Science and Health News

New human microbiome research tool

Researchers at Tomsk Polytechnic (TPU), a leading university in Siberia, working in partnership with their colleagues from the Siberian Institute of Physics of Strengths and Material Science (IPSMS) and international teams, claim to have found a new strategy to fight cancer by exposing cancerous cells to «hunger torture," thus slowing down their growth and development. Special nanodimensional agents have been developed to do the job.

Scientists have developed a material that can mimic cartilage and potentially encourage it to re-grow.

An extensive study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has found that new technologies in genetic engineering and conventional breeding are blurring the once clear distinctions between these two crop-improvement approaches. In addition, while recognizing the inherent difficulty of detecting subtle or long-term effects on health or the environment, the study committee found no substantiated evidence of a difference in risks to human health between current commercially available genetically engineered (GE) crops and conventionally bred crops, nor did it find conclusive cause-and-effect evidence of environmental problems from the GE crops. However, evolved resistance to current GE characteristics in crops is a major agricultural problem.

Robot unfolds from ingestible capsule, removes button battery stuck to wall of simulated stomach.

Biologists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have made an important discovery that helps explain how plants regulate the proliferation of their stem cells. The discovery has near-term implications for increasing the yield of maize and many other staple crops, perhaps by as much as 50%.

Wound healing is not a one-size-fits-all process. MDI Biological Laboratory Assistant Professor, Vicki P. Losick, Ph. D, has recently discovered a new healing mechanism, which she has called wound-induced polyploidy (WIP).

An international team of researchers has identified 74 areas of the human genome associated with educational attainment. It is well known that social and other environmental factors influence education, but these findings, reported by the Social Science Genetics Association Consortium (SSGAC) and supported in part by the National Institutes of Health, suggest that large genetics analyses may be able to help discover biological pathways as well.