, which uses a nanostructure fabrication device, can manipulate the chirality of drug molecules by controlling the direction a substrate is rotated within the device, thus eliminating the possible side effects that can arise when people take drugs containing molecules with the incorrect chirality.