In the many hypotheses surrounding autism, one posits it is the consequence of abnormal cell communication.
Researchers at the U.C. San Diego recently did a study using a drug from 1916, suramin, which was approved for treating sleeping sickness. The findings in Translational Psychiatry were that it
restored normal cellular signaling in a mouse model of autism, reversing symptoms of the neurological disorder in animals that were the human biological age equivalent of 30 years old.
Since 1990 organic food has been allowed to exist independently of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the one federal agency responsible for food safety and quality. Sure, organic food still gets recalls, lots of them - using feces as fertilizer and having customers who think food doesn't need to be washed will do that - but the definition of 'organic' is not determined by the USDA.
Those dozens and dozens of synthetic additives allowed on the organic food National List?
That is because of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), which was created by Congress in 1990. The reason there is no quality assurance for organic food and no surprise spot testing to make sure organic farming is actually organic ? Also thanks to the NOSB.
The muon is a remarkable particle, and its characteristics continue to be of interest eighty years after its discovery despite the fact that we have measured them better than almost anything else around. So, for instance, the muon lifetime is known to better accuracy than that of any other unstable particle; and the muon anomalous magnetic moment remains at the top of our list of things to determine more precisely nowadays.
Bellerophon Therapeutics has completed enrollment of its 80-patient Phase 2 clinical trial of INOpulse for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). PAH is a life-threatening, progressive disorder characterized by abnormal constriction of the arteries of the lung, leading to increased blood pressure in the lungs and abnormal strain on the heart's right ventricle, eventually leading to heart failure.
Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) announced at the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation's (NMSF) 12th annual Ocean Awards Gala last week that he is introducing the Great Lakes Cultural Heritage Assessment Act next month.
Levin's proposed bill would direct the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to identify underwater areas in the Great Lakes that possess significant historical and archaeological resources and consider recommendation for designation as national marine sanctuaries.
While James Watson and Francis Crick are rightfully celebrated for discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA, recognition of others has been inconsistent. Rosalind Franklin has practically been beatified, even though she never pieced together what she was looking at.
Activists who are against natural gas in the United States have invented a variety of problems; flaming tap water, earthquakes, headaches, even that it will cause the earth to deflate.
Good thing they don't live in Norway, where energy extraction by the Nextdrill research project is going thousands of meters into the ground, in order to exploit another of nature's bounties: tinkering with the Earth’s molten core and radioactive isotopes in the Earth’s crust. The project is drilling down to where temperatures are so high it can be used for district heating and electricity generation.
When UK Child-Mortality-Rates (CMR) for children aged 0-14 were compared with 20 other Western countries between 1979-2010, it revealed a "scandal",
Countries such as Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain had child death rates higher in 1979 than the UK’s but are now all substantially lower. If the UK had the same average rate of the 17 countries with lower CMR, then there would have been 1,827 fewer child deaths in 2010.
A controlled study using functional MRI brain imaging reveals a possible biological link between early musical training and improved executive functioning in both children and adults, adjusting for socioeconomic factors.
Executive functions are the high-level cognitive processes that enable people to quickly process and retain information, regulate their behaviors, make good choices, solve problems, plan and adjust to changing mental demands.
A group of archaeologists, mathematicians, chemists and physicists, has shed new light on the use of mollusc shells as personal adornments by Bronze Age people.
The research team used amino acid racemisation analysis, light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy to identify the raw materials used to make beads in a complex necklace discovered at an Early Bronze Age burial site at Great Cornard in Suffolk, UK.
They discovered that Bronze Age craftspeople used species like dog whelk and tusk shells, both of which were likely to have been sourced and worked locally, to fashion tiny disc-shaped beads in the necklace.
