Body

New findings expose how mitochondria might instigate lupus-like inflammation.

Mitochondria are the power stations in living cells, but they also have many other sidelines. The byproducts of their respiration and energy conversion, for instance, include molecules eager to participate in chemical changes. These reactive oxygen species are two-edged swords that can harm the body or protect it.

For reasons yet unknown, certain white blood cells in lupus and in other chronic inflammatory diseases produce elevated amounts of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species.

There are many different ways to make nanomaterials but weaving, the oldest and most enduring method of making fabrics, has not been one of them - until now. An international collaboration led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, has woven the first three-dimensional covalent organic frameworks (COFs) from helical organic threads.

A new study by a team of Rosalind Franklin University researchers headed by Carl White, PhD, assistant professor of physiology and biophysics, has discovered that the degree of chronic inflammation caused by obesity is highly dependent on levels of the signaling molecule, hydrogen sulfide, which alters the activity of a calcium channel, Orai3.

A University of Colorado Cancer Center study being presented Saturday at the 2016 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium shows genetic differences between colorectal cancer (CRC) in young and old patients, possibly pointing toward different treatments and strategies in combating the young form of the disease.

There may be a "silver bullet" for Ebola, a family of hemorrhagic viruses, one of which has killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa in the past two years.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (UTMB) reported today in the journal Cell that they have isolated human monoclonal antibodies from Ebola survivors which can neutralize multiple species of the virus.

Tax-funded expenditures accounted for 64.3 percent of U.S. health spending - about $1.9 trillion - in 2013, according to new data published today [Thursday, Jan. 21] in the American Journal of Public Health. The Affordable Care Act will push that figure even higher by 2024, when government's share of U.S. health spending is expected to rise to 67.3 percent.

New findings expose how mitochondria might instigate lupus-like inflammation.

Mitochondria are the power stations in living cells, but they also have many other sidelines. The byproducts of their respiration and energy conversion, for instance, include molecules eager to participate in chemical changes. These reactive oxygen species are two-edged swords that can harm the body or protect it.

For reasons yet unknown, certain white blood cells in lupus and in other chronic inflammatory diseases produce elevated amounts of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species.

Knowing if an infant was born on time or prematurely can make all the difference in deciding what medical care the baby needs.

In the United States, obstetricians can accurately predict how many weeks a mother has carried her baby, thanks to prenatal care and early ultrasounds.

That's not the case in developing countries where a scarcity of technology and adequate medical care leave little more than birth weight to determine a newborn's gestational age.

While most West Nile Virus (WNV) infections in humans are asymptomatic and go unnoticed, the virus causes serious and sometimes fatal neurologic illness in some people. A study published on January 21st in PLOS Pathogens suggests that an exaggerated and abnormal immune response contributes to the development of neurologic symptoms following West Nile virus infection.

Targeted school closure policies may help mitigating the spread of pandemic influenza, while entailing lower social costs than more traditional policies, such as nationwide school closure. This emerges from a modeling study published in PLOS Computational Biology led by Laura Fumanelli.

When our organs age or wear out, their renewal usually depends on a few stem cells in the tissue, because the vast majority of differentiated cells have lost their ability to divide and generate new cells. A German-French team led by Michael Sieweke from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin and the Centre d'Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy (CIML) in Marseille has now discovered how human macrophages, a type of specialized immune cell, can nevertheless divide and self-renew almost indefinitely.

The Report "RNA-Mediated Metal-Metal Bond Formation in the Synthesis of Hexagonal Palladium Nanoparticles" by Lina A. Gugliotti et al. published online in the 7 May 2004 issue of Science reported using a complex mix of RNA and water to create crystals of palladium. An ongoing investigation into this study by the U.S. National Science Foundation's (NSF) Office of Inspector General determined that the authors falsified research data.

Higher numbers of pollinators can significantly increase crop productivity of small-sized farms, while large farms experience a similar yield benefit only if increases in pollinator density are accompanied by diversity, a new study finds. More than two billion people are reliant on small-scale agriculture in developing nations, and while much evidence demonstrates that pollinators can beneficially affect crop yield, how these helpful critters affect small-scale farms compared to larger farms is mostly unknown. To gain more insights, Lucas Garibaldi et al.

A new study reveals that prairie voles console loved ones who are feeling stressed - and it appears that the infamous "love hormone," oxytocin, is the underlying mechanism. Until now, consolation behavior has only been documented in a few nonhuman species with high levels of sociality and cognition, such as elephants, dolphins and dogs. Prairie voles are particularly social rodents, causing them to be the focus of many studies. This led James Burkett and colleagues to explore their potential for empathy-motivated behaviors.

Researchers have synthesized a material with a distinctive structure involving woven organic polymers that provide it with special elastic properties. Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are structures created with organic building blocks that link together. They are appealing because their low density and high porosity has many promising applications, such as for storing gas or for optoelectronics, but previously, synthesized COFs have been too rigid. Creating more flexible COFs, those that resemble woven fabrics, has been challenging on a molecular level.