From Italy and the World

A research team led by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed a novel technique to self-assemble a thin layer of amino acids with ordered orientation over a large area that demonstrates high piezoelectric strength, making the manufacturing of biocompatible and biodegradable medical microdevices, such as…

Atherosclerosis is a disease in which fat, cholesterol, and other substances build up inside artery walls. This can lead to plaque formation, which can block arteries and cause heart attacks and strokes. Immune cells play a key role in cleaning the blood, by interacting with red blood cell extracellular vesicles…

Unlike previously thought, speech production and singing are supported by the same circuitry in the brain. Observations in a new study can help develop increasingly effective rehabilitation methods for patients with aphasia. The neural network related to speech is mostly located in the left cerebral hemisphere, while singing has been…

New research confirms fracking causes slow, small earthquakes or tremors, whose origin was previously a mystery to scientists. The tremors are produced by the same processes that could create large, damaging earthquakes. Fracking is the high-pressure injection of fluids underground to extract oil and natural gas. Though it is typically…

Restaurants can persuade patrons to choose healthier foods by adjusting the font size of numbers attached to nutritional information on menus, according to a study headed by a Washington State University researcher. Lead researcher Ruiying Cai, an assistant professor in the WSU School of Hospitality Business Management, said U.S. restaurants…

Researchers at the University of Bristol have made a remarkable step forward in finding a potential cure for a type of childhood kidney disease. The research project has shown that just one dose of gene therapy targeting cells in the kidney has the potential to cure a condition known as…

New research from The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London has successfully reversed hearing loss in mice. The research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, used a genetic approach to fix deafness in mice with a defective Spns2 gene, restoring their hearing…

Platelets, or thrombocytes, are specialized cellular fragments that form blood clots when we get scrapes and traumatic injuries. Viral infections, autoimmune disease, and other conditions can cause platelet levels to drop throughout the body, termed thrombocytopenia. After a robust clinical and research collaboration, Stephan Moll, MD, and Jacquelyn Baskin-Miller, MD,…

The researchers also identified three proteins that are needed for the virus to carry out the invasion and have in turn synthesized molecules (potential drugs) that can target one of the proteins, potentially leading to new treatments for AIDS. “We have revealed a protein pathway that appears to have a…

Despite the many changes in school culture since the 1960s, a new study reveals that some things never change: life is harder for middle school students who are not attractive and for those who are not athletic. As children head back to school, the first-of-its-kind longitudinal study by Florida Atlantic…

A collaborative study undertaken by the Navarrabiomed Biomedical Research Center (Pamplona, Navarre), the Institute of Neurosciences CSIC-UMH (Sant Joan d’Alacant, Valencian Community) and IRB Barcelona (Barcelona, Catalonia) shows that the administration of ranolazine, a drug currently used to treat heart conditions, improves the efficacy of current therapies for melanoma, in…

Patients often experience functional decline after an ischemic stroke, especially due to the brain’s resistance to regenerate after damage. Yet, there is still potential for recovery as surviving neurons can activate repair mechanisms to limit and even reverse the damage caused by the stroke. How is it triggered though? In…

People living with cystic fibrosis (CF) will benefit from improved treatment as international experts produce clinical practice guidance for exercise assessments. The European CF Society Exercise Working Group (ECFS) document, led by Dr Zoe Saynor from the University of Portsmouth in England, provides comprehensive recommendations and instructions for health and…

Developing new materials requires significant time and labor, but some chemists are now hopeful that artificial intelligence (AI) could one day shoulder much of this burden. In a new study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a team prompted a popular AI model, ChatGPT, to perform one particularly…

CNN  —  Poland is planning to move around 10,000 troops to its eastern border with Belarus amid mounting concerns over Wagner forces in the region. Wagner troops have been stationed within Belarus – a close ally of Russia – in the wake of a short-lived rebellion carried out by the…

Ukraine has provided the Pentagon with a report about the use of controversial American cluster munitions in the fight with Russia, a Ukrainian official told CNN on Wednesday.  The official said the information transmitted to the Defense Department included both the number of rounds fired and the number of Russian…

Researchers are developing a way to incorporate one of the most human of characteristics — uncertainty — into machine learning systems. Human error and uncertainty are concepts that many artificial intelligence systems fail to grasp, particularly in systems where a human provides feedback to a machine learning model. Many of…

Orikhiv, Eastern Ukraine CNN  —  Rammed back into the bushes, out past destroyed Bradleys and ageing Humvees, the Soviet-era T72 lowers its turret to fire. Its targets are Russian positions, imperiled by Ukraine’s push south, just past the building over the horizon. Three rounds whistle into the distance, the tank…

Research from experts at Michigan Medicine, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Penn Medicine is breaking ground on new ways of treating blood disorders, such as sickle cell anemia, through gene therapy. To cure blood disorders, patients must undergo high dose chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation. This requires a match…

A scientific journey decades in the making at Duke University has found a new antibiotic strategy to defeat gram-negative bacteria like Salmonella, Pseudomonas and E. coli, the culprits in many urinary tract infections (UTIs). The synthetic molecule works fast and is durable in animal tests. It works by interfering with…

People who take acid reflux medications called proton pump inhibitors for four-and-a-half years or more may have a higher risk of dementia compared to people who do not take these medications, according to new research published in the August 9, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the…

In the ongoing search for a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, a burgeoning branch of medicine is bringing new hope. Stem cell therapies are already being used to treat various cancers and disorders of the blood and immune system. In a new proof-of-concept study, scientists at University of California San Diego…

New observations of mud cracks made by the Curiosity rover show that high-frequency, wet-dry cycling occurred in early Martian surface environments, indicating that the red planet may have once seen seasonal weather patterns or even flash floods. The research was published today in Nature. “These exciting observations of mature mud…

In Parkinson’s disease, growing evidence targets neuroinflammation as essential for brain pathogenesis. But which group of immune cells that reside in the brain direct this inflammatory response? In a study published in Nature Communications, Ashley Harms, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, used a mouse model…

What do superheroes Deadpool and Elastigirl have in common? Each was used in a college anatomy class to add relevance to course discussions — Deadpool to illustrate tissue repair and Elastigirl, aka Mrs. Incredible, as an example of hyperflexibility. Instructors at The Ohio State University College of Medicine created a…