Category Health/Medical

Blue large-amplitude pulsators as a new class of variable stars. Nature Astronomy, 2017; 1 (8): 0166 DOI: 10.1038/s41550-017-0166 Image: Paweł Pietrukowicz

Discovery of new class of variable dwarf star. In the middle of the large Chilean Atacama desert, a team of Polish astronomers are patiently monitoring millions of celestial bodies night after night with the help of a modern robotic telescope. In 2013, the team was surprised when they discovered, stars that pulsated much faster than expected. In the following years, the team that included Dr. Marilyn Latour, an astronomer from the Dr...

MIT researchers have demonstrated a new way to reverse memory loss by blocking an enzyme known as HDAC2. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT

Study suggests a new approach to developing treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. In the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, many of the genes required to form new memories are shut down by a genetic blockade, contributing to the cognitive decline seen in those patients. MIT researchers have now shown that they can reverse memory loss in mice by interfering with the enzyme that forms the blockade. The enzyme HDAC2, turns genes off by condensing them so tightly that they can’t be expressed.

For several years, scientists and pharmaceutical companies have been trying to develop drugs that block this enzyme, but most of these drugs also block other HDAC family membe...

This illustration shows how klotho treatment in mice rapidly improved learning and memory of a hidden platform in a water maze. Credit: Leon et al.

Mice treated with klotho do better on tests of memory and motor skills. In a study that augurs well for the therapeutic potential of klotho – a life-extending protein hormone that a minority of people naturally produce at high levels – scientists at UC San Francisco have found that administering a fragment of the klotho protein to young, aging or impaired mice rapidly improves their cognitive and physical performance.

While previous studies had revealed associations between elevated klotho levels and better cognition, that research had been done with mice genetically engineered to continuously produce high klotho levels and in people carrying g...

Example images for a control participant, a deletion carrier, and a duplication carrier. In the sagittal image of the deletion carrier, the thick corpus callosum, dens and craniocervical abnormality, and cerebellar ectopia are shown. For the duplication carrier, the sagittal image shows the thin corpus callosum and the axial image shows the increased ventricle size and decreased white matter volume.
Credit: Radiological Society of North America

In the first major study of its kind, researchers using MRI have identified structural abnormalities in the brains of people with one of the most common genetic causes of autism...