Tech

A cancer cell is like a racecar, speeding through the process of cellular replication. But it has to stop at the G2M cell cycle checkpoint, where a race inspector called Wee1 checks it over for damage - cells with intact DNA can continue, while cells with damaged DNA have to stick around for repairs.

Research led by Professor Ton Peijs of WMG at the University of Warwick and Professor Cees Bastiaansen at Queen Mary University of London, has devised a processing technique that can create transparent polythene film that can be stronger as aluminium but at a fraction of the weight, and which could be used use in glazing, windscreens, visors and displays in ways that add strength and resilience while reducing weight.

Red blood cells are amazing. They pick up oxygen from our lungs and carry it all over our body to keep us alive. The hemoglobin molecule in red blood cells transports oxygen by changing its shape in an all-or-nothing fashion. Four copies of the same protein in hemoglobin open and close like flower petals, structurally coupled to respond to each other. Using supercomputers, scientists are just starting to design proteins that self-assemble to combine and resemble life-giving molecules like hemoglobin.

Atlanta-March 29, 2019-New research demonstrating the clinical utility of Bio-Rad's Droplet Digital PCR (ddPCR) powered liquid biopsy will be presented this week during the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in Atlanta, March 29-April 3.

Neuroscientists at The University of Queensland have developed a new animal model of schizophrenia that will enable researchers around the world to better understand the disease and develop new treatments.

Schizophrenia, which affects around 7 people in 1000, is a poorly understood group of mental disorders that disrupt cognition and behaviour. Common hallmarks include delusions, hallucinations, and difficulty perceiving reality.

For the estimated 100 million U.S. adults and children living with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), whether or not they have liver cirrhosis, or scarring, is an important predictor for survival. Yet it's difficult and invasive to detect liver cirrhosis before it is well advanced.

Physicists from MIT and elsewhere have performed the first run of a new experiment to detect axions -- hypothetical particles that are predicted to be among the lightest particles in the universe. If they exist, axions would be virtually invisible, yet inescapable; they could make up nearly 85 percent of the mass of the universe, in the form of dark matter.

COLUMBUS, Ohio--Maybe running comes easy, each stride pleasant and light. Maybe it comes hard, each step a slog to the finish. Either way, the human body is constantly calibrating, making microscopic adjustments to keep us from falling as we weekend-warrior our way to greatness.

Runners constantly--and unconsciously--make minor corrections to their running form to keep their bodies upright, a recent study has found.

Striga hermonthica, also known as purple witchweed, is an invasive parasitic plant that threatens food production in sub-Saharan Africa. It is estimated to ruin up to 40 per cent of the region's staple crops, the equivalent of $7-10 billion, putting the livelihoods and food supplies of 300 million people in danger.

The results of a study led by a team from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by "la Caixa", suggest that the risk of a child developing symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may be modulated by the mother's diet during pregnancy. The study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, analysed samples of umbilical cord plasma to quantify the levels of omega-6 and omega-3 that reach the foetus.

They are the scavengers of the deep and the dead.

Hagfish are slimy bottom-dwellers that live off the carcasses of dead sea creatures and thrive in deep waters where oxygen is hard to come by. In fact, their hearts can keep on beating for 36 hours without any oxygen, making hagfish a champion among anoxia-tolerant fish.

A human heart, by contrast, becomes permanently damaged after just a few minutes without oxygen.

Thousands of military service members lost their lives or were severely injured while serving our country during America's longest war, known as the Global War on Terrorism. A researcher at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is now documenting the war's casualty statistics, mortality trends and treatment advances.

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 27, 2019 -- Driving across Iowa, Hendrik J. Viljoen, distinguished professor of chemical and biological engineering at the University of Nebraska, noticed that soybean fields were becoming increasingly infested with weeds each season. The culprit is a glyphosate-resistant weed called "palmer amaranth," which is threatening crops in the Midwest.

Biophysicists have used an automated method to model a living system -- the dynamics of a worm perceiving and escaping pain. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published the results, which worked with data from experiments on the C. elegans roundworm.

In Canada, as in other higher latitudes, there is not enough natural light for production of many greenhouse commodities during the darker months of the year. In these regions, it is necessary for growers of year-round commodities to augment their naturally occurring lighting deficit with artificial lighting to meet their crops' economic minimum lighting requirements.