Category Health/Medical

Jayakrishna Ambati, M.D., (left) and Nagaraj Kerur, Ph.D., have discovered a crucial trigger for macular degeneration, a condition which robs millions of their sight. The discovery may allow doctors to intervene early to halt the process. Credit: Josh Barney | UVA Health System

Unexpected finding points to potential way to stop macular degeneration. Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have discovered a critical trigger for the damaging inflammation that ultimately robs millions of their sight. The finding may allow doctors to halt the inflammation early on, potentially saving patients from blindness. “Almost 200 million people in the world have macular degeneration...

Illinois researchers developed nanoparticles that can target cancer stem cells (yellow), the rare cells within a tumor (blue) that can cause cancer to recur or spread. Credit: Image courtesy of Dipanjan Pan

University of Illinois researchers are sending tiny drug-laden nanoparticles on a mission to seek and destroy cancer stem cells, the elusive and rare cells that can cause cancer to come back even when years have passed since the initial tumor was treated. In a study led by Dipanjan Pan, an Illinois professor of bioengineering, researchers designed nanoparticles that specifically bind to a protein that marks the surface of breast cancer stem cells...

3-4 cups of Coffee a day linked to Longer Life

Three or 4 cups a day confers greatest benefit, except in pregnancy and for women at risk of fracture. Drinking coffee is “more likely to benefit health than to harm it” for a range of health outcomes, say researchers in The BMJ today. They bring together evidence from over 200 studies and find that drinking 3 to 4 cups of coffee a day is associated with a lower risk of death and getting heart disease compared with drinking no coffee. Coffee drinking is also associated with lower risk of some cancers, diabetes, liver disease and dementia.

However, they say drinking coffee in pregnancy may be associated with harms, and may be linked to a very small increased risk of fracture in women...

The dipstick can purify DNA and RNA from plant, animal and microbe samples in less than 30 seconds. Credit: Michael Mason

New dipstick technology that enables pathogen detection and the rapid diagnosis of human, animal and plant disease in even the most remote locations has been developed by University of Queensland scientists. School of Agriculture and Food Sciences researcher Professor Jimmy Botella said the technology could extract DNA and RNA from living organisms in as little as 30 seconds without specialised equipment or personnel.

“We have successfully used the dipsticks in remote plantations in Papua New Guinea to diagnose sick trees, and have applied it to livestock, human samples, pathogens in food, and in detecting environmental risks such as E...