New Technology Paves Way towards Personalized Antibiotic Therapy

Lab technicians holding up portable and reusable microwave sensor
Using microwave sensing technology, UBCO researchers have developed a low-cost, contactless, portable and reusable microwave sensor that acts as a fast and reliable evaluation tool for measuring antibiotic resistance.

New sensor provides quick test to measure antibiotic resistance. UBC researchers have developed a method for monitoring bacterial responses to antibiotics in health-care settings that opens the door to personalized antibiotic therapy for patients.

Using microwave sensing technology, UBC Okanagan Assistant Professor Mohammad Zarifi and his team at the Okanagan Microelectronics and Gigahertz Applications (OMEGA) Lab have developed a low-cost, contactless, portable and reusable microwave sensor that acts as a fast and reliable evaluation tool for measuring antibiotic resi...

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System Trains Drones to Fly Around Obstacles at High Speeds

drone graphic
Aerospace engineers at MIT have devised an algorithm that helps drones find the fastest route around obstacles, without crashing.
Credits:Image: MIT News, with background figure courtesy of the researchers

A new algorithm helps drones find the fastest route around obstacles without crashing. The system could enable fast, nimble drones for time-critical operations such as search and rescue.

If you follow autonomous drone racing, you likely remember the crashes as much as the wins. In drone racing, teams compete to see which vehicle is better trained to fly fastest through an obstacle course. But the faster drones fly, the more unstable they become, and at high speeds their aerodynamics can be too complicated to predict...

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Small Stars Share Similar Dynamics to our Sun, Key to Planet Habitability

A graphic depicting stellar and planetary magnetic activity
Rice University scientists have shown that “cool” stars like the sun share dynamic surface behaviors that influence their energetic and magnetic environments. Stellar magnetic activity is key to whether a given star can host planets that support life. (Credit: NASA)

Stars scattered throughout the cosmos look different, but they may be more alike than once thought, according to Rice University researchers.

New modeling work by Rice scientists shows that “cool” stars like the sun share the dynamic surface behaviors that influence their energetic and magnetic environments. This stellar magnetic activity is key to whether a given star hosts planets that could support life.

The work by Rice postdoctoral researcher Alison Farrish and astrophysicists David Alexander and Christopher ...

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New study offers Insight on how Resistance Training Burns Fat

Mongkolchon Akesin, iStock/Getty Images Plus
Mongkolchon Akesin, iStock/Getty Images Plus

Findings from a new University of Kentucky College of Medicine and College of Health Sciences study add to growing evidence that resistance exercise has unique benefits for fat loss. The Department of Physiology and Center for Muscle Biology study published in the FASEB Journal found that resistance-like exercise regulates fat cell metabolism at a molecular level.

The study results in mice and humans show that in response to mechanical loading, muscle cells release particles called extracellular vesicles that give fat cells instructions to enter fat-burning mode.

Extracellular vesicles were initially understood as a way for cells to selectively eliminate proteins, lipids and RNA...

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