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Be it a bacteria or a fully complex being, say a human, all living, biological organisms undergo lighting fast protein structure reassembly in response to environmnetal stimuli. For instance, receptor proteins in the sinus are stimulated by various odor molecules, basically telling the organism that there’s food nearby or it’s in the vicinity of danger (sulphur, methane, […]
While a definite cure for cancer is still miles away, researchers and doctors are using more and more tactics to successfully corner the disease, and as a result, more and more cancer drugs are being developed and produced. As we have a better understanding of the molecular makeup of the disease, novel techniques and treatments […]
A male birth control might not be so far away as most people thought – especially as Scottish scientists have uncovered a key gene essential for sperm development. The gene, which for some reason was named called Katnal1, is critical for sperm production, as it enables the little guys to mature; thus, if a pill […]
Genetic diversity is what keeps species evolving, helps them tackle diseases and is a prime pre-requisite for natural selection. Understanding genetic diversity is imperitive for scientists in the field, whether it’s about identifying associations between genetic variants and diseases or highlighting interesting aspects of human population history. One of these aspects is geographical location. Remarkably, an international […]
Well the title may be a little over the top, but Loyola University psychologist concluded that people with a taste for organics are more likely to be insufferable, and that a type of diet might make you more judgmental. The new study by Kendall Eskine claims that people who ate foods declared as organic tended […]
You too can get a genetic test kit for your samples! A new university-based project seeks to investigate cryptic species, such as yeti for example, in an attempt to show if these species can actually exist or not; and they want to do this through DNA research. Researchers from Oxford University and the Lausanne Museum […]
Another breakthrough in biology and medicine was reported, as scientists were able, for the first time, to take skin cells from patients who had suffered heart failure and make them repair the cardiac muscle. The technique had been tested only on rats and it seemed decades could pass until it would become suitable for humans, […]
I’ve recently been bombarded with e-mails regarding a recent study which seemed to conclude that coffee consumption can be linked with longevity. The study was not funded by the coffee industry, and was published in the highly regarded New England Journal of Medicine – so everything seemed to be fine. However, going for an extra […]
Nothing short of extraordinary, two people paralyzed from the neck down controlled a robotic arm to perform actions of various complexity, like manipulating objects, simply by using their minds. One of the participants involved in the demonstration of the brain to robotic arm set-up actually controlled the arm to retrieve a coffee recipient and eventually drank from […]
The first study of this kind concluded that the very early musical training of children, even before they can walk, has some remarkable benefits. Researchers at the McMaster University found that one year babies who participate in interactive music classes are happier, communicate better and have earlier and more sophisticated brain responses to music. “Many […]
Horses are arguably one of the most helpful animals man has ever managed to domesticate. At first they were used as source of meat and milk, but it was soon evident that horses were a lot more suited as labor animals than as a direct food medium. Important agricultural advancements were made possible thanks to horses, and […]
You may call them ‘healers’, you may call them ‘quacks’, but a scientific study conducted in Spain has shown many of these people display a neuropsychological phenomenon known as “synesthesia” (specifically, “emotional synesthesia”), giving a valuable explanation of their ‘abilities’. The name ‘synesthesia’ explains the condition pretty good: in Green, ‘syn‘ means ‘together‘ and ‘aisthesys‘ […]
Energy and sports drink do give you a quick rush when you might feel like nothing else can do the trick for you – but at a huge cost. Aside from all the other downsides, which include heart and stomach issues, researchers have now shown that people who drink this kind of drinks are essentially […]
Skin and hair color are most inherited from parents, and usually hint pretty accurately to a person’s ethnicity. Dark skin and hair are most common in the regions around the Equator, however natives of the Solomon Islands, an archipelago east of Papua New Guinea, seem to defy common expectations, as around 10% of the population […]
At the end of last year, controversy sparked among the medical scientific community when an unprecedented event occurred. Two separate and independent studies made by a team of scientists lead by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin and TIME 100 honoree Ron Fouchier of Erasmus University in the Netherlands, respectively, had their papers’ postponed and censored for publishing. The […]
An interesting conversation can instantly make a turn for the worst when bad breath hops into the scene. We’ve all had our share of bad experiences whether we were more or less forced to tolerate the repulsive stench of bad breath or we had a case of bad breath ourselves. Scientists at Nippon Dental University, […]
Scientists at UK Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology have successfully managed to create an artificial version of both DNA and RNA, fundamental biomolecules crucial to life. The synthetic nucleic acids are capable of encoding information and passing it on to the next generation, even with changes in the code with the help of an […]
I don’t smoke – and I’m grateful for that every day. But 2 billion people do smoke, and face the problems associated with this vice. I wasn’t able to find out how many of them smoke menthol, but judging from the people I know, I can guess there are a lot; according to a Canadian […]
A study performed last year observed that identical twins, who share 100% of the same genetic material and had the same upbringing, expressed a very similar attitude towards civic behavior and care-giving, whilst fraternal twins, who share 50% of their genes and, again, had the same upbringing, did not necessarily share the same pro-social attitude […]
It just saddens me to find out about things like this: in Colombia, a ten year old girl has given birth to another baby girl, making her one of the youngest mothers to ever live. According to Univision’s Primer Impacto, the girl, which was not named for obvious reasons, arrived in hospital in a great […]
The most complex object on Earth is the human brain. However, even though it’s intertwined by billions of nerve fibers almost in a chaotic fashion, scientists who have used sophisticated mathematical analysis of advanced imaging data found that the neural pathways that carry electrical signals through the brain are arranged in a very simple manner, resembling […]
Scientists at Newcastle University are currently developing a tiny bio-inspired robot, just one centimeter in length, which in less than five years might be used to diagnose and pinpoint diseases from inside the human body. The researchers, backed-up by the American National Science Foundation and the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, are hoping to […]
Autism is truly one of the medical conditions we have extremely much to learn about – the only way it can be diagnosed is through behavior, and not by cause or mechanism. It would appear that lately, the number of autism cases have grown dramatically, but then again, maybe we’ve just gotten better at detecting […]
Plastic surgeons at University of Maryland performed the most complex facial reconstruction surgery to date, which included the replacements of both jaws, teeth, facial soft tissue from the scalp to the neck and sensory muscles indispensable to facial expression. The procedure was part of a 72 hour transplant marathon, aftern an anonymous donor generously donated […]
I love chocolate, and to be frank, I don’t really care if it goes directly to my hips or not, but millions of women and men all across the world believe differently. For them this study is godsend. A research letter published by the Archives of Internal Medicine showed that healthy people which exercise regularly […]
A simple, non-expensive drug can shrink or cure many types of human cancer, including breast, ovary, colon, bladder, brain, liver, and prostate tumors. It worked on human tumors that were transplanted in mice, and the team was given a green light to move on to human trials. Taking advantage of the tumor’s weakness Basically, the […]
When the brain deems an experience meaningful enough, it will transfer that information from short-term storage, where typically information like where you put your car keys or the phone number of a person you just met gets stored temporarily, to your long-term memory, offering the possibility to be accessed at a later time. Neurologists claim […]
Researchers at Yale University have successfully mange to utilize a novel MRI technique to 3-D image the insides of hard and soft solids, like bone and tissue, opening the way for a new array of applications, like previously difficult to image dense objects. Typically, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can produce a 3-D image of an object […]
There are a number of factors that lead to obesity, the most obvious of which is of course eating too much, without burning the excess fat by exercising. Fact is, there are some people in the world who no matter how much they’d eat, they never seem to be satisfied, constantly consumed by a sense […]
A major study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, which involved 110.000 people, concluded that eating as little as two pieces of pork per day or one hot dog can raise the mortality rates of mortality by 20%, while showing that substituting red meat with other sources of protein, such as fish, chicken […]
A remarkable research whose findings recently published in the journal Cell, concludes that intense physical exercise leads to chemical alteration of the DNA, turning certain genes on and off. In fact, individuals which lead a relatively sedentary lifestyle changed the DNA in their muscle fibers almost immediately, after a strenuous 35 minute work-out. It’s important […]
In what might seem an oddball experiment in the first instance, later revealing some very interesting scientific facts, a Kyoto University researcher asked 60 women participating in a study to look at a 9-photo grid (eight were of flowers, and another captioned a snake) and identify as quickly as possible the snake photo. Women who were […]
Researchers have completed the great apes family’s genetic library after they sequenced the genes of a western lowland gorilla, joining the already-sequenced genomes of humans, chimpanzees and orangutans. Scientists found that gorillas, which share 98% of their genes with humans, are a lot more related to humans than previously thought, as well as surprising genetic differences which […]
What are the differences between a bottle of premium, high rated Pinot Noir and a shelf classic Merlot? Well, besides a lot of money, wine critics would be quick to detail all the subtle differences that come together in an amalgam of sensations, and consequently make the premium look like a divine gift from Dyonisis […]
The prospect of medical implants capable of delivering drugs directly to the patient’s blood stream or tissue has been an important subject for research. Recently, a microchip was implanted in 8 women, with the sole role of delivering an osteoporosis treating drug. The human trial is the culmination of 15 years worth of development work by […]
While there’s a common assumption that once with old age, sleep quality tends to deteriorate, a recent study published in the journal Sleep suggests that the opposite is actually true. Thus, the older you are, the higher the chances of you having a good night’s sleep. The conclusion came after more than 150,000 adults were telephone […]
Psychedelic mushrooms have been used for medical, ceremonial and spiritual purposes for thousands of years, due their mind-alterating properties which induce hallucinations, perception disorders or altered states of awareness. It’s been found that the active ingredient responsible for the psychedelic state, which many associated with a religious experience, is a substance called psilocybin. Though a lot is […]
According to a recently released study authored by American physicians, sleeping pills are linked to a more-than fourfold risk of premature death. If that wasn’t enough, the study goes on to state that people who take high doses are associated with a 35-percent increased risk of cancer, compared to non-users, although a valid explanation as to why this happens […]
A linguistic study found that people who regularly text message are less likely to accept new words, as opposed to those that read more traditional print media such as books, magazines, and newspapers. For the study, student volunteers were asked about their reading habits and text messaging frequency, and then presented with a set of […]
For a number of years now researchers have been studying the sirtuin gene and the proteins encoded in it as it is believed to be directly linked to prolonged lifespan. A myriad of individual studies were performed with mixed results, and so far hundreds of millions have been allocated for research in this direction. A […]
Good news for men, and especially women: the Y chromosome, which holds the male sex determining genes in most mammals, including humans, is not going extinct, as some claim, as a new research found that the diminishing gene numbers have come to a halt and will remain this way. Sex chromosomes come in pairs, such […]
Implantable medical devices, capable of delivering drugs or performing micro-surgery from inside the body, have been the subject of scientific research for decades now. A number of exciting prototypes have been developed in the past few years, as miniaturization allowed it, however reliability flaws rendered them unpractical. A new tiny device developed by Stanford electrical engineers, was presented […]
Since the advent of modern DNA sequencing technology, biological research and discoveries has been dramatically accelerated. It’s absolutely instrumental to genetic research nowadays, which among other great achievements, has lead to the sequencing of the human genome. The methods and technologies involved in DNA sequencing are terribly complex, however, and usually require sophisticated research laboratories. […]
In what can only be hailed as a breakthrough in the “smart drugs” field, scientists at Harvard University have successfully managed to create nanorobots made out of strands of DNA, folded together by the DNA origami method. These act like drug-carrying recipients, which specifically target various types of cells and deliver complex molecular instructions – […]
The speed at which someone walks and the likelihood of dementia don’t have absolutely anything in common at a first glance, but according to a study published in the British Medical Journal in 2009 there is a ‘strong association’ between the two. They also said at a conference that grip strength in middle-aged men was […]
Researchers successfully tested gene therapy in rats to stimulate the production of a chemical which naturally occurs in the brain and stops seizures from taking place. About 3.000.000 people are suffering from epilepsy in the US alone, and a major characteristic of this lifelong disease is uncontrollable seizures which prevent sufferers from normally carrying on […]
Four hundred of the most popular lipsticks in the US contain trace levels of lead, according to tests conducted by the federal government – a number much bigger than what was expected. Five of the L’Oreal and Maybelline lipsticks ranked among the top 10 most contaminated brands, as well as two Cover Girl and two […]
Researchers report that after testing on lab mice an FDA-approved drug, used as treatment for skin cancer, that significant improvements in cognitive recovery were signaled, shinning a new ray of hope for Alzheimer patients. Neuroscientists Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine discovered that bexarotene, a skin cancer drug, remarkably also appears to reverse cognitive […]
Seropositive volunteers participated in what can turn out to be a revolutionary test, conducted in Belgium, at the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp University Hospital and Antwerp University, involving a new therapeutic vaccine that uses cells from their own bodies; the cells are then charged and reinjected into their system. A cure for AIDS […]
Last year, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, produced a draft of the Denisova genome, in order study in what proportion they relate to homo sapiens sapiens. The Denisovans, are a new group of hominids, discovered just two years ago, which is believed to have lived around 30,000 years ago, alongside Neanderthals and […]
