Tech

Lovers of gold watches and heavy jewellery will be thrilled. The objects of their desire may someday become much lighter, but without losing any of their glitter. Especially with watches, a small amount of weight can make all the difference. No one wants to wear a heavy watch on their wrist, even if it's made of real gold. After a time, it becomes uncomfortable and annoying.

Cancers are often made up of many cells which vary genetically to each other. These genetic differences mean the cancer may be particularly susceptible or resistant to a given treatment. As a result, identifying these variations can help clinicians decide which treatment is most likely to be successful for a specific patient.

In addition, the contributions of the various sources of total aluminium intake by the population were compared with one another. A high intake of aluminium compounds can cause, among other things, neurotoxic developmental disorders as well as damage the kidneys, liver and bones.

January 10, 2020 - For the many men diagnosed with testosterone deficiency, losing weight can help increase testosterone levels. But certain diets - specifically a low-fat diet - may be associated with a small but significant reduction in testosterone, suggests a study in The Journal of Urology®, Official Journal of the

Physicists in the Laboratory for Attosecond Physics at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich and at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics (MPQ) have developed a novel type of detector that enables the oscillation profile of light waves to be precisely determined.

BOSTON -- A team of surgeons and specialists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) is announcing an achievement in transplant surgery today, having recently performed the largest number of adult heart transplants in the country using what are known as Donation after Circulatory Death (DCD) donor hearts. The five transplants also include the first surgery of this kind for the New England region.

The prevalence of obesity, a disease considered a serious public health problem, is increasing globally. In Portugal, almost half of the population is overweight and close to one million adults suffer from obesity. Known as a risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, obesity is associated with chronic inflammation in fat tissues. New strategies to fight this disease are needed. Therefore, a deeper understanding of the mechanisms involved in metabolic deregulation are critical to approach the obesity problem.

Leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) eggs laid in Bocas del Toro nesting beaches in the Panamanian Caribbean may be harmful to consumers. According to a study by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and collaborating institutions, they contain high concentrations of trace metals and their ingestion could pose health risks to local communities. Decreasing the consumption of leatherback turtle eggs would benefit the well-being of consumers and the conservation of this endangered species.

Fat cells are filled with droplets coated by molecules that act like hotel doormen: These "doormen" control cellular access for nutrients as well as for the exit of energy-supplying molecules called lipids. In healthy individuals, outgoing and incoming traffic in fat cells is finely balanced, supplying energy while preventing excessive spread of undesirable fat in the belly.

In the wintertime Arctic, cracks in the ice called "leads" expose the warm ocean directly to the cold air, with some leads only a few meters wide and some kilometers wide. They play a critical role in the Arctic surface energy balance. If we want to know how much the ice is going to grow in winter, we need to understand the impacts of leads.

Since the late 19th century, pearl aquaculture has been a revered industry in Japan, enabling widespread cultivation and commercialization of beautiful pearls. From a genetic and evolutionary perspective, scientists have known little about the source of these pearls - the Japanese pearl oyster, Pinctada fucata - until now.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 10, 2020) -- Researchers at the University of Kentucky's College of Medicine have found that a class of antibiotics called aminoglycosides could be a promising treatment for frontotemporal dementia.

Results of their proof of concept study, which was a collaborative effort between UK's Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry and the University of California San Francisco's Department of Pathology, were recently published in the journal, Human Molecular Genetics.

NEW YORK -- Columbia scientists have identified a brain circuit that drives fruit flies' ability to see in color -- and found that it bears a striking resemblance to the circuitry behind our own capacity for color vision. These findings shed light on the fundamental, yet mysterious, process by which information about light waves is transmitted from the eye to the brain. This research will not only fuel new investigations into how color vision works in flies and humans, but could also spur efforts to develop algorithms that help computers see in color.

The potential for Mars' water to be lost into space is greater during the planet's warm and stormy seasons, according to a new study. This seasonal variation likely regulated the rate at which the red planet lost its once-abundant quantities of liquid water, the authors suggest. Ancient alluvial fans, dry lake beds and winding river valleys clearly demonstrate that the surface of Mars was once a far wetter place. The vast majority of the liquid water that once flowed freely across the Martian surface was later lost to space, leaving behind a dusty, desert-like landscape.

Published today in Science, the research team from the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute), the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute and CSL Limited say this breakthrough of discovering how gamma-delta T cells become activated addresses a question that has baffled scientists for 25 years.