Social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter play an increasingly central role in our lives. Centrality is also an important concept in the theory of social networks. Centrality of an individual, called a "node" in network theory, measures its relative importance within a network.
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The characteristic blue glow from a nuclear reactor is present in radiation therapy, too. Investigators from Dartmouth's Norris Cotton Cancer Center, led by Brian W. Pogue, PhD, and PhD candidates Adam K. Glaser and Rongxiao Zhang, published in Physics in Medicine and Biology how the complex parts of the blue light known as the Cherenkov Effect can be measured and used in dosimetry to make therapies safer and more effective.
Oil and gas operations in the United States produce about 21 billion barrels of wastewater per year. The saltiness of the water and the organic contaminants it contains have traditionally made treatment difficult and expensive.
The U.S. and other countries are enacting rules to clamp down on the sales of fake pharmaceuticals, which pose a public health threat. But figuring out a system to track and authenticate legitimate drugs still faces significant obstacles, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society.
Graphene, a single-atom-thick lattice of carbon atoms, is often touted as a replacement for silicon in electronic devices due to its extremely high conductivity and unbeatable thinness. But graphene is not the only two-dimensional material that could play such a role.
University of Pennsylvania researchers have made an advance in manufacturing one such material, molybdenum disulphide. By growing flakes of the material around "seeds" of molybdenum oxide, they have made it easier to control the size, thickness and location of the material.
Northern B.C. First Nation leaders who this week agreed to consider an alternate oil-pipeline proposal say they will block any attempt to move oil through B.C. by rail.
In the first clinical trial directly comparing three drugs most commonly used to treat diabetic macular edema, researchers found all were effective in improving vision and preventing vision loss. However, one drug, aflibercept, provided greater improvement for people with more severe vision loss when treatment was initiated. The trial was conducted by the National Eye Institute Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network (DRCR.net) including researchers from Joslin Diabetes Center. The results appeared in the February online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Cancer vaccines are designed to turn the body's own immune system specifically against tumor cells. Particularly promising are vaccines that are directed against so-called neoantigens: These are proteins that have undergone a genetic mutation in tumor cells and, therefore, differ from their counterparts in healthy cells. The tiny alteration - sometimes only a single protein building block has been changed - gives the protein on the tumor cell surface novel immunological characteristics that can be recognized as "foreign" by the immune system's T cells.
It's hard to hide from a bat: The camouflage and mimicry techniques that animals use to avoid becoming a meal aren't much use against a predator using echolocation. But a new study shows that moths can outsmart sonar with a flick of their long tails.
The study appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows luna moths spin their trailing hindtails as they fly, confusing the sonar cries bats use to detect prey and other objects.
Scientists have developed a new HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccine which protects against nine types of the virus - seven of which cause most cases of cervical cancer. The new vaccine offers significantly greater protection than the current vaccine, which protects against only two cancer causing types of HPV.
Cancer treatments could evolve from research showing that acetate supplements speed up cancer growth
UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers seeking novel ways to combat cancer found that giving acetate, a major compound produced in the gut by host bacteria, to mice sped up the growth and metastasis of tumors.
Bacteria living inside the gut can have beneficial, but potentially also harmful effects on human health. Further studies are needed to determine whether restricting acetate production by gut bacteria will affect growth of tumors.
Researchers from Chongqing University in China have developed a high sensitive fluorescence-based sensor device that can rapidly identify cancer related volatile organic compounds -- biomarkers found exclusively in the exhaled breath of some people with lung cancer.
Electrical impulses play an important role in cells of the human body. For example, neurons use these impulses to transmit information along their branches and the body also uses them to control the contraction of muscles. The impulses are generated when special channel proteins open in the outer envelope of the cells, allowing charged molecules (ions) to enter or exit the cell. These proteins are referred to as ion channels.
After the European Court of Justice ruled that there was a “right to be forgotten” from Google’s search results, Google’s Advisory Council embarked on a roadshow aimed at debating the issue. While this debate poses many interesting questions, Google’s agenda is apparent in the way it has answered them – as revealed in the Advisory Council’s recently published report.
Ovarian cancer is the deadliest of all cancers affecting the female reproductive system with very few effective treatments available. Prognosis is even worse among patients with certain subtypes of the disease. Now, researchers at The Wistar Institute have identified a new therapeutic target in a particularly aggressive form of ovarian cancer, paving the way for what could be the first effective targeted therapy of its kind for the disease.
The findings were published online by the journal Nature Medicine.