[TECH NEWS] Instead of nerve fibers travelling willy-nilly through the brain like spaghetti, as some imaging has suggested, stunning new visuals reveal two-dimensional sheets of parallel fibers crisscrossing other sheets at right angles in a gridlike structure that folds and contorts with the convolutions of the brain. This same pattern appeared in the brains of humans, rhesus monkeys, owl monkeys, marmosets… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] The Nutritional Immunology and Molecular Medicine Laboratory (NIMML) research team at Virginia Tech has discovered important new information on the efficacy of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) in treating Crohn’s disease, a form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). CLA is a naturally occurring acid found in meat and dairy products known for its anti-cancer and immune modulatory properties. In… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] Researchers at the UCLA stem cell center and the departments of chemistry and biochemistry and pathology and laboratory medicine have identified, for the first time, a generic way to correct mutations in human mitochondrial DNA by targeting corrective RNAs, a finding with implications for treating a host of mitochondrial diseases. Mutations in the human mitochondrial genome are implicated… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] Despite a century of research, memory encoding in the brain has remained mysterious. Neuronal synaptic connection strengths are involved, but synaptic components are short-lived while memories last lifetimes. This suggests synaptic information is encoded and hard-wired at a deeper, finer-grained molecular scale. In an article in the March 8 issue of the journal PLoS Computational Biology, physicists Travis… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] Israeli scientists at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Be’er Sheva have just completed a study proving the protein enzyme telomerase can delay development of Lou Gehrig’s disease in laboratory mice – a medical breakthrough that may carry massive implications for human sufferers with the disease. The team led by Prof. Esther Priel, director of the School… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] Neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Portugal have demonstrated that the brain (rat model) is more flexible and trainable than previously thought. Major advances in neuroscience could lead to a wider range of brain-controlled prosthetic limbs that can restore mobility for people. Their new study, to be published Sunday,… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] The larva of the arctic drosophilid fly, Chymomyza costata, is probably the most complex multicellular organism that can survive submergence in liquid nitrogen (-196 °C) in a fully hydrated state. A research team in the Czech Republic headed by Vladimír Koštál examined the associations between the physiological and biochemical parameters of differently acclimated larvae and their freeze tolerance. Entering diapause,… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] University of California, San Diego researchers have developed a new injectable hydrogel that could be an effective and safe treatment for tissue damage caused by heart attacks. The study by Karen Christman and colleagues appears in the Feb. 21 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Christman is a professor in the Department of Bioengineering… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] The Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE is a $10 million global competition to stimulate innovation and integration of precision diagnostic technologies, making reliable health diagnoses available directly to “health consumers” in their homes. The dire need for improvements in health and healthcare in the U.S. has captured the attention of government, industry, and private citizens for years. But a… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] The smallest transistor ever built—in fact, the smallest transistor that can be built—has been created using a single phosphorous atom by an international team of researchers at the University of New South Wales, Purdue University and the University of Melbourne. The single-atom device was described Sunday (Feb. 19) in a paper in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. Michelle Simmons,… Read more »
