Tech
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed an organ-on-an-electronic-chip platform, which uses bioelectrical sensors to measure the electrophysiology of the heart cells in three dimensions. These 3D, self-rolling biosensor arrays coil up over heart cell spheroid tissues to form an "organ-on-e-chip," thus enabling the researchers to study how cells communicate with each other in multicellular systems such as the heart.
Irvine, Calif., Aug. 23, 2019 -- A new study, published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science, suggests that the time adolescents are spending on their phones and online is not that bad.
Why is it that you can remember the name of your childhood best friend that you haven't seen in years yet easily forget the name of a person you just met a moment ago? In other words, why are some memories stable over decades, while others fade within minutes?
There are only two northern white rhinos left worldwide, both of them female. Saving this representative of megafauna from extinction seems impossible under these circumstances, yet an international consortium of scientists and conservationists just completed a procedure that could enable assisted reproduction techniques to do just that. On August 22, 2019, a team of veterinarians successfully harvested eggs from the two females who live in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya -- a procedure that has never been attempted in northern white rhinos before.
A new Canadian study suggests that individuals who take anti-depressants and/or anti-psychotics and participate in a weight management program can lose weight whether or not they take psychiatric medications, according to a report published online today in Obesity, the flagship journal of The Obesity Society. The study is the first to examine weight loss outcomes in individuals taking anti-depressants or anti-psychotics alone, in combination or not at all.
Foods fried in vegetable oil are popular worldwide, but research about the health effects of this cooking technique has been largely inconclusive and focused on healthy people. For the first time, UMass Amherst food scientists set out to examine the impact of frying oil consumption on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and colon cancer, using animal models.
Researchers at the University of Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology (UMIT, Hall, Austria) and the University of the Balearic Islands (Palma de Mallorca, Spain) have confirmed the analgesic effects of social support - even without verbal or physical contact.
Certain semiconductor structures, so-called quantum dots, might constitute the foundation of quantum communication. They are an efficient interface between matter and light, with photons (light particles) emitted by the quantum dots transporting information across large distances. However, structures form by default during the manufacture of quantum dots that interfere with communication. Researchers at the University of Basel, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, and Forschungszentrum Jülich have now successfully eliminated these interferences.
Japanese scientists have found a new way to successfully detect the efficiency of crystal semiconductors. For the first time ever, the team used a specific kind of photoluminescence spectroscopy, a way to detect light, to characterize the semiconductors. The emitted light energy was used as an indicator of the crystal's quality. This method potentially culminates in more efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and solar cells. Additionally, it could usher in several other advances in electronics.
Australian medical researchers from the Centenary Institute and the University of Sydney have successfully developed and tested a new type of vaccine targeting tuberculosis (TB), the world's top infectious disease killer.
Reported in the 'Journal of Medicinal Chemistry', the early-stage vaccine was shown to provide substantial protection against TB in a pre-clinical laboratory setting.
A team of Australian researchers has designed a reliable strategy for testing physical abilities of humanoid robots - robots that resemble the human body shape in their build and design. Using a blend of machine learning methods and algorithms, the research team succeeded in enabling test robots to effectively react to unknown changes in the simulated environment, improving their odds of functioning in the real world.
How do cells generate and use energy? This question might seem simple, but the answer is far from simple. Furthermore, knowing how microbial cell factories consume energy and how proteins are allocated to do so is crucial when working with industrial fermentations.
Now, researchers have shown that it is possible to evoke a shift in the metabolism from fermentation to respiration of E. coli and baker's yeast by optimizing fermentation conditions. This shift means that the cells can be pushed into producing more internal energy (ATP).
Japanese scientists at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT) have found that for stroke patients, observing their own hand movements in a video-assisted therapy - as opposed to someone else's hand - could enhance brain activity and speed up rehabilitation.
Their findings were first made available online in May and published in the July 7, 2019 issue of IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering.
The nanostructures from Katja Höflich's HZB team are shaped like corkscrews and made of silver. Mathematically, such a nano antenna can be regarded as an one-dimensional line that forms a helix, characterized by parameters such as diameter, length, number of turns per unit length, and handedness.
A sophisticated chip the size of a coin in which cartilage can be cultivated and which can later be subjected to mechanical stress such that it generates the effects of Osteoarthrosis (OA).
This is the extraordinary result achieved at the Politecnico di Milano Laboratory MiMic (Microfluidic and Biomimetic Microsystems) by Marco Rasponi from the Milan-based campus, the study's coordinator alongside Andrea Barbero from the University Hospital of Basel.