Shark experts tested four innovative wetsuit materials to measure how well they reduce shark-bite injuries. The results show they can lessen major trauma, blood loss, and even save lives when compared to standard neoprene. While not a perfect shield, these suits represent a leap forward in personal protection.
Read moreA team from the University of Illinois has uncovered surprising evolutionary links between the genetic code and tiny protein fragments called dipeptides. By analyzing billions of dipeptide sequences across thousands of species, the researchers revealed that these molecular pairs trace the earliest steps in the origin of life.
Read moreMammalian brains, with their unmatched number of nerve cells and density of communication, are the most complex networks known. While methods to analyze neuronal networks sparsely have been available for decades, the dense mapping of neuronal circuits is a major scientific challenge. Researchers have now succeeded in the dense connectomic mapping of brain tissue from the cerebral cortex, and quantify the possible imprint of learning in the circuit.
Read moreA new study uncovered new information on why the Ebola virus can exert such catastrophic effects on the infected person. They've described for the first time how the virus disables T cells, an important line of immune defense, thus rendering the infected person less able to combat the infection.
Read moreResearchers have conducted a quantitative keyword analysis of 30 million articles in the life sciences over a nearly fifty-year period (1970-2017) and found that 75% of total emerging keywords, at 1-year prior to becoming identified as emerging, co-appeared with other emerging keywords in the same article.
Read moreResearchers report the discovery of a protein, P17/PERMIT, that is key to recycling aging and damaged mitochondria. Defective mitochondria are characteristic of a number of age-related diseases, including cancer and Alzheimer's. The MUSC team showed P17/PERMIT transports the machinery that produces ceramide, a molecule that signals old mitochondria for destruction, to the mitochondria. There, it can mass-produce ceramide at the location needed for mitochondrial regulation.
Read moreA new antiviral drug that induces mutations in the genetic material of influenza virus is highly effective in treating influenza infection in animals and human airway tissue and could be a groundbreaking advance in influenza therapy.
Read moreNew research shows that lactate, an end product of metabolism, changes the function of an immune cell known as a macrophage, thereby rewiring it to behave differently.
Read moreA new imaging technique that makes it possible to match motor proteins with the cargo they carry within a cell is upending a standard view of how cellular traffic reaches the correct destination. The research focuses on neurons and sheds light on some neurodegenerative diseases.
Read moreNew research on an enzyme that is essential for photosynthesis and all life on earth has uncovered a key finding in its structure which reveals how light can interact with matter to make an essential pigment for life.
Read more