Allergies, like the common cold and asthma, have basically defied the best efforts of modern medicine to cure them. Now, a doctoral candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem School of Pharmacy has come up with a new approach that offers hope for getting rid of them.
Capsules of insulin produced in genetically modified lettuce could hold the key to restoring the body’s ability to produce insulin and help millions of Americans who suffer from insulin-dependent diabetes, according to University of Central Florida biomedical researchers.
A newly identified gene may hold the promise of guiding future research into therapies for multiple sclerosis in what its discoverers say is the first major genetic advance in 30 years for understanding this nervous system disease.
The linking of two signalling pathways in the cells of liver tumours has a clear influence on their malignancy. Activation of the platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) messenger molecule is decisive for this linking. This results related to the development of liver cancer was generated during a current project by the Austrian Science Fund FWF and has been published in the Journal Oncogene. When the signalling pathways in liver tumour cells have been linked together, these cells develop the characteristics of cancer stem cells, which are in principal resistant to chemotherapy. This new understanding of the signalling pathways involved unlocks potential for the future development of modified therapies.
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and its partners are taking swift action to protect critically endangered mountain gorillas after three females and one male silverback were discovered shot to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Anxious or depressed mothers-to-be are at increased risk of having children who will experience sleep problems in infancy and toddlerhood, finds a study that published this month in Early Human Development.
Got high cholesterol? You might want to stay away from air pollution. That’s the message of a new UCLA study linking diesel exhaust to atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, which significantly increases one’s risk for heart attack and stroke.
Scientists have provided new evidence that using more fish oil than vegetable oil in the diet decreases the formation of chemicals called prostanoids, which, when produced in excess, increase inflammation in various tissues and organs.
An implanted stimulator being studied at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital may be able to predict and prevent seizures before they start in people with uncontrolled epilepsy.
An international team of scientists has detected a hidden magnetic “quantum order” that extends over chains of nearly 100 atoms in a material that is otherwise magnetically disordered.
According to a new study, sexual sensation in circumcised and uncircumcised men may not be so different after all. The research consisted of genital sensory testing conducted on circumcised and uncircumcised men during states of sexual arousal and non-arousal. Results showed that no difference between the two groups was found in sensitivity to touch or pain.
All babies in a Rhode Island study group who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) universally shared the same distinctive difference in their newborn hearing test results for the right inner ear, when compared to infants who did not have SIDS, according to a new report.
Three biomedical engineers have created a genetic dimmer switch that can be used to turn on, shut off, or partially activate a gene’s function. The switch can be tuned to produce large or small quantities of protein, or none at all.
In the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park, a team of researchers has discovered a new bacterium that transforms light into chemical energy.
Drinking malt liquor — the cheap, high-alcohol beverage often marketed to teens — may put young adults at increased risk for alcohol problems and use of illicit drugs, particularly marijuana, according to a new study of malt liquor drinkers and marijuana use by scientists at the University at Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions (RIA).
Over the last five years, large, predatory Humboldt squid have moved north from equatorial waters and invaded the sea off Central California, where they may be decimating populations of Pacific hake, an important commercial fish. Ironically, these squid may have benefited from the decline of large tuna and billfish in the Equatorial Pacific, which previously preyed upon and competed with the Humboldt squid for food.
A New Scientist article about a study by scientists at the institute of Arctic and Alpine Research of the University of Colorado, Boulder, has bad news for coastal areas around the world.
The team, led by Mark F. Meier, suggests that the latest International Panel on Climate Change projection of sea level rise in the 21st century by is too low by 10-25 centimeters because it leaves out the contributions of increasing glacier melt water.
Older people always say: “These are the signs of the end of the world!”. Younger people think: “Has it always [...]
