A study in the British Medical Journal this week found a link between regular consumption of sugary drinks and cancer. Here’s what experts want you to know.
Scientist or not, we’re all familiar with X-ray imaging and perhaps its 3D cousin, computed tomography (CT), as well. These platforms are great for looking at bone and dense tissue—to see if there’s a fracture, or maybe a mass in the lung where it shouldn’t be—whereas molecular resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasonography are the go-to modalities for interrogating softer tissue, like muscle. And for knowing what is happening in the body—as opposed to just where something is—nuclear tracer technologies like positron emission tomography (PET), and to a lesser extent its cousin single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), are the way to go.
These self-same modalities can be found in more diminutive instrumentation for pre-clinical imaging—often equipped with heated beds or chambers, anesthesia and oxygen supplies, and other modifications—specifically designed for small animals. If you also consider instruments capable of optical modalities of fluorescence, bioluminescence and their derivatives—which generally don’t easily translate to the clinic—you find yourself awash in possibilities for in vivo imaging.
Nanoprobes were microscopic robotic devices used by the Borg for the primary purpose of assimilation, as well as to help maintenance and even repair their mechanical and biological components on a microscopic level. Injected into a target’s bloodstream via assimilation tubules, the nanoprobes immediately began to take over the host cells’ functions. Nanoprobes could also be modified for a variety of medical and technical tasks.
‘It is a real message of hope – I feel within my lifetime we can restore functional sight to the blind’, expert says of successful study.
Dangerous superbugs are clinging on to surgical gowns and instruments even after the items have been disinfected, scientists have revealed.
Hospitals have been warned to monitor their hygiene practices after tests showed the pathogen C. difficile is becoming resistant to standard decontamination agents.
The bug, which is thought to be responsible for around 1,600 deaths a year in the UK, can cause diarrhea, fever, rapid heartbeat, inflammation of the intestines, and kidney failure.
Medical experts hail ‘paradigm shift’ of implant that transmits video images directly to the visual cortex, bypassing the eye and optic nerve.
The new system, dubbed RESCUE, allows RNA edits to be made that were not previously possible.
The biological computer is an implantable device that is mainly used for tasks like monitoring the body’s activities or inducing therapeutic effects, all at the molecular or cellular level. This is made up of RNA, DNA and proteins and can also perform simple mathematical calculations.
DNA computing is a branch of computing which uses DNA, biochemistry, and molecular biology hardware, instead of the traditional silicon-based computer technologies. Research and development in this area concerns theory, experiments, and applications of DNA computing.
https://www.wired.com/…/finally-a-dna-computer-that-can-ac…/
The exact causes of aging are still not understood, and it is unclear why some species live less than 1 d, while others can live more than 400 y. Research suggests that telomeres are related to the aging process, but a clear relationship between the life span of a species and initial telomere length has not been observed. Here, we measure the telomere lengths of a variety of different species. We find that, in fact, there is no strong correlation between the life span of a species and initial telomere length. However, we find a strong correlation between the telomere shortening rate and the life span of a species.
Telomere shortening to a critical length can trigger aging and shorter life spans in mice and humans by a mechanism that involves induction of a persistent DNA damage response at chromosome ends and loss of cellular viability. However, whether telomere length is a universal determinant of species longevity is not known. To determine whether telomere shortening can be a single parameter to predict species longevities, here we measured in parallel the telomere length of a wide variety of species (birds and mammals) with very different life spans and body sizes, including mouse (Mus musculus), goat (Capra hircus), Audouin’s gull (Larus audouinii), reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus), bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), American flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber), and Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus). We found that the telomere shortening rate, but not the initial telomere length alone, is a powerful predictor of species life span.
