Osteolectin (Clec11a), reverses osteoporosis in mice and has implications for regenerative medicine.

A team of scientists at the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) discovered a new bone-forming growth factor, Osteolectin (Clec11a), which reverses osteoporosis in mice and has implications for regenerative medicine. Although Osteolectin is known to be made by certain bone marrow and bone cells, CRI researchers are the first to show Osteolectin promotes the formation of new bone from skeletal stem cells in the bone marrow. The study, published in eLife, also found that deletion of Osteolectin in mice causes accelerated bone loss during adulthood and symptoms of osteoporosis, such as reduced bone strength and delayed fracture healing.

“These results demonstra...

Research subjects at the University of Minnesota fitted with a specialized noninvasive brain cap were able to move the robotic arm just by imagining moving their own arms. Credit: University of Minnesota

Researchers have made a major breakthrough that allows people to control a robotic arm using only their minds. The research has the potential to help millions of people who are paralyzed or have neurodegenerative diseases. “This is the first time in the world that people can operate a robotic arm to reach and grasp objects in a complex 3D environment using only their thoughts without a brain implant,” said Bin He, University of Minnesota biomedical engineering professor. “Just by imagining moving their arms, they were able to move the robotic arm.”

The noninvasive technique, EEG based brai...

Like a surfer on a wave, a proton can be coupled with the vibrations of an atomic nucleus. Pictured in the role of proton is a bubble of air graphically pulled out from under the surface. Credit: IFJ PAN, jch

For surfers, it’s not enough just to wait for the right wave: they still have to know how to catch it. As it turns out, this also applies to protons. An experiment recently conducted by physicists from Poland, Italy and France provided new information on surfing taken to its absolute extreme: protons synchronizing their movement with vibrations of atomic nuclei.

A team measured, for the first time, the time needed for a single proton in a nucleus to synchronize with the oscillations of the nucleus...

A new model explains the exceptions to the galaxy main model sequence

The more massive, or full of stars, a galaxy is, the faster the stars in it are formed. This seems to be the general rule, which is contradicted, however, by some abnormal cases, for example thin (not massive) galaxies that are hyperactive in their star formation. Until now the phenomenon had been explained by catastrophic external events like galaxies colliding and merging, but a new theory offers an alternative explanation, related to an in situ (internal) process of galaxy evolution. The new theory correctly reproduces the behaviour of both normal and abnormal (or outlier) galaxies, and may be further tested by new observations.

If we put the galaxies for which we have the relevant data into a graph relating the mass ...