Medical

Studying the way that solitary hunters such as tigers, bears or sea turtles chase down their prey turns out to be very useful in understanding the interaction between individual white blood cells and colonies of bacteria. Reporting their results in the Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, researchers in Europe have created a numerical model that explores this behaviour in more detail.

Most people in the developing world who have asthma, cystic fibrosis or other chronic lung diseases have no way to measure how well their lungs are functioning outside of a clinic or doctor visit. But many do have access to a phone, though it may be a 10-year-old flip phone or a communal village landline instead of the latest app-driven smartphone.

PEWATRON has launched the A3 series of gauge pressure sensors from Fujikura. The AG3 and AP3 series are compatible in footprint and pin configuration with the highly successful F and X series, but with better total accuracy performance (<+/-1.5%) and a very low noise output.

Sixty years ago, Alan Turing proposed that body patterning is achieved by two types of signaling molecules that spread in the developing tissues to create a spatial pattern. Scientists from the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory of the Max Planck Society in Tübingen have now developed new mathematical approaches and software to systematically analyse realistic pattern forming networks that involve more than two molecules.

An international team including the Lomonosov Moscow State University researchers have determined which enzyme enables Escherichia coli bacterium (E. coli) to breathe. The study is published in the Scientific Reports. Scientists discovered how the E. coli bacterium can survive in the human gut, resolving the mystery of how they breathe. Vitaliy Borisov, senior researcher, explains that E. coli uses special enzymes that are absent in the human bod...

So far, PhotoDynamic Therapies (PDTs) have been dependent on oxygen in the tissue. But hardly any oxygen exists in malignant, rapidly growing tumours. A group of researchers of KIT and the University of Kiev has now developed a photo-switchable molecule as a basis of an oxygen-independent method. Their successful laboratory tests on tumours are reported in the journal “Angewandte Chemie” (Applied Chemistry).

With rising populations and life expectancy around the world, countries are all facing the issue of ageing. More and more people are becoming focused on preventive healthcare for disease prevention.

A new partnership has been forged between the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Phyton Biotech to help the treatment of cancer, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease using substances produced by plants.

Cochlear implants should be an alternative for patients with long-term deafness as well. This was found in a new study at Uppsala University. Previously, patients with an extended deafness duration were thought to derive limited benefit from cochlear implants. ‘We have looked at people who were deaf for at least 20 years before having cochlear implants. Previously, long-term deafness was considered a reason to forego cochlear implants, as t...

An innovative tool that resembles a wristwatch could improve the quality of life for patients with Parkinson's disease and better inform neurologists who treat them. A Cedars-Sinai research team is one of the first in the nation to test the PKG data logger, which tracks the movements of Parkinson's patients every two minutes over a period of six to 10 days. The information enables neurologists to generate reports showing the fluctuations of Parki...