Culture
We know a lot about the human brain, but very little about how it is formed. In particular, the stages from the second to the seventh week of embryonic development have so far been virtually unknown territory to brain researchers.
To learn more about this particular period, researchers from the Department of Neuroscience and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Biology at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences have now developed a model that mimics these early stages of the human brain in the laboratory.
Astronomers have captured an image of a super-rare type of galaxy - described as a "cosmic ring of fire" - as it existed 11 billion years ago.
The galaxy, which has roughly the mass of the Milky Way, is circular with a hole in the middle, rather like a titanic doughnut. Its discovery, announced in the journal Nature Astronomy, is set to shake up theories about the earliest formation of galactic structures and how they evolve.
A genome-wide analysis of more than 435,000 people has identified 29 genetic variants linked to problematic drinking, researchers at Yale University School of Medicine and colleagues report May 25 in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
"The new data triple the number of known genetic risk loci associated with problematic alcohol use," said Yale's Joel Gelernter, the Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry and professor of genetics and of neuroscience, who is the senior author of the multi-institutional study.
Scientists have developed a new type of laser that can deliver high amounts of energy in very short bursts of time, with potential applications in eye and heart surgery or the engineering of delicate materials.
researchers at the University of California, Davis offers a significant advance in using magnetic resonance imaging to pick out even very small tumors from normal tissue. The work is published May 25 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Sometimes cancer stays put, but often it metastasizes, spreading to new locations in the body. It has long been suspected that genetic mutations arising inside tumor cells drive this potentially devastating turn of events.
Now researchers have shown for the first time that our own pre-existing genetics can promote metastasis.
(Vienna, Monday, 25 May, 2020) A new study presented today at the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) Virtual Congress shows the burden of potentially avoidable epilepsy-related deaths in young adults remains large, with those aged between 16 and 24 having a six-fold increased risk of epilepsy-related death.
(Vienna, Sunday, 24 May, 2020) The extent and risks associated with recreational abuse of laughing gas and psychostimulants by young people have today been revealed in two studies reported at the European Academy of Neurology Virtual Congress.
DALLAS – May 21, 2020 – A new cooling insole developed by UT Southwestern scientists reduced the foot temperature of patients with diabetic neuropathy by several degrees, diminishing a significant risk factor for diabetic foot ulcers.
Chinese researchers from The Trauma Center of Peking University People's Hospital and National Institute of Health Data Science at Peking University are using big data to help identify trauma patients who could experience potential adverse health events in the emergency department through the aid of a clinical decision support system. It was developed using a novel real-world evidence mining and evidence-based inference method, driven by improved information storage and electronic medical records.
We often think of asteroids and comets as distinct types of small bodies, but astronomers have discovered an increasing number of "crossovers." These objects initially appear to be asteroids, and later develop activity, such as tails, that are typical of comets.
A Monash University study has uncovered the role DNA repair plays in preserving egg quality, offering hope for women whose eggs may be damaged through treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy.
The study, led by Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI), found that when the cell death pathway is inhibited in oocytes (eggs) these eggs are capable of repairing severe DNA damage sufficiently to produce healthy offspring.
Meiosis is essential to sexual reproduction. For almost 15 years, it has been commonly held that retinoic acid, a molecule derived from vitamin A, triggers meiosis in mammalian germ cells. Yet, in joint articles published in Science Advances ( 22 May 2020 ), french researchers from the Institut de Biologie Valrose (CNRS / INSERM / Université Côte d'Azur) and the IGBMC (CNRS / INSERM / University of Strasbourg), with their colleagues, demonstrate that meiosis in mice begins and proceeds normally even in the absence of retinoic acid.
Organisms carry long-term "memories" of their ancestral homelands that help them adapt to environmental change, according to a new study that involved raising chickens on the Tibetan Plateau and an adjacent lowland site.
The study provides new insights into how creatures adapt to changing environments, a topic that's especially relevant today in the context of rapid climate change, which is creating challenges for plants and animals worldwide.
Bottom Line: Patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer who had germline or somatic mutations in DNA repair genes had better clinical outcomes after platinum-based chemotherapy, as compared with patients without these mutations.
Journal in Which the Study was Published: Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research
Authors: The senior author was Eileen O'Reilly, MD, medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). The lead author was Wungki Park, MD, medical oncologist at MSKCC.