A newly developed assay may help investigators identify novel drug candidates to protect kidney cells and prevent or treat chronic kidney disease (CKD).

CKD affects more than 13% of adults in the United States, with diabetes, hypertension and atherosclerosis being common risk factors. Most patients rely on antihypertensive medications for treatment, and there are no therapies available that directly and specifically target the kidney.

A team led by Vineet Gupta, PhD and Jochen Reiser, MD, PhD (Rush University Medical Center) has now developed a system that can be used to identify novel drug candidates that protect the function of kidney podocytes, cells that are critical for filtering the blood. Damage to these cells is a hallmark of CKD.

Bournemouth University’s new Institute for Studies in Landscape and Human Evolution (ISLHE) – is exploring how techniques for documenting ancient footprints can help forensic scientists understand modern-day crime scenes.

Professor Matthew Bennett, Head of  the Institute for Studies in Landscape and Human Evolution, explained why the research is needed. “Footwear impressions can provide an important source of evidence from crime scenes. They can help to determine the sequence of events and – if distinctive – can even link a suspect to multiple crime scenes.

In the most famous versions of Richard III, written by William Shakespeare, the last Plantagenet king was physically and mentally deformed. 

But the public probably did not know what, and if they did, they wisely never mentioned it. A king busy fighting the War of the Roses could easily hide a deformity. Dr. Mary Ann Lund, of the University of Leicester's School of English argues that Richard's body image in life was carefully controlled and he probably kept any signs of his scoliosis hidden outside of the royal household - but after his death at the Battle of Bosworth, he was carried to Leicester and exhibited before being buried and it wasn't a secret after that.

A new study demonstrates that macrophages can effectively substitute for so-called dendritic cells as primers of T-cell-dependent immune responses. They instead stimulate a broader-based response.

The immune response, the process by which the adaptive immune system reacts to, and eliminates foreign substances and cells, depends on a complex interplay between several different cell types. So-called dendritic cells, which recognize and internalize invasive pathogens, play a crucial role in this process.

 Stone tools, shaped by striking a stone "core" with a piece of bone, antler, or another stone, provide some of the most abundant evidence of human behavioral change over time. Simple Oldowan stone flakes are the earliest things considered tools, dating back 2.6 million years, and the Late Acheulean hand axe goes back 500,000 years.

While it's relatively easy to learn to make an Oldowan flake, the Acheulean hand axe is harder to master, due to its lens-shaped core tapering down to symmetrical edges. 

Though some studies have linked icebergs to abrupt climate change cycles during the last glacial period - by introducing fresh water to the surface of the ocean and changing ocean currents, which changes climate - new findings present a contradictory narrative and suggest that icebergs generally arrived too late to trigger marked cooling across the North Atlantic.

Abrupt climate change, characterized by transitions between warm and cold conditions across the North Atlantic, is a pervasive feature of the Late Pleistocene - the most recent period of repeated glacial cycles.