A brief episode of anger triggered by remembering past experiences may negatively impact the blood vessels’ ability to relax, which is essential for proper blood flow, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association.

Previous research has found that impairment of blood vessels’ ability to relax may increase the risk of developing atherosclerosis, which may, in turn, increase the risk of heart disease and stroke.

“Impaired vascular functi...

Engineered protein filaments originally produced by bacteria have been modified by scientists to conduct electricity...

The future of space-based UV/optical/IR astronomy requires ever larger telescopes. The highest priority astrophysics targets, including Earth-like exoplanets, first generation stars, and early galaxies, are all extremely faint, which presents an ongoing challenge for current missions and is the opportunity space for next generation telescopes: larger telescopes are the primary way to address this issue.

With mission costs depending strongly on aperture diameter, scaling current space telescope technologies to aperture sizes beyond 10 m does not appear economically viable. Without a breakthrough in scalable technologies for large telescopes, future advances in astrophysics may slow down or even completely stall...

Columbia University researchers have found cells inside clogged arteries share similarities with cancer and aggravate atherosclerosis, raising the possibility that anticancer drugs could be used to treat atherosclerosis and prevent heart attacks.

Their study found that smooth muscle cells that normally line the inside of our arteries migrate into atherosclerotic plaques, change their cell identity, activate cancer genes, and proliferate inside the plaques.

“Our study shows that these transformed muscle cells are driving atherosclerosis, opening the door to new ways to treat the disease, potentially with existing cancer drugs,” says Muredach Reilly, MD, the Florence and Herbert Irving Endowed Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons ...