While there are several thousand drugs available to treat a wide range of brain diseases, from depression to schizophrenia, they cannot penetrate the blood-brain barrier (BBB) into the brain. The BBB, which protects the brain from pathogens that may be present in blood, also prevents most drugs from gaining access to the brain functional tissue, the parenchyma, a well-known challenge to the treatment of all brain diseases including neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's.
* This article was originally published here
Thursday 6 June 2019
Argentine fossils take oak and beech family history far into Southern Hemisphere
One of the world's most important plant families has a history extending much farther south than any live or fossil specimen previously recorded, as shown by chinquapin fruit and leaf fossils unearthed in Patagonia, Argentina, according to researchers.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Tacoma-based Snopes, debunker of fake news, is locked in a nasty legal dispute
After more than two decades battling internet hoaxes, retouched photos, and other fake news, David Mikkelson, co-founder of Snopes, faces a much larger and more existential adversary.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Pioneering 3-D printed device sets new record for efficiency
A new 3-D printed thermoelectric device, which converts heat into electric power with an efficiency factor over 50% higher than the previous best for printed materials—and is cheap to produce in bulk—has been manufactured by researchers at Swansea University's SPECIFIC Innovation and Knowledge Centre.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Getting your nutrients: From the source or supplements?
(HealthDay)—Americans are making shifts in the supplements they take—fewer multivitamins and vitamins C and E, more fish oil and vitamin D. Many think of supplements as magic bullets, but studies don't always support their supposed benefits.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Just a phage? How bacteria's predators can shape the gut microbiome
The gut microbiome is a complex, interconnected ecosystem of species. And, like any ecosystem, some organisms are predators and some are prey. A new study led by investigators at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Wyss Institute investigates the impact of bacteriophage, viruses that infect and kill bacteria. They find that phage can have a profound impact on the dynamics of the gut microbiome, not only affecting certain species directly but also having a cascading effect on others. Phage may also be impacting their human host by modulating metabolites, including chemical substances found in the brain. The team, which includes first author Bryan Hsu, Ph.D., and co-corresponding senior author Pamela Silver, Ph.D., at the Wyss Institute, and Lynn Bry, MD, Ph.D., at the Brigham and director of the Massachusetts Host-Microbiome Center, has published its results in Cell Host & Microbe.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
News Media Alliance pushes for new Senate antitrust bill
The News Media Alliance is scoring some legislative points against the much bigger K Street players Google and Facebook with a bipartisan Senate bill unveiled Monday evening that would temporarily exempt publishers from antitrust laws.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Is sex primarily a strategy against transmissible cancer?
One of the greatest enigmas of evolutionary biology is that while sex is the dominant mode of reproduction among multicellular organisms, asexual reproduction appears much more efficient and less costly. However, in a study publishing on June 6 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, researchers suggest that sexual reproduction is favored by selection because, unlike asexual reproduction, it not only provides important evolutionary advantages in constantly changing environments, but also prevents the invasion of transmissible cancer, or "cheater" cells.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Survey indicates physician misconduct is underreported
(HealthDay)—Physician misconduct is being underreported and most Americans do not know where to file a complaint, according to a report published by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB).
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Investigating the implications of social robots in religious contexts
Researchers at Siegen University and Würzberg University, in Germany, have recently carried out a study investigating the user experience and acceptability associated with the use of social robots in religious contexts. Their paper, published in Springer's International Journal of Social Robotics, offers interesting insight into how people perceive blessing robots compared to other robots for more conventional purposes.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
A complete set of energy level positions of all primary metal-halide perovskites
Metal-halide perovskites form a popular class of materials with intriguing optoelectronic properties. A fundamental understanding of the variations in the energy levels positions, as a function of the materials composition, is missing, however. Researchers from the TU/e and the University of Cologne have developed a new methodology to determine the absolute energy level positions of all primary perovskites, and provide explanations for the variations in these positions.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Why humans (or something very similar) may have been destined to walk the Earth
What would happen if the hands of time were turned back to an arbitrary point in our evolutionary history and we restarted the clock? American paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould proposed this famous thought experiment in the late 1980s—and it's one that still grips the imagination of evolutionary biologists today.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Brain disorder leaves lasting legacy of disability, study finds
Four out of five people with a hidden brain condition that causes limb weakness or paralysis experience lasting physical difficulties.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Maestro: a new attack that orchestrates malicious flows with BGP
Researchers at the University of Tennessee have recently identified the Maestro attack, a new link flooding attack (LFA) that leverages plane traffic control engineering techniques to concentrate botnet-sourced distributed denial of service (DDos) flows on transit links. In their paper, recently published on arXiv, the researchers outlined this type attack, tried to understand its scope and presented effective mitigations for network operators who wish to insulate themselves from it.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Scientist looks to resurrect Hong Kong's 'Pearl of the Orient' past
On a raft floating off Hong Kong's rural eastern coastline former investment banker turned scientist Yan Wa-tat patiently scrapes barnacles off some 2,000 oysters -– a tiresome but crucial part of his mission to bring back pearl farming.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Everything will connect to the internet someday, and this biobattery could help
In the future, small paper and plastic devices will be able to connect to the internet for a short duration, providing information on everything from healthcare to consumer products, before they are thrown away. Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York have developed a micro biobattery that could power these disposable sensors.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Apple iTunes to play last song
Apple on Monday announced the demise of its groundbreaking iTunes platform in favor of three more tailored apps, as it refines its offerings to be a stage for digital music, films, podcasts and more.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
China's Huawei signs deal to develop 5G in Russia
China's Huawei, considered a security threat in the US, on Wednesday signed a deal with Russian telecoms company MTS to develop a 5G network in the country over the next year,
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
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