Posts in category: Uncategorized

A new UC San Francisco-led study brings scientists closer to understanding the causes of a mysterious rash of cases of acute severe hepatitis that began appearing in otherwise healthy children after COVID-19 lockdowns eased in the United States and 34 other countries in the spring of 2022.

Life on Earth comes in a beautiful assortment of different shapes, sizes and colors, thanks to genetic mutations. Some mutations are beneficial, some are perilous, and some don’t do much of anything. Every person has around 4.5 million genetic variations. But are those variants helpful or hurtful? Geneticists have been trying to find the answer for half a century. Their biggest obstacle nowadays? Standard human genome sequence reference data.

The death toll from an outbreak of Marburg virus in Equatorial Guinea has reached nine, the health ministry told AFP on Thursday amid World Health Organization estimates the real toll is double that.

The thalamus and thalamic reticular nucleus are situated at the heart of the mammalian brain and are known to play a key role in a wide range of functions, including the transmission of sensory information to the cortex and the transition between brain states such as sleep and wakefulness.

The word “brainwashing” usually triggers negative associations. But our brain health for sure depends on it. Scientists at the University of Oslo have recently made new and important discoveries about how and why this happens when we are sleeping.

Tearing their meniscus—a crescent-shaped piece of a soft cushion of cartilage located between the femur and tibia—can be devastating for young athletes. It is easily damaged in people with congenital lateral discoid meniscus or those that are physically active and once damaged, the meniscus cannot repair itself. The most common method has been to remove the damaged portion of the meniscus, but in recent years meniscus-sparing surgeries, that suture the margins of the meniscus at the tear, have begun to spread.

Young people who compete in sports are often organized into single-sex teams that compete separately. But what happens when youth have the opportunity to compete together?

Once adults reach age 65, the threshold age for the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, the extent of their genetic risk may outweigh age as a predictor of whether they will develop the fatal brain disorder, a new study suggests.

In January 2021, Ron Miller’s life upended. The then-39-year-old, who described his health at the time as perfectly fine, contracted COVID-19. Two years later, he’s unable to work as he still suffers from extreme fatigue and brain fog—a byproduct of his battle with long COVID.

Cells contain diverse populations of molecules called lipids, which are organic fatty compounds. Lipid metabolism, the synthesis and breakdown of these lipids, plays a key role in regulating the composition and functions of cells and cell membranes. An enzyme known as ELOVL6 elongates chains of fatty acids and is important in several cellular metabolic processes. However, the relationship between lipid metabolism and blood development and disorders is an area of research with minimal activity so far.