Category Health/Medical

A WEHI study could help solve a long-standing mystery into why a key immune organ in our bodies shrinks and loses its function as we get older.

The thymus is an organ essential for good health due to its ability to produce special immune cells that are responsible for fighting infections and cancer.

In a world-first, researchers have uncovered new cells that drive this ageing process in the thymus — significant findings that could unlock a way to restore function in the thymus and prevent our immunity from waning as we age.

At a glance

The thymus is an organ essential for our immune defence but it shrinks and weakens as we get older. The reason for this loss remains a long-standing mystery.

A new study has been able to visualise, for the first time, how two cell types d...

Breakthrough in smart fabric for sensing and energy harvesting. Researchers have developed a smart fabric that can convert body heat and solar energy into electricity, potentially enabling continuous operation with no need for an external power source. Different sensors monitoring temperature, stress, and more can be integrated into the material.

Imagine a coat that captures solar energy to keep you cozy on a chilly winter walk, or a shirt that can monitor your heart rate and temperature.Picture clothing athletes can wear to track their performance without the need for bulky battery packs.

University of Waterloo researchers have d...

Higher intake of heme iron, the type found in red meat and other animal products — as opposed to non-heme iron, found mostly in plant-based foods — was associated with a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D) in a new study led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. While the link between heme iron and T2D has been reported previously, the study’s findings more clearly establish and explain the link.

“Compared to prior studies that relied solely on epidemiological data, we integrated multiple layers of information, including epidemiological data, conventional metabolic biomarkers, and cutting-edge metabolomics,” said lead author Fenglei Wang, research associate in the Department of Nutr...

Increasing serotonin can change how people learn from negative information, as well as improving how they respond to it, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Communications.

The study by scientists at the University of Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry and the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) Oxford Health Biomedical Research Center (OH BRC) found people with increased serotonin levels had reduced sensitivity to punishing outcomes (for example, losing money in a game) without significantly affecting sensitivity to rewarding ones (winning money).

The study involved 26 participants who were given the drug t...