This is a mouse colon from Cyp1a reporter mice after feeding with I3C.
Credit: Chris Schiering, Francis Crick Institute

Chemicals produced by vegetables such as kale, cabbage and broccoli could help to maintain a healthy gut and prevent colon cancer, a new study from the Francis Crick Institute shows. The research, published in Immunity, shows that mice fed on a diet rich in indole-3-carbinol – which is produced when we digest vegetables from the Brassica genus – were protected from gut inflammation and colon cancer.

While the health benefits of vegetables are well-established, many of the mechanisms behind them remain unknown...

Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles present research on a curious cosmic phenomenon known as “whistlers” — very low frequency packets of radio waves that race along magnetic field lines. Appearing in the Physics of Plasmas, the study provides new insights into the nature of whistlers and space plasmas and could one day aid in the development of practical plasma technologies with magnetic fields, including spacecraft thrusters that use charged particles as fuel. This image shows the growth of a whistler mode with circular phase front and cross-field propagation.

A new study sheds light on how ultralow frequency radio waves and plasmas interact...

This is the device compared to a US dollar coin.
Credit: Zhenlong Huang

By stacking and connecting layers of stretchable circuits on top of one another, engineers have developed an approach to build soft, pliable “3D stretchable electronics” that can pack a lot of functions while staying thin and small in size. The work is published in the Aug. 13 issue of Nature Electronics.

As a proof of concept, a team led by the University of California San Diego has built a stretchable electronic patch that can be worn on the skin like a bandage and used to wirelessly monitor a variety of physical and electrical signals, from respiration, to body motion, to temperature, to eye movement, to heart and brain activity. The device, which is as small and thick as a U.S...

Researchers at Duke Cancer Institute have tracked the missing T-cells in glioblastoma patients in the bone marrow, locked away and unable to function because of a process the brain stimulates in response to glioblastoma, to other tumors that metastasize in the brain and even to injury.
Credit: Alisa Weigandt for Duke Health

A mysterious lack of T-cells has hindered the immune system’s ability to fight glioblastoma. Researchers have tracked the missing T-cells in glioblastoma patients. They found them in abundance in the bone marrow, locked away and unable to function because of a process the brain stimulates in response to glioblastoma, to other tumors that metastasize in the brain and even to injury.

Glioblastoma brain tumors can have an unusual effect on the body’s immune system, often ca...