Ewen Callaway The Philippines is one of the nations in which the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron has spread quickly. Credit: Lisa Marie David/Reuters COVID-19 researchers are rushing to understand why a relative of the main Omicron variant is displacing its sibling in countries around the world. The variant, known as BA.2, has spread rapidly in...
In the time of COVID-19, ‘any positive news about how we can better attack HIV is welcome right now,’ says Northwestern Medicine expert Richard D’Aquila. Following the news that a third person has been cured of HIV, a Northwestern Medicine expert says partially matched blood cells could be used to cure many people living with both cancer...
About 50 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, which interferes with their daily life, social interactions, and ability to work. MIT Professor Fan Wang wants to develop new ways to help relieve that pain, by studying and potentially modifying the brain’s own pain control mechanisms. Her recent work has identified an “off switch” for pain,...
Different types of these branch-like projections process incoming information in different ways before sending it to the body of the neuron. Within the human brain, neurons perform complex calculations on information they receive. Researchers at MIT have now demonstrated how dendrites — branch-like extensions that protrude from neurons — help to perform those computations. The researchers...
Climate Change and Human Behavior (Cambridge University Press, 2022) maps out how hotter temperatures and more frequent and severe weather events can directly and indirectly alter the way people think and interact with others. Leaning on decades of previous research, the authors demonstrate how these impacts at the individual and group levels can escalate to political...
How well does your fat function? It isn’t a question that one gets asked very often. Nonetheless, research in recent years suggests that the function of our fat tissue, or adipose tissue, is central to why our bodies decay with age, and strongly linked to human diseases like diabetes 2, cancer, and obesity often develop...
INSTITUT DU CERVEAU (PARIS BRAIN INSTITUTE) What risk factors are associated with Alzheimer’s up to 15 years before the onset of the first symptoms? This is a vital question for specialists of this neurodegenerative disease – which develops over many years before becoming clinically visible – who aim to improve early prevention for at-risk patients....
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY A couple of years ago, a woman named Joy Milne made headlines when scientists discovered that she could “smell” Parkinson’s disease (PD) on people with the neurodegenerative disorder. Since then, researchers have been trying to build devices that could diagnose PD through odor compounds on the skin. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Omega have...
NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY “Many millions of elderly people worldwide suffer from sarcopenia, a disease that is characterized by muscle wasting. A large proportion become so frail that they can no longer exercise,” says Jose Bianco Moreira, a researcher at NTNU, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. “Gene therapy is the most...
CHIANG PUBLIC RELATIONS VIDEO: BRAIN VITAL SIGNS CONCUSSION STUDY SHOWS COGNITIVE BRAIN FUNCTION IN YOUTH FOOTBALL PLAYERS CAN BE IMPAIRED BY REPETITIVE “SUBCONCUSSIVE” HEAD IMPACTS CREDIT: HEALTHTECH CONNEX INC. Sioux Falls, South Dakota, U.S. and Surrey, British Columbia, Canada (February 23, 2021) – Neuroscience researchers at Sanford Research in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, U.S., Simon Fraser University (SFU), and HealthTech...
