Culture
Researchers at Mount Sinai have discovered that human acute myeloid leukemia (AML) stem cells are dependent on a transcription factor known as RUNX1, potentially providing a new therapeutic target to achieve lasting remissions or even cures for a disease in which medical advances have been limited.
PITTSBURGH, June 2, 2020 - Using skin cells from human volunteers, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have created fully functional mini livers, which they then transplanted into rats.
In this proof-of-concept experiment, the lab-made organs survived for four days inside their animal hosts. These results were published today in Cell Reports.
Dr. Alan Herbert from InsideOutBio describes ground-breaking research in a paper published online today by Royal Society Open Science. The study focuses on the digital genome that uses programmable DNA-based on-off switches to change the readout of genetic information. The digital rewiring of the genome involves switch elements called flipons. Flipons fast track the evolution of multi-cellular organisms. The flipon strategy is less risky evolution based only on mutations.
A study in Cell Reports maps genes essential for the metabolic function of M. agalactiae and M. pneumoniae, two common bacteria that infect livestock and humans respectively.
The map of M. agalactiae reveals new insights that unlocks routes to explore new vaccines and antimicrobials for veterinary applications.
The results can also be used to finetune a re-engineered version of M. pneumoniae so that it can treat human lung diseases in the future.
HOUSTON-(June 2, 2020) - The country's first convalescent plasma transfusion trial results have been peer-reviewed and published, showing 19 out of 25 patients improving with the treatment and 11 discharged from the hospital. On March 28, Houston Methodist became the first academic medical center in the nation to transfuse plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients into two critically ill patients.
When it's time to schedule a vacation, most people will do it right away. But when it comes to booking a root canal, some people will procrastinate while others will put it at the top of their to-do list.
New research from the UBC Sauder School of Business may have figured out why. The study, published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, reveals key insights into how excitement, anticipation and dread factor into people's decision-making.
Computer simulations conducted by astrophysicists at Tohoku University in Japan, have revealed a new theory for the origin of supermassive black holes. In this theory, the precursors of supermassive black holes grow by swallowing up not only interstellar gas, but also smaller stars as well. This helps to explain the large number of supermassive black holes observed today.
Tiger snakes living in Perth's urban wetlands are accumulating toxic heavy metals in their livers, suggesting that their habitats - critical, local ecosystems - are contaminated and the species may be suffering as a result.
The team pre-published their report online in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A on 11 May 2020.
Imitating plants, algae and bacteria
Dating cave art is a key issue for understanding human cognitive development. Knowing whether the ability for abstraction and conveying reality involved in artistic development is unique to Homo sapiens or if it was shared with other species, or simply knowing at what moment these abilities developed, is vital in order to understand the complexity of human evolution.
A new study from researchers at The University of Texas at Austin has found that some antivirals are useful for more than helping sick people get better -- they also can prevent thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of virus cases if used in the early stages of infection.
Cells are a little easier to understand, thanks to improved technology developed by a team of researchers based in China. Using a method called Raman-Activated Cell Ejection and Sequencing (RACE-Seq), the scientists were able to improve the success of identifying and sequencing individual cells from our environments to understand the cells' functions.
They published their results recently in Analytical Chemistry.
The Sun is the brightest object in the sky and has been studied for hundreds of years, but it continues to hide some secrets. We all know that the visible Sun is extremely hot, at temperature of about 5500 degrees. Surprisingly, on top of this sits a layer of gas, called the corona, which is at a temperature of almost 2 million degrees, over 300 times hotter than the surface of the Sun! What heats up the corona to 2 million degrees is one of the most challenging puzzles about the Sun and no one found a satisfactory answer to this until date.
An explosion in the number and types of immune cells in the lungs of newborn mice likely helps them adapt to breathing and protects them from infection, says a new study published today in eLife.
The findings, from Stanford University and Stanford School of Medicine, US, provide detailed information about dramatic shifts in the immune cells in the lungs of mice from just before birth through the first weeks of life. This insight may help scientists learn more about how problems in early development can lead to breathing problems such as asthma later in life.
AMHERST, Mass. - In the first study to use systematically collected data from multifamily housing inspections to track bed bug infestation, investigators including Christopher Sutherland at the University of Massachusetts Amherst "confirm what has long been suspected for bed bugs, but also for public health issues in general" - infestations are strongly associated with socioeconomic factors, including neighborhood income, eviction rates and crowding.