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Endogenous proteins that play a vital part in allergies and parasitic infection can prevent the immune system from wrongly attacking the body and causing inflamed joints, a study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in the scientific journal PNAS reports. The researchers hope that the results will give rise to new drugs for rheumatoid arthritis. In protecting us against infections, […]
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Researchers at the Center for Cognition and Sociality, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in South Korea, have engineered an improved biological tool that controls calcium (Ca2+) levels in the brain via blue light. Published in Nature Communications, this optogenetic construct, called monster-OptoSTIM1 or monSTIM1 for short, causes a change in mice’s fear learning behavior without the need of […]
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Patient enrollment in clinical trials as the first course of treatment after cancer diagnosis is low, despite the fact that enrollment may increase life expectancy, according to researchers at Penn State. They also found that white males with private health insurance and metastatic cancers treated at academic medical centers are more likely than other groups to enroll in clinical trials. […]
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A hitherto unknown antibiotic-resistant bacteria species, in the same family as E. coli and Salmonella spp., has been found and classified in Sweden. The proposed taxonomic name of the species—the first of the new genus—is Scandinavium goeteborgense, after the city of Gothenburg, where the bacterium was isolated and the research was done. Knowing which bacteria cause infections and which antibiotics […]
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Around 26 million people worldwide suffer from heart failure, with more than 50 per cent dying suddenly most likely due to the spontaneous onset of a heart rhythm problem, known as an arrhythmia. The link between the electrical signal that triggers the heart cell to contract (action potential) and consequent ability of the heart to pump blood has been known […]
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Credit: CC0 Public Domain A new coronavirus, a mysterious SARS-like disease, has spread around China and three other Asian countries since first emerging in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. A timeline: Alarm raised The World Health Organization (WHO) is alerted on December 31, 2019, by the Chinese authorities of a string of pneumonia-like cases in Wuhan, a city of […]
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When University of California, Irvine neurobiologist Carey Y.L. Huh, Ph.D., set her sights on discovering more about amblyopia, she brought personal insight to her quest. As a child, Huh was diagnosed with the condition, which is often called “lazy eye.” Huh is a researcher in the lab of UCI associate professor of neurobiology & behavior Sunil Gandhi. She and her […]
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Teen suicide rates among black youth are increasing. In 2016 and again in 2018, national data revealed that among children age 5-11, black children had the highest rate of death by suicide. For the years 2008 to 2012, 59 black youth died by suicide, up from 54 in the years 2003-2007. Also, the 2015 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s […]
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On average, an estimated three out of every 1,000 newborns will suffer a brachial plexus injury during birth, damaging the bundle of nerves that connect the brain and spinal cord to the shoulders, arms and hands. In the most traumatic cases, even with surgery and physical therapy as an infant, there is no treatment that can guarantee a full recovery. […]
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Some things we do appear almost automatic, like opening the fridge when feeling hungry or flipping on the air conditioning when the temperature rises. Although such decisions don’t seem to take much thought, they are in fact generated by millions of neurons and numerous interactions among several brain regions—a dynamic system so complex that scientists aren’t able to observe it […]
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