News by Subject Biology

A study conducted by researchers in Brazil shows patients with chronic migraine are three times as likely to suffer from severe temporomandibular disorder. Though not a primary cause, the disorder is thought to accentuate and perpetuate sensitivity to pain; therefore, researchers recommend in chronic migraine clinical practice the assessement of the disorder's symptoms.

A major health problem in older people is age-associated osteoporosis -- the thinning of bone and the loss of bone density that increases the risk of fractures. Researchers have now detailed an underlying mechanism leading to that osteoporosis. When this mechanism malfunctions, progenitor cells stop creating bone-producing cells, and instead create fat cells. Knowledge of this mechanism can provide targets in the search for novel bone-loss.

While it is known that pearls are made of calcium carbonate with an organic matrix core, the role of the proteins modulating the organization of these crystals has, until recently, been unclear. Researchers at NYU Dentistry reported the role of two such proteins that regulate the processes leading up to the formation of pearl.

The ability to successfully navigate in the environment is essential both for animals searching for food or escaping predators, as well as for human urban dwellers. It is something we take for granted, but under the hood, it is supported by still incompletely understood brain networks that continuously calculate our position in the environment. Moreover, the location where certain experience occurred is an indispensable building block of memory.

Researchers have presented the first report of a new microfluidics-based approach for detecting circulating cancer biomarkers in blood samples.

A new study demonstrated that people of normal weight tend to associate natural foods such as apples with their sensory characteristics. On the other hand, processed foods such as pizzas are generally associated with their function or the context in which they are eaten. But that's not all. The research also highlighted the ways in which underweight people pay greater attention to natural foods and overweight people to processed foods.

Researchers added a scaffold/matrix attachment region (S/MAR) to a conventional adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector used for gene transfer, and the modified vectors were able to establish colonies and maintain long-term transgene expression in HeLa cells.