Early results from a three-site federal study show mice live longer when fed an anti-inflammatory substance found in the creosote bush. The substance extended median lifespan. Whether it allows the mice to live beyond their maximum expected lifespan will be known in six to 10 months.
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Particles of light serving as “quantum keys” — the latest in encryption technology — have been sent over a record-setting 200-kilometer fiber-optic link by scientists. The experiment, using mostly standard components and transmitting at telecommunications frequencies, offers an approach for making practical inter-city terrestrial quantum communications networks as well as long-range wireless systems using communication satellites.
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The brain is a very complicated place. From the outside, it may look like a gray lump of tissue, covered with ridges and bumps. But inside, an incredibly complex network of thread-like white fibers carries signals back and forth between areas of the brain and the spinal cord. Each fiber is crucial to a particular aspect of how our mind communicates with our body.
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Fourteen years ago, Josephine began to experience severe pain throughout her body. As her symptoms became worse, she sought help from a variety of specialists, but no one could diagnose her condition.
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Physicists have proposed a design for a semiconductor computer circuit based on the spin of electrons. They say the device would be more scalable and have greater computational capacity than conventional silicon circuits. The “spintronic”–or spin-based electronic–device would extend the scope of conventional electronics by encoding information with the magnetic–or spin–state of electrons, in addition to the charge of the electrons. The researchers used a novel geometry to overcome the weakness of the magnetic signal, the current limitation to developing spintronics in silicon semiconductors.
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An apple a day keeps the doctor away? Or, what appears to be more accurate: An apple peel a day might help keep cancer at bay, according to a new study. Researchers have identified a dozen compounds — triterpenoids — in apple peel that either inhibit or kill cancer cells in laboratory cultures. Three of the compounds have not previously been described in the literature.
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While orange cauliflower may seem unappealing to some, it has distinct nutritional advantages. Researchers have just identified the genetic mutation behind the unusual hue. The finding may lead to more nutritious staple crops, including maize, potato, rice, sorghum and wheat.
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New charcoal and plant microfossil evidence from Mexico’s Central Balsas valley links a pivotal cultural shift, crop domestication in the New World, to local and regional environmental history.
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Scientists report the first kidney disease caused by a genetic defect in the production of sialic acid. Remarkably, they show that, in mice, disease symptoms can be reversed by addition of a precursor of sialic acid, raising the intriguing possibility that dietary supplementation in this manner may have therapeutic benefit for patients with certain forms of kidney disease.
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Researchers have hypothesized that the fetus can mount an immune response against allergens to which the mother has been exposed, possibly resulting in allergic sensitivity later in life. Columbia University researchers examined the cord blood of newborn infants of mothers that had received the influenza vaccine during pregnancy. They found that B and T cell immune responses to vaccine antigens did occur in utero, suggesting that the neonatal immune system is not wholly lacking.
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