Researchers have examined pancreatic cancer cells and discovered an inverse correlation between the signatures of miR-34a, a tumour suppressant, and PLK1, a known oncogene. The levels of miR-34a were low in pancreatic cancer mouse models, while the levels of the oncogene were high. This correlation made sense for such aggressive cancer. The research team now [...]
A team of researchers at the University of California San Diego has developed macrophage “nanosponges” that can safely absorb and remove molecules from the bloodstream that are known to trigger sepsis. These macrophage nanosponges, which are nanoparticles cloaked in the cell membranes of macrophages, have so far improved survival rates in mice with sepsis. This [...]
An electricity-conducting, environment-sensing, shape-changing machine the size of a human cell? Is that even possible? Cornell physicists Paul McEuen and Itai Cohen not only say yes, but they’ve actually built the “muscle” for one. With postdoctoral researcher Marc Miskin at the helm, the team has made a robot exoskeleton that can rapidly [...]
Carbon nanotubes bound for electronics not only need to be as clean as possible to maximize their utility in next-generation nanoscale devices, but contact effects may limit how small a nano device can be, according to researchers at the Energy Safety Research Institute (ESRI) at Swansea University in collaboration with researchers at Rice University. Carbon [...]
In trying to bring brain-like (neuromorphic) computing closer to reality, researchers have been working on the development of memory resistors, or memristors, which are resistors in a circuit that 'remember' their state even if you lose power. Today, most computers use random access memory (RAM), which moves very quickly as a user works but does [...]
The recent rise in the value of BitCoin, whether a bubble or not, has stimulated great interest in the blockchain, and a recent opinion piece in the New York Times places it in the context of falling confidence in institutions and governments. From “The Bitcoin Boom: In Code We Trust” by Tim Wu, Dec. 18, [...]
A research team led by a scientist from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory has demonstrated for the first time that the magnetic fields of bacterial cells and magnetic nano-objects in liquid can be studied at high resolution using electron microscopy. This proof-of-principle capability allows first-hand observation of liquid environment phenomena, and has the [...]
Antibodies are indispensable in biological research and medical diagnostics. However, their production is time-consuming, expensive, and requires the use of many animals. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, have now developed so-called secondary nanobodies that can replace the most-used antibodies and may drastically reduce the number of animals in [...]
Cells communicate with each other through a number of different mechanisms. Some of these mechanisms are well-known: in animals, for example, predatory threats can drive the release of norepinephrine, a hormone that travels through the bloodstream and triggers heart and muscle cells to initiate a “fight-or-flight” response. A far less familiar mode of cellular transport [...]
Imagine that instead of switching on a lamp when it gets dark, you could read by the light of a glowing plant on your desk. MIT engineers have taken a critical first step toward making that vision a reality. By embedding specialized nanoparticles into the leaves of a watercress plant, they induced the plants to [...]
