Extracellular asparagine availability drives invasion and metastasis.

A single protein building block commonly found in food may hold a key to preventing the spread of an often-deadly type of breast cancer, according to a new multicenter study published today in the medical journal Nature. Investigators found that by limiting an amino acid called asparagine in laboratory mice with triple-negative breast cancer, they could dramatically reduce the ability of the cancer to travel to distant sites in the body. Among other techniques, the team used dietary restrictions to limit asparagine.

Foods rich in asparagine include dairy, whey, beef, poultry, eggs, fish, seafood, asparagus, potatoes, legumes, nuts, seeds, soy and whole grains. Foods low in asparagine include most fruits and vegetables...

Liangbing Hu, left, and Teng Li, right, are engineers at the University of Maryland, College Park who have found a way to make wood more than 10 times stronger and tougher than before. Credit: University of Maryland

New process could make wood as strong as titanium alloys but lighter and cheaper. Engineers at the University of Maryland, College Par (UMD) have found a way to make wood more than 10X stronger and tougher than before, creating a natural substance that is stronger than many titanium alloys. “This new way to treat wood makes it 12 times stronger than natural wood and 10 times tougher,” said Liangbing Hu of UMD’s A. James Clark School of Engineering and the leader of the team that did the research, to be published on February 8, 2018 in the journal Nature...

Screenshot from video showing blood cells streaming through a “wound” and a clot forming. The red-stained cells are actually white blood cells. A green extracellular glue can be seen at the top of the wound; this is fibrin, which holds the clot together. See the full video at: https://youtu.be/l7k1dGfKG0g Credit: Yumiko Sakurai, Emory/Georgia Tech

System responds to drugs; endothelium promotes clotting. Biomedical engineers have developed a miniature self-sealing model system for studying bleeding and the clotting of wounds. The researchers envision the device as a drug discovery platform and potential diagnostic tool...

The result shows the presence of a reinforced multilayer magnetic cage (orange and pink) in which the magnetic rope (blue) develops during the last hours before the eruption. Credit: © Tahar Amari et al. / Centre de physique théorique (CNRS/École Polytechnique).

Just one phenomenon may underlie all solar eruptions, according to researchers from the CNRS, École Polytechnique, CEA and INRIA. They have identified the presence of a confining ‘cage’ in which a magnetic rope forms, causing solar eruptions. It is the resistance of this cage to the attack of the rope that determines the power and type of the upcoming flare...