Healthy diet in early pregnancy reduces risk of gestational diabetes
Obesity is a significant risk factor for developing gestational diabetes mellitus, and an increasing number of pregnant women are overweight or obese. Dietary habits have an impact on both obesity and the onset of gestational diabetes mellitus. The mother-child study conducted at the University of Turku and Turku University Hospital in Finland examined the connection […]
Too dry, too hot, or too wet: Increasing weather persistence in European summer
“In our study, we show that persistent weather conditions have an increasing similarity in summer over the North Atlantic, Europe and Siberia, favoring more pronounced extreme weather events. In Europe alone, about 70% of the land area is already affected by more persistent weather situations,” says Peter Hoffmann from the Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research […]
Eye imaging technology breaks through skin by crossing beams: New approach to optical coherence tomography increases its depth of view in biological tissues
Biomedical engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a method for increasing the depth at which optical coherence tomography (OCT) can image structures beneath skin. The gold standard for imaging and diagnosing diseases within the retina, OCT has yet to find widespread use as an imaging technique for other parts of the body due to its […]
Development of an artificial vision device capable of mimicking human optical illusions: Device may enable image processing without requiring software
NIMS has developed an ionic artificial vision device capable of increasing the edge contrast between the darker and lighter areas of an mage in a manner similar to that of human vision. This first-ever synthetic mimicry of human optical illusions was achieved using ionic migration and interaction within solids. It may be possible to use […]
Experimental drug boosts immunotherapy effectiveness in pancreatic cancer in mice
An experimental drug enhanced the benefit of an immunotherapy to fight pancreatic cancer in mice by increasing the number of immune cells in the immediate vicinity of the tumor, leading to a reduction in tumor growth, and in some mice, eliminating their cancer. The findings, from researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and BioXcel […]
Extra spacing can boost children’s reading speed: New study finds significant benefits for both dyslexic and non-dyslexic children
A new study has found that a child’s reading speed can be improved by simply increasing the space between letters within a piece of text. The research, led by Dr Steven Stagg of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), examined the benefits of letter spacing and coloured overlays amongst a group of dyslexic and non-dyslexic children. It […]
Fertility and Fatherhood: Don’t Wait Too Long
Increasing paternal age reduced the chance of achieving live birth following assisted reproductive technology (ART), according to a retrospective study. After adjusting for maternal age, the probability of a successful live birth through in vitro fertilization (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) decreased with paternal age over 50 versus age ≤35 (OR 0.674, 95% CI […]
Biomaterial vaccines ward off broad range of bacterial infections and septic shock
Current clinical interventions for infectious diseases are facing increasing challenges due to the ever-rising number of drug-resistant microbial infections, epidemic outbreaks of pathogenic bacteria, and the continued possibility of new biothreats that might emerge in the future. Effective vaccines could act as a bulwark to prevent many bacterial infections and some of their most severe […]