Tech
The new technique was developed by Professor Tom Francart and his colleagues from the Department of Neurosciences at KU Leuven, Belgium, in collaboration with the University of Maryland. It will allow for a more accurate diagnosis of patients who cannot actively participate in a speech understanding test because they're too young, for instance, or because they're in a coma. In the longer term, the method also holds potential for the development of smart hearing devices.
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. (March 8, 2018) Tufts University biologists have demonstrated for the first time that electrical patterns in the developing embryo can be predicted, mapped, and manipulated to prevent defects caused by harmful substances such as nicotine. The research, published today in Nature Communications, suggests that targeting bioelectric states may be a new treatment modality for regenerative repair in brain development and disease, and that computational methods can be used to find effective repair strategies.
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. (March 7, 2018) -- Metabolic changes in cells can occur at the earliest stages of disease. In most cases, knowledge of those signals is limited, since we usually detect disease only after it has done significant damage. Now, a team led by engineers at Tufts University School of Engineering has opened a window into the cell by developing an optical tool that can read metabolism at subcellular resolution, without having to perturb cells with contrast agents, or destroy them to conduct assays.
HOUSTON - (March 7, 2018) - In a rare move, a Houston Methodist researcher is sharing his recipe for a new, more affordable way to make nanoparticles. This will empower any laboratory in the world to easily create similar nanoparticles and could lead to a whole new way of delivering biotherapeutic drugs and do it more quickly.
Accepted ecological theory says that poor soils limit the productivity of tropical forests, but adding nutrients as fertilizer rarely increases tree growth, suggesting that productivity is not limited by nutrients after all. Researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) resolved this apparent contradiction, showing that phosphorus limits the growth of individual tree species but not entire forest communities. Their results, published online in Nature, March 8, have sweeping implications for understanding forest growth and change.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Brown University engineers have devised a new method of measuring the stickiness of micro-scale surfaces. The technique, described in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, could be useful in designing and building micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), devices with microscopic moving parts.
A new Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics analysis has found a link between the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and a past history of weight loss surgery.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Catching a bouncing ball or hitting a ball with a racket requires estimating when the ball will arrive. Neuroscientists have long thought that the brain does this by calculating the speed of the moving object. However, a new study from MIT shows that the brain's approach is more complex
MELBOURNE, FLA. -- New research from Florida Institute of Technology finds that fish born in marine reserves where fishing is prohibited grow to be larger, healthier and more successful at reproduction.
The findings, recently published in the online journal Plos One, highlight the positive impact of a tool of fisheries management that has long been a source of frustration and concern for fishermen, who believe such restrictions impinge on their livelihood.
Phonons, which are packets of vibrational waves that propagate in solids, play a key role in condensed matter and are involved in various physical properties of materials. In nanotechnology, for example, they affect light emission and charge transport of nanodevices.
You've probably heard about poop pills, the latest way for humans to get benevolent bacteria into their guts. But it seems that a group of ants may have been the original poop pill pioneers -- 46 million years ago.
A new collaborative study, published in Nature Communications, determined that turtle ants (Cephalotes) are able to supplement their low-nitrogen diets by passing helpful bacteria from older ants to younger ones through anal secretions. Once this is done, the now-internalized microbes (tiny bacteria) naturally produce the nitrogen necessary for turtle ants to survive.
An electrical engineer at The University of Toledo, who nearly died as a girl in Africa because of a hospital's lack of power, has developed a new energy storage solution to make battery packs in electric vehicles, satellites, planes and grid stations last longer and cost less.
The new technology called a bilevel equalizer is the first hybrid that combines the high performance of an active equalizer with the low cost of the passive equalizer.
The simple story says that during the last ice age, temperatures were colder and ice sheets expanded around the planet. That may hold true for most of Europe and North America, but new research from the University of Washington tells a different story in the high-altitude, desert climates of Mongolia.
The recent paper in Quaternary Science Reviews is the first to date ancient glaciers in the high mountains of Mongolia's Gobi Desert. It compares them with glacial records from nearby mountains to reveal how glaciers behave in extreme climates.
In a new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of scientists reported that they can now make people less afraid of everyday objects of phobia such as snakes and spiders, by directly manipulating the brain activity in human participants.
CHAPEL HILL -- Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women in the United States, with most deaths caused by the cancer spreading beyond the breast. In a new study, University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have identified genetic clues that explain how breast cancer spreads, or metastasizes - findings that may lead to better treatments or approaches to prevent its spread at the onset.