How landscapes of fear affect the songbirds in our backyards: New research suggests that fear is responsible for underweight nestlings
A team of researchers headquartered at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has recently discovered that fear plays an important, unrecognized role in the underdevelopment, and increased vulnerability, of backyard songbirds. Scientists have long known that urban songbirds face a host of increased challenges, from habitat loss to altered food sources and a larger population of […]
New DNA study provides critical information on conserving rainforest lizards
A study published June 16 in Biotropicaby a team of researchers at the University of Washington, the UW Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, WWF Hong Kong and the University of Colombo has provided an important road map to conserving rough-nosed horned lizards in Sri Lanka. Rough-nosed horned lizards, or Ceratophora aspera, are small […]
How relaxing COVID-19 restrictions could pave the way for vaccine resistance
Relaxing Covid-19 restrictions could pave the way for new vaccine-resistant virus mutations, according to researchers at the University of East Anglia and the Earlham Institute. A new article published today warns against relaxing Covid-19 restrictions prematurely. It describes how we are in an ‘arms race’ with the virus and how rising cases could provide opportunities […]
New organ-on-a-chip finds crucial interaction between blood, ovarian cancer tumors
In the evolving field of cancer biology and treatment, innovations in organ-on-a-chip microdevices allow researchers to discover more about the disease outside the human body. These organs-on-chips serve as a model of the state an actual cancer patient is in, thus allowing an opportunity to finding the correct treatment before administering it to the patient. […]
New understanding of cell stability with potential to improve immune cell therapies: Findings highlight pathway to remove unstable cells
Research in mice, published today in Science Immunology by researchers at the Babraham Institute, UK and VIB-KU Leuven, Belgium, provides two solutions with potential to overcome a key clinical limitation of immune cell therapies. Regulatory T cells have potential in treating autoimmunity and inflammatory diseases yet they can switch from a protective to damaging function. […]
New framework applies machine learning to atomistic modeling: Method could lead to more accurate predictions of how new materials behave at the atomic scale
Northwestern University researchers have developed a new framework using machine learning that improves the accuracy of interatomic potentials — the guiding rules describing how atoms interact — in new materials design. The findings could lead to more accurate predictions of how new materials transfer heat, deform, and fail at the atomic scale. Designing new nanomaterials […]
Researchers find immune component to rare neurodegenerative disease: Niemann-Pick disease type C, long thought to be tied to cholesterol metabolism, may eventually be treated with immune inhibitors
UT Southwestern researchers have identified an immune protein tied to the rare neurodegenerative condition known as Niemann-Pick disease type C. The finding, made in mouse models and published online in Nature, could offer a powerful new therapeutic target for Niemann-Pick disease type C, a condition that was identified more than a century ago but still […]
Novel autoantibody adds fuel to COVID-19 ‘firestorm’ of inflammation, blood clots: The finding will likely help physicians develop targeted therapies for future COVID patients
Researchers at Michigan Medicine have discovered yet another functional autoantibody in COVID-19 patients that contributes to the disease’s development and the “firestorm” of blood clots and inflammation it induces. A growing body of studies suggests COVID-19 emulates many aspects of systemic autoimmune disorders, including the release of a flurry of overactive immune cells that produce […]
3D ‘assembloid’ shows how SARS-CoV-2 infects brain cells
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine have produced a stem cell model that demonstrates a potential route of entry of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, into the human brain. The findings are published in the July 9, 2021 online issue of Nature Medicine. […]
Half of Severe COVID Patients Developed New Medical Issues
Nearly half of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 experienced at least one complication, researchers found in a prospective study. There were 49.7% of patients overall who developed one or more COVID-19 complications, and 43.5% of survivors with a minimum of one complication, reported Ewen M. Harrison, MBChB, PhD, from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and […]