Nestle, the world's largest food company, has decided to embrace optimizing our microbiome, which consists of trillions of bacteria living in the digestive system and which has been linked to depression, multiple sclerosis, autism - you name it, and someone is claiming their product will fix it.

Humanities scholars mostly focus on the bereavement customs of White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) whereas Catholics, the overwhelming majority of Latinos, are overlooked in their unique funeral customs, which sometimes include overnight wakes and presenting food to the deceased.

Candi K. Cann, Ph.D., a humanities assistant professor at Baylor University took a group of her students in 2015 to a Latino funeral home in a Central Texas city where nearly 30 percent of the total population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census statistics.

In recent years, the incidence of breast cancer has been increasing worldwide, and breast cancer is becoming a serious object of public concern. The onset of breast cancer is closely related to the sex hormone estrogen, and estrogen antagonists such as tamoxifen have been used as anti-breast cancer drugs.

During pregnancy, the elevated blood estrogen level induces the proliferation of mammary epithelial cells, leading to the development of the mammary gland in preparation for lactation. The mammary epithelial cells eventually stop proliferation at late stages of pregnancy, impairment of which potentially results in breast tumorigenesis . However, the regulatory mechanisms of mammary epithelial cell proliferation during pregnancy have been unclear.

The first few copies of my new book, “Anomaly! – Collider Physics and the Quest for New Phenomena at Fermilab” arrived this morning from Singapore.

Yoshinori Ohsumi of the Tokyo Institute of Technology has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2016 "for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy", the body's recycling system. Autophagy can rapidly provide fuel for energy and building blocks for renewal of cellular components, and is therefore essential for the cellular response to starvation and other types of stress. 

Despite the bizarre claims of supernaturalists like Joe Mercola, D.O., or writers on Livestrong, the controlled digestion of damaged organelles within a cell are complex. Autophagy kills the cells

A type of immune antibody that can rapidly evolve to neutralize a wide array of influenza virus strains - including those the body hasn't yet encountered - suggests potential strategies for creating improved or even "universal" influenza vaccines.

The novel infection-fighting protein, named 3I14 mAb, is a "broadly neutralizing antibody," so-called because it can recognize and disable a diverse group of the 18 different strains of influenza virus that circulate around the globe.

According to the new report, the 3I14 antibody demonstrated it could neutralize the two main types of influenza A virus, group 1 and 2, and protected mice against lethal doses of the virus.

This is a news story that broke recently, on the idea that Elon Musk's plans would violate the Outer Space Treaty. The articles I've read so far focus on property rights and the  provisions in the OST that rule out ownership of territory. But that can be fixed with future legislation, especially since it's not really the land but the habitats that are of most value, and ownership of those is already covered in the OST . So far none of them have mentioned by far the toughest legal and practical obstacle, which is planetary protection of Mars from Earth microbes to preserve its science value for the future of mankind. That can't be fixed by passing new laws. Elon Musk says the mission would be dangerous, with colonists risking death, especially the first ones.

The INFN exam for nuclear and subnuclear physicists, to select 58 new researchers, took place on September 19th (first test) and 20th (second test) in Rome. Two different locations for the two tests were set up as the number of candidates who enrolled in the selection were 720, a too large number to manage in a single location.

 Microsporidia are typically found in the intestinal tracts of animals and humans, which are made up of millions of cells, which is why studying their mode of reproduction has been so difficult. Yet it's important. Microsporidia cause diarrhea, an illness called microsporidiosis, and even death in immune-compromised individuals.

In spite of those known widespread medical problems, scientists were uncertain about how these single-celled fungi reproduced in human or animal cells. In a study that employed transparent roundworms, biologists at the University of California San Diego succeeded in directly observing how these microorganisms replicate and spread. And what they saw surprised them.

ESA’s Rosetta mission has concluded as planned, with the controlled impact onto the small lobe of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, close to a region of active pits in the Ma’at region, which it had been investigating for more than two years.  

Confirmation of the end of the mission arrived at ESA’s control centre in Darmstadt, Germany at 11:19 GMT (13:19 CEST) with the loss of Rosetta’s signal upon impact, but the descent gave Rosetta the opportunity to study the comet’s gas, dust and plasma environment very close to its surface, as well as take very high-resolution images.  Pits are of particular interest because they play an important role in the comet’s activity. They also provide a unique window into its internal building blocks.