Category Health/Medical

Glass half full or half empty? What you see may depend in part on the size of your orbitofrontal cortex. Optimistic people also tend to be less anxious, research finds. Credit: Graphic by Julie McMahon

A new study finds healthy adults who have larger OFCs tend to be more optimistic and less anxious. Anxiety disorders afflict roughly 44 million people in the U.S. These disorders disrupt lives and cost an estimated $42-$47 billion annually.

The orbitofrontal cortex, a brain region located just behind the eyes, is known to play a role in anxiety. The OFC integrates intellectual and emotional information and is essential to behavioral regulation. Previous studies have found links between the size of a person’s OFC and his or her susceptibility to anxiety...

Intestinal organs (stock image). There’s evidence that manufacturing biologically inspired “smart pills” can be cost-effective and pass regulatory approval. Credit: © nerthuz / Fotolia

Imagine a “smart pill” that can sense problems in your intestines and actively release the appropriate drugs. We have the biological understanding to create such a device, but we’re still searching for electronic materials (like batteries and circuits) that pose no risk if they get stuck in our bodies. Christopher Bettinger of Carnegie Mellon University presents a vision for creating safe, consumable electronics, such as those powered by the charged ions within our digestive tracts.

Edible electronic medical devices are not a new idea...

Left: Embryonic stem cells with silencing of viruses. Right: Removal of silencing machineries Cha1fa and Sumo2 resulting in the activation of viruses (in green). Credit: Jonathan Loh, A*STAR’s Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology

The groundbreaking discovery could potentially advance stem cell therapeutics and diagnostics. Several stem cell types including embryonic and haematopoietic stem cells are known to be capable of suppressing the activities of infected viruses and viral DNA residing in the host genome. This property, called proviral silencing, has not been fully understood. In order to study this, a team of scientists from IMCB designed a novel assay which allowed them to screen all the genes present in embryonic stem cells.

The team identified 303 genes and elucidated 148 biolo...

At left, cells glow red to indicate that the detection system has been successfully delivered. The system was designed to produce green fluorescence in cells carrying a viral DNA sequence, as seen at right. Credit: Shimyn Slomovic

Biological engineers have developed a modular system of proteins that can detect a particular DNA sequence in a cell and then trigger a specific response, such as cell death. They needed to link these zinc fingers’ DNA-binding capability with a consequence – either turning on a fluorescent protein to reveal that the target DNA is present or generating another type of action inside the cell.

They used an”intein” – a short protein that can be inserted into a larger protein, splitting it into two pieces...