How do epedemics come to a stop? Scientists consider genetic mutation of the pathogens as a possible cause. The plague killed about a quarter of the European population in the 14th century. How did it come to a stop? An international team of researchers led by Ben Krause-Kyora from the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology […]
Your lungs and airways need to be stretchy, sort of like balloons. Take a big breath, and they’ll open right up. Damaged lungs can’t open properly. Patients with asthma, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and systemic sclerosis suffer from fibrosis and tissue remodeling, where a build-up of tissue and immune cells, and proteins that form a glue-like […]
Huntington’s disease is caused by a mutation in the Huntingtin gen. Patients show involuntary movements, cognitive deficits and specific psychiatric disorders resulting from the degeneration and death of medium spiny striatal neurons. A study led by researchers of the Institute of Neurosciences of the UB (UBNeuro) describes the toxic role of the protein RTP801 in […]
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed a method for fast, cheap and accurate testing for COVID-19 infection. The method simplifies testing by eliminating expensive reaction steps, enabling upscaling of the diagnostics. This makes the method particularly attractive for places and situations with limited resources. It is equally interesting for repeated testing and for moving resources […]
Every year around this time, public health officials start warning about the approach of flu season. But this year is a little bit different thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, experts are warning about the possibility of a “twindemic,” or the overlap of flu season and an expected surge in COVID-19 cases this fall and […]
Severe mental illness diagnoses are missed by clinicians in more than one quarter of cases when people are hospitalised for other conditions, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. People from ethnic minority groups are even more likely to have previously diagnosed mental illnesses go unnoticed by medical staff, according to the findings from […]
A big talking point this past week was the temporary suspension of the Oxford vaccine, one of the most promising under development, due to a potential adverse reaction. This was a real blow to some people who were basing much of their future hopes on the development of a vaccine sooner rather than later. Disappointments […]
Scientists have shown that the babies of mothers dealing with anxiety or depression exhibit physiologically stronger signs of stress than babies of healthy mothers, when given a standard stress test. These babies show a significantly increased heart rate, which researchers fear may lead to imprinted emotional stresses as the child grows up. The interaction of […]
Penn Medicine researchers have found that middle-aged individuals—those born in the late 1960s and the 1970s—may be in a perpetual state of H3N2 influenza virus susceptibility because their antibodies bind to H3N2 viruses but fail to prevent infections, according to a new study led by Scott Hensley, Ph.D., an associate professor of Microbiology at the […]
The car stopped at the traffic lights and the girl in the passenger seat looked over. I caught her glance as I pushed my bike with its broken chain slowly up the steep hill in the pouring rain towards the train station, dressed only in shorts and a T-shirt, soaked to the skin. And rather […]
