Latest News

Polymers are promising tools for gene therapy

New methods are being developed to cure illnesses with the aid of gene therapy. Polymer technology provides new and versatile possibilities for administering gene doses.
”Polymers are used to pack the gene to be transferred into particles of the size of a ten thousandth of a millimetre. These polymers effectively transport the transferable gene into affected cells and are then dissolved by the organs,” explains Project Coordinator, Professor Arto Urtti of the Bio-pharmacy Department of the Unive

Emergency medicine doctors top stress league

Emergency medicine doctors come top of the stress league, with around double the reported stress levels of other doctors, reveals a national survey in Emergency Medicine Journal. Nearly one in 10 reported suicidal thoughts.

All 479 emergency medicine consultants across the UK were sent a validated survey to determine levels of psychological distress and depressive symptoms. Respondents were also asked to detail the frequency and ‘stressfulness’ of work stressors.

In all, 350 respond

High risk of head injury after diagnosis of psychiatric illness

Patients with evidence of recent psychiatric illness have a high risk of sustaining head injury over the next 12 months, finds a study in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

The researchers looked at the health records of patients who had sustained a head injury in the 12 months after joining a large health organisation (HMO) in the USA covering six counties.

The presence of mental health problems was determined from prescriptions for psychiatric drugs, a confirme

Washing Clothes

The flow of soap solutions through fibres is of great importance for the final result of the washing process. This is one of the conclusions from the research project of Annemoon Timmerman. She will defend her thesis on Monday 22 April at TU Delft. With this conclusion she supports a theory that was disbelieved for years by experts in the field. Timmerman: “I have now experimentally proven why the laundry is actually clean after less than half an hour of washing. Up to now, that was a mystery.” The r

Malaria – breakthrough in understanding the side effects of mefloquine

Two British scientists, Dr Ashley Croft and Dr Andrew Herxheimer, have published a paper which for the first time tries to explain the adverse effects of the controversial antimalaria drug, mefloquine (Lariam®).

Mefloquine, made by the Swiss drug company Hoffmann-La Roche, is used both to treat and prevent malaria. Since the 1980s doctors have used it to treat around 2 million people with malaria, and about 15 million travellers have used mefloquine as malaria prophylaxis.

Althoug

Sheep stress programs lamb

Early life of fetus affects organs’ future health.

Sheep stressed in early pregnancy bear lambs with stunted kidneys that predispose them to high blood pressure Australian researchers have shown. The finding adds to growing evidence that early fetal life influences adult health.

Marelyn Wintour of the University of Melbourne subjected 4-week-pregnant ewes to two stressful days by infusing them with the hormone cortisol. Their lambs developed high blood pressure at 5 months o

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Physics and Astronomy

First hints of nuclear fission in cosmos

… revealed by models, observations. Fission models find clear fingerprints of nuclear process never before directly observed in stars. The elements above iron on the periodic table are thought to…

Groundbreaking study unveils secrets of galactic outflows

Under certain circumstances galaxies release huge quantities of matter into their environment, triggered by a large number of explosions of massive stars. The MUSE instrument of the Very Large Telescope…

Bowtie resonators that build themselves

…bridge the gap between nanoscopic and macroscopic. In a new Nature paper, two nanotechnology approaches converge by employing a new generation of fabrication technology. It combines the scalability of semiconductor…

Life Sciences and Chemistry

Growing biofilms actively alter host environment

The findings may offer insight into disease growth and the mechanics of antibiotic resistance. Dental plaque, gut bacteria and the slippery sheen on river rocks are all examples of biofilms,…

Turn cells into recording devices to unlock secrets of disease

Seattle Hub for Synthetic Biology launched by Allen Institute, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the University of Washington will turn cells into recording devices to unlock secrets of disease. First-of-its-kind research…

Accelerating Drug Development for Lung Diseases

New Insights from Single-Cell Genomics. To mechanistically understand the root causes of lung disease, and identify drugs that target specific pathways, the scientists around Prof. Herbert Schiller and Dr. Gerald…

Materials Sciences

Magnetization by laser pulse

Research team identifies new details of a promising phenomenon. To magnetize an iron nail, one simply has to stroke its surface several times with a bar magnet. Yet, there is…

Laser additive manufacturing: Listening for defects as they happen

Researchers from EPFL have resolved a long-standing debate surrounding laser additive manufacturing processes with a pioneering approach to defect detection. The progression of laser additive manufacturing — which involves 3D…

Clean Sky 2 “MFFD”: Ready for robots

Welding thermoplastic aircraft fuselage structures. Successful “MFFD” stakeholder event in Stade with groundbreaking results for the automated assembly of thermoplastic aircraft fuselage structures. On November 28, 2023, a stakeholder event…

Information Technology

Physicists ‘entangle’ individual molecules for the first time

…hastening possibilities for quantum information processing. In work that could lead to more robust quantum computing, Princeton researchers have succeeded in forcing molecules into quantum entanglement. For the first time,…

A trapped-ion quantum computer for the Munich Quantum Valley

In cooperation with Munich Quantum Valley, the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre is procuring a quantum computer based on trapped-ion technology. Quantum technology for research and development: Together with Munich Quantum Valley…

Brainstorming with a bot

CFN’s Kevin Yager develops a chatbot with an expertise in nanomaterials. A researcher has just finished writing a scientific paper. She knows her work could benefit from another perspective. Did…