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    Category Biology/Biotechnology

    Whether Physical Exertion feels ‘Easy’ or ‘Hard’ may be due to Dopamine levels, study suggests

    April 17, 2023, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Health/Medical

    Experimental paradigm. a Association phase; Participants were trained to associate between grip force exerted on a handheld dynamometer and effort levels from 0 to 100 (80% of maximum voluntary contraction (MVC)). Each trial began with presentation of the target, followed by an effortful grip with real-time visual feedback of the exerted force represented as a bar that increased in height with increased exertion. A target zone was also presented, and participants were asked to maintain their exerted force within this target zone. The target zone turned green when exerted force was within the target and stayed red otherwise. Feedback of success or failure was provided at the end of each trial...
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    Probiotic company finds Links between Youthful Gut Microbiota and Potential Centenarians

    April 13, 2023, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Health/Medical

    Probiotic company finds links between youthful gut microbiota and potential centenarians
    Comparisons of microbial compositions between baseline and follow-up. (a) aPCoA of the Bray‒Curtis distance plot for baseline and follow-up after adjusting for hypertension, medication use, and alcohol and tea drinking. (b) α-Diversity differences between baseline and follow-up for stratified health statuses (HB, n = 21; HF, n = 15; LHB, n = 19; LHF, n = 27). (c) Composition of the gut microbiome at the phylum level between baseline and follow-up for stratified health statuses. (d) LEfSe between baseline and follow-up stratified by health status (two-sided Kruskal‒Wallis test between classes; P < 0.05, LDA > 2). Healthy baseline (HB, n = 21), healthy follow-up (HF, n = 15), less healthy baseline (LHB, n = 19) and less healthy follow-up (LHF, n = 27) samples were examined...
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    Novel Immunotherapy Agent Safe, shows promise against High-risk Prostate Cancers

    April 12, 2023, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Health/Medical

    Shenderov
    Prostate cancer nodule with dramatized anti-B7-H3 antibody therapy Credit: Adobe stock per investigator

    A new drug, a monoclonal antibody known as enoblituzumab, is safe in men with aggressive prostate cancer and may induce clinical activity against cancer throughout the body, according to a phase 2 study led by investigators at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and its Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. If confirmed in additional studies, enoblituzumab could become the first promising antibody-based immunotherapy agent against prostate cancer.

    In a clinical trial, 32 men with high-risk or very high-risk prostate cancers who were scheduled for prostate cancer surgery were treated with six weekly infusions of enoblituzumab prior to surgery, and were followed fo...

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    AlphaFault: High schoolers give Fabled AI a Problem it Can’t Crack

    April 11, 2023, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Physics

    Poster of the project Playing With AlphaFold2 at the School of Molecular and Theoretical Biology held by Skoltech online in 2021. Credit: Dmitry Ivankov/Skoltech

    A bioinformatics boot camp for high schoolers at Skoltech turned into a venue for the latest chapter in the ongoing contest between humans and artificial intelligence in science. Having earlier resolved a key 50-year-old problem of structural bioinformatics, the breakthrough AI program AlphaFold proved inapplicable to another challenge researchers in this field are faced with.

    This finding is reported in a PLOS ONE study, whose authors refute the claims by some AlphaFold enthusiasts that DeepMind’s AI has mastered the ultimate protein physics and is the be-all and end-all of structural bioinformatics.

    Structural bioinfor...

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