New human heart muscle cells can be formed, but this mainly happens during the first ten years of life, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Other cell types, however, are replaced more quickly. The study, which is published in the journal Cell, demonstrates that the heart muscle is regenerated throughout a person's life, supporting the idea that it is possible to stimulate the rebuilding of lost heart tissue.

The Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee (EMDAC) of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended the approval of the investigational therapy Praluent (alirocumab) Injection for patients with hypercholesterolemia.

A new report by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF), in collaboration with the Baltimore Food Policy Initiative, found that one in four of the city's residents live in so-called food deserts with limited access to healthy foods.

The report, released today, is available online on the Center for a Livable Future's Maryland Food System Map website. The findings were highlighted at a press conference featuring Baltimore City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, other city officials and CLF representatives.

Peer review in science, in which independent scientists who are experts on the subject assess papers, but this system frequently receives harsh criticism about its effectiveness and transparency.  It came to light again in a humanities study which had a conclusion that everyone desiring social engineering from academia - that if people just talked to opponents of gay marriage they would change their minds - was found to have no data.

Plants can undergo the same extreme 'chromosome shattering' seen in some human cancers and developmental syndromes, UC Davis researchers have found. Chromosome shattering, or 'chromothripsis,' has until now only been seen in animal cells.

The process could be applied in plant breeding as a way to create haploid plants with genetic material from only one parent, said Ek Han Tan, a postdoctoral researcher in the UC Davis Department of Plant Biology and first author on the paper. Although plants don't get cancer, it might also allow cancer researchers to use the laboratory plant Arabidopsis as a model to study chromosome behavior in cancer.

A new study demonstrates that the atypical trajectory of cortical/brain development in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) extends well beyond young childhood and into late adolescence and young adulthood.

A considerable amount of work has focused on early structural brain development in ASD utilizing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This body of work has revealed evidence for brain overgrowth during the early postnatal years that appears largely absent later in development in ASD. Although several studies of cortical brain structure in adolescence and young adulthood in ASD have been completed, the vast majority has utilized cross-sectional (i.e., one point in time) designs.