We have talked about the polarization of macrophages in a number of previous articles, but, in short, macrophages can have multiple behavioral profiles that determine what roles they play; this is known as polarization. A new study has identified a regulatory protein that controls this process.

Macrophage Polarization

For the purposes of this article, we are interested in the M1 and M2 polarization. The M1 type is pro-inflammatory and aggressive towards invading pathogens, while the M2 type of macrophage is anti-inflammatory in nature, suppressing inflammatory responses and facilitating tissue repair.

Spinach leaf veins can be used in place of human blood vessels.

Reading human DNA used to take laboratories, a pile of cash and a long time.

By Ben Hirschler

LONDON (Reuters) — Chinese scientists have cloned monkeys using the same technique that produced Dolly the sheep two decades ago, breaking a technical barrier that could open the door to copying humans.

Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, two identical long-tailed macaques, were born eight and six weeks ago, making them the first primates — the order of mammals that includes monkeys, apes and humans — to be cloned from a non-embryonic cell.

The ocean is crowded. As many as 10 million viruses can be found squirming in a single millilitre of its water, and it turns out they have friends we never even knew about.

Scientists have discovered a previously unknown family of viruses that dominate the ocean and can’t be detected by standard lab tests. Researchers suspect this viral multitude may already exist outside the water — maybe even inside us.

“We don’t think it’s ocean-specific at all,” says environmental microbiologist Martin Polz from MIT.