Category Health/Medical

An innovative scientific instrument, the Compact Color Biofinder, developed by a team of University of Hawai’i at Manoa researchers, may change the game in the search for signs of extraterrestrial life.

Most biological materials, for example, amino acids, fossils, sedimentary rocks, plants, microbes, proteins and lipids, have strong organic fluorescence signals that can be detected by specialized scanning cameras...

An international team of 114 scientists reports the most comprehensive study of aging and longevity to date of reptiles and amphibians worldwide. Among their many findings, they document for the first time that turtles, crocodilians and salamanders have particularly low aging rates and extended lifespans for their sizes. The team also finds that protective phenotypes, such as the hard shells of most turtle species, contribute to slower aging, and in some cases even ‘negligible aging’ – or lack of biological aging.

At 190 years old, Jonathan the Seychelles giant tortoise recently made news for being the “oldest living land animal in the world...

Study highlights how current treatments for alopecia work on a cellular level. Salk scientists have uncovered an unexpected molecular target of a common treatment for alopecia, a condition in which a person’s immune system attacks their own hair follicles, causing hair loss...

Next step is to study in women receiving mastectomy. Delivering a targeted immunotoxin into breast ducts via openings in the nipple wiped out all visible and invisible precancerous lesions in laboratory studies, led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, of very early stage breast cancers.

A description of the work performed on mice, which the authors say provides a strong pre-clinical foundation for conducting feasibility and safety trials with patients who have stage 0 breast cancers, is published in the June 8 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Stage 0 breast cancer, also known as ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), is characterized as the presenc...