Scientists have discovered that autoimmunity can be triggered in the thymus, where the immune system’s T cells develop, if T cells fail to recognize just one of the body’s thousands of proteins as “self.”
Dystonia, a group of diseases that cause a patient’s muscles to involuntary contract with movement, has had a relatively limited and ineffective number of treatments in the past. New research shows that a recently developed surgical treatment, deep brain stimulation (an off switch for the brain), has provided dramatic benefits in some patients.
A clinical trial to evaluate the safety of using a so-called gene vector to deliver a corrective gene to 12 patients with a common hereditary disorder that causes lung and liver disease is completed at the University of Florida. The gene therapy has caused no harmful effects in patients and hints at being effective.
An environmental drama played out on the world stage in the late 18th century when a volcano killed 9,000 Icelanders and brought a famine to Egypt that reduced the population of the Nile valley by a sixth. A study by three scientists demonstrates a connection between these two widely separated events, and is the first to conclusively establish the linkage between high-latitude eruptions and the water supply in North Africa.
Volcanic eruptions in high latitudes can greatly alter climate and distant river flows, including the Nile, according to a recent study funded in part by NASA.
Being exposed to high levels of nutrition before birth can influence the development of networks within the brain that regulate appetite to permanently set a pattern of appetite for life, according to researchers from the University of South Australia.
Cincinnati scientists have found further evidence that certain defensive white cells in the body cause or play a major role in the symptoms experienced by asthma patients.
An international team led by scientists from the United States and New Zealand have observed, for the first time, the bizarre deep-sea communities living around methane seeps off New Zealand’s east coast. This is the first time cold seeps have been viewed and sampled in the southwest Pacific. Cold seeps are areas of the seafloor where methane gas or hydrogen sulphide escapes from large stores deep below.
Scientists at UC Irvine have determined that levels of atmospheric methane — an influential greenhouse gas — have stayed nearly flat for the past seven years, which follows a rise that spanned at least two decades.
For people unable to simultaneously rub their stomach while patting their head, a new twist may be at hand. Touch, rather than concentration, could let people multi-task with their hands, and this may also potentially help improve the performance of people with coordination problems, according to psychologists.