Category Biology/Biotechnology

Chronic stress, the prolonged exposure to psychological and/or physical strain, is known to be a risk factor for depression, anxiety and some other psychiatric disorders. Past studies suggest that chronic stress disrupts the integrity of myelin, a fatty insulating layer that surrounds nerve fibers and helps electrical signals travel efficiently between brain cells.

Identifying lifestyle changes that can reverse or diminish the adverse effects of chronic stress on the brain could be advantageous, as they could potentially help prevent or delay the onset of various psychiatric conditions...

Physical pain is essential for survival, as it allows animals to detect when they are injured or unwell, seek shelter and address their ailments. Yet when it becomes chronic, pain can also become highly distressing and debilitating.

While there are now several therapeutic strategies for managing chronic pain, an emerging one that has been found to be particularly promising is vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). VNS entails the delivery of mild electrical pulses to the nerve that connects the brain to organs throughout the body.

Past studies suggest that VNS-based therapy can reduce the pain associated with various medical conditions, including chronic headaches, fibromyalgia and joint inflammation. The neural processes by which it can ease pain, however, are still poorly understood.

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is a unique environment in our solar system. It is the only moon (or body beyond Earth) to have a dense, nitrogen-rich atmosphere, and its methane cycle is very similar to Earth’s hydrological cycle, in which solid and liquid methane evaporate to form clouds and return to the surface as precipitation. In addition, its prebiotic surface environment and rich organic chemistry make it a prime destination for astrobiology missions, such as NASA’s Dragonfly mission (set to launch no earlier than July 2028).

And as Robert Zubrin said in his book, “Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization,” Saturn’s moons could become the “Persian Gu...

Though protein clumps associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s were discovered more than a century ago, researchers remain largely unable to prevent them from forming or eliminate them from the brain. And though a variety of therapies have taken aim at tau tangles, beta-amyloid plaques and Lewy bodies, among other notorious aggregates, none have been very effective at stopping disease progression.

Rockefeller’s Hermann Steller and his team in the Strang Laboratory of Apoptosis and Cancer Biology have long been fo...