Category Biology/Biotechnology

Berkeley Lab researchers (from left) Kristin Persson, Gerbrand Ceder and Wenhao Sun used the Materials Project to reach a new understanding of metastable materials. Credit: Marilyn Chung, Berkeley Lab

Data-mining used to quantify thermodynamics for nearly 30,000 materials. They say diamonds are forever, but diamonds in fact are a metastable form of carbon that will slowly but eventually transform into graphite, another form of carbon. Berkeley Lab has now quantified the thermodynamic scale of metastability for almost 30,000 known materials. This paves the way for designing and making promising next-generation materials for use in everything from semiconductors to pharmaceuticals to steels...

When mice were raised germ-free, then given a transplant of human gut microbes, the impact of fiber on their colons could be seen. Mice fed a high-fiber diet maintained a thick mucus layer along the lining of their colons, while those that received a fiber-free diet saw the mucus layer grow thinner as bacteria capable of digesting mucus proliferated. The thin layer allowed a pathogen bacteria access to the cells of the colon wall. Credit: University of Michigan

It sounds like the plot of a 1950s sci-fi movie: normal, helpful bacteria that begin to eat their host from within, because they don’t get what they want. But new research shows that’s exactly what happens when microbes inside the digestive system don’t get the natural fiber that they rely on for food...

Blood cell analysis identifies 1000s of disease-related genes. Using a pioneering technique developed at the Babraham Institute, results are beginning to make biological sense of the mountains of genetic data linking very small changes in our DNA sequence to our risk of disease. Discovering these missing links will inform the design of new drugs and future treatments for a range of diseases.

Comparing the genome sequences of 100s of 1000s of patients and healthy volunteers has revealed single-letter changes found more frequently in the DNA sequences of individuals with specific diseases. In most cases, the disease-linked changes occur in the large swaths of DNA located between genes, ie junk DNA...

Cervical cancer Signs & Symptoms, Prevention & Rx

Johns Hopkins Medicine specialists report they have developed a urine test for the likely emergence of cervical cancer that is highly accurate compared to other tests based on genetic markers derived directly from cervical tissue. The new urine test, they say, is different because it analyzes not only multiple sources of human cellular DNA altered by precancerous changes, but also DNA from HPV that is sexually transmitted and causes virtually all cases of the disease.

In a proof-of-concept study the investigators say their genetic markers test showed a “sensitivity” or accuracy rate of 90...