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    A Noninvasive Test to Detect Cancer Cells and Pinpoint their Location

    July 20, 2021, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    nanosensors detecting tumor microenvironment
    Multimodal nanosensors (1) are engineered to target and respond to hallmarks in the tumor microenvironment. The nanosensors provide both a noninvasive urinary monitoring tool (2) and an on-demand medical imaging agent (3) to localize tumor metastasis and assess response to therapy.
    Credits:Image: Liangliang Hao

    Most of the tests that doctors use to diagnose cancer—such as mammography, colonoscopy, and CT scans—are based on imaging. More recently, researchers have also developed molecular diagnostics that can detect specific cancer-associated molecules that circulate in bodily fluids like blood or urine.

    MIT engineers have now created a new diagnostic nanoparticle that combines both of these features: It can reveal the presence of cancerous proteins through a urine test, and it fu...

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    3D ‘Assembloid’ shows how SARS-CoV-2 infects Brain Cells

    July 19, 2021, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Health/Medical

    Figure depicts SARS-CoV-2 spreading through blood vessels (green) to infect pericytes (red), which amplify infection and can spread infection to other cell types in the brain.
    CREDIT
    UC San Diego Health Sciences

    Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine have produced a stem cell model that demonstrates a potential route of entry of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, into the human brain.

    The findings are published in the July 9, 2021 online issue of Nature Medicine.

    “Clinical and epidemiological observations suggest that the brain can become involved in SARS-CoV-2 infection,” said senior author Joseph Gleeson, MD, Rady Professor of Neuroscience at UC San Diego School of Medicine and director of n...

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    A 3D-Printed Soft Robotic Hand that can Play Nintendo

    July 19, 2021, Categories  Physics

    A team of researchers from the University of Maryland has 3D printed a soft robotic hand that is agile enough to play Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. – and win!

    The feat, highlighted on the front cover of the latest issue of Science Advances, demonstrates a promising innovation in the field of soft robotics, which centers on creating new types of flexible, inflatable robots that are powered using water or air rather than electricity. The inherent safety and adaptability of soft robots has sparked interest in their use for applications like prosthetics and biomedical devices. Unfortunately, controlling the fluids that make these soft robots bend and move has been especially difficult—until now.

    The key breakthrough by the team, led by University of Maryland assistant professor of ...

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    LCO Discovers Activity on Largest Comet Ever Found

    July 19, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein), as seen in a synthetic color composite image made with the Las Cumbres Observatory 1-meter telescope at Sutherland, South Africa, on 22 June 2021. The diffuse cloud is the comet’s coma. Credit: LOOK/LCO
    Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein), as seen in a synthetic color composite image made with the Las Cumbres Observatory 1-meter telescope at Sutherland, South Africa, on 22 June 2021. The diffuse cloud is the comet’s coma. Credit: LOOK/LCO

    A newly discovered visitor to the outer edges of our Solar System has been shown to be the largest known comet ever, thanks to the rapid response telescopes of Las Cumbres Observatory. The object, which is named Comet C/2014 UN271 Bernardinelli-Bernstein after its two discoverers, was first announced on Saturday, June 19th, 2021...

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