Under the motto “Building bridges, transcending borders”, 23 start-up companies presented their research projects at the Falling Walls Venture science competition on 8 November in Berlin. The company nominated by Max Planck Innovation, Vaxxilon, emerged as the winner and was proclaimed the “Science Start-Up of the Year 2016” for its development of a carbohydrate-based agent. The new agent should make vaccinations against bacterial infections cheaper in the future and thereby also improve a...

A growing body of research has linked sugary beverage consumption to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions including high blood sugar and excess body fat, which can lead to obesity and type 2 diabetes. Lack of sleep is also associated with a higher risk for metabolic disease. Recently, several studies have linked the two factors in school-age children, showing that children who get less sleep are more likely to drink soda and other sugary beverages during the day, said Prather, who is also...

Oklahoma State University, used the domain-specific risk-taking scale (DOSPERT) to assess five areas of risk-taking, namely ethical, social, financial, recreational and health. The research tested the hypothesis that childhood relationships with parents were related to risk-taking by young adults. Prior research has shown that risk-taking by young children is related to their interactions with mothers and fathers. What makes some young adults behave in ways that have the potential to harm ...

A 51-year-old woman is admitted to a hospital in Frankfurt, Germany, displaying a bizarre constellation of symptoms. Her behavior is erratic. She shows signs of paranoia as well as auditory hallucinations, disorientation, and severe memory impairment. Asked to write her own name, she manages “Mrs.,” then lingers over the page, unable to remember the rest. “I have lost myself,” she tells the attending physician. Over time, she will withdraw into her own inscrutable universe, before dying on Ap...

In mathematical physics, the Yang–Mills existence and mass gap problem is an unsolved problem and one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems defined by the Clay Mathematics Institute, which has offered a prize of US$1,000,000 to the one who solves it. In physics, confinement of particles is such an important phenomenon that the Clay Mathematics Institute has even pledged an award of a million dollars to anyone who can give a convincing and exhaustive scientific explanation from a mathematical...

A spacecraft mission's entry, descent, and landing (EDL) phase is one of the most dangerous parts of the vehicle's journey, so it must be carefully planned. However, EDL concepts are impossible to fully test on the ground, so design engineers rely on modeling and simulation to learn how different methods can be expected to perform during the mission. Researchers in NASA's Entry Systems Modeling (ESM) Project play a key role in the design of successful EDL systems by identifying and developing pr...

Studies have shown that the United States has one of the highest incidences of fatal anaphylaxis in the world. For anaphylaxis treatment in community settings, epinephrine intramuscular injection using an auto-injector, e.g. EpiPen®, in the thigh is universally recommended. Despite this, many people at risk of anaphylaxis in community settings do not carry their prescribed auto-injectors consistently and hesitate to use them when anaphylaxis occurs. Mutasem Rawas-Qalaji, B. Pharm., Ph.D., ass...

The improper and excessive use of antibiotics has led to the rise of “superbugs,” treatment-resistant bacteria causing a public health crisis of global proportions. To help combat this problem, Ahmad “Mo” Khalil, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the Boston University College of Engineering (ENG), has been awarded a New Innovator Award under the High-Risk, High-Reward program sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). His proposed project will focus on developing new...

A mycorrhiza (Greek: μυκός, mykós, "fungus", and ρίζα, riza, "root", pl. mycorrhizae or mycorrhizas) is a symbiotic association composed of a fungus and roots of a vascular plant. In a mycorrhizal association, the fungus colonizes the host plant's roots, either intracellularly as in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF or AM), or extracellularly as in ectomycorrhizal fungi. They are an important component of soil life and soil chemistry. The association is generally mutualistic, but occasionally we...

Competition to source a system that routes and collects human waste away from the body, hands-free, for fully suited astronauts. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) seeks proposed solutions for urine, fecal and menstrual management systems to be used in the crew’s launch and entry suits over a continuous duration of up to 144 hours. An in-suit waste management system would be beneficial for contingency scenarios or for any long duration tasks. Waste management syste...

New research shows that excess weight increases the risk that a benign blood disorder will progress into multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood. The study, by a team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Carrying extra weight increases a person's risk that a benign blood disorder will develop into multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. This is particularly true for older, African-American men. Being overweight...

NASA-led citizen science project, eight people with no formal training in astrophysics helped discover what could be a fruitful new place to search for planets outside our solar system – a large disk of gas and dust encircling a star known as a circumstellar disk. A paper, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and coauthored by eight citizen scientists involved in the discovery, describes a newly identified red dwarf star, AWI0005x3s, and its warm circumstellar disk, the kind associa...

Propeller Health offers solutions, such as Bluetooth-connected inhaler sensors and patient apps, to help enhance compliance and treatment outcomes for respiratory patients, such as those with asthma or COPD. The system monitors how often patients take their medication and can send alerts to caregivers if the disease is considered poorly controlled. FDA approved the Propeller platform for use with GSK’s Ellipta inhaler.” David Van Sickle, CEO and co-founder of Propeller said, “Inclusion of GSK...

Beans are a versatile, inexpensive staple that can boost essential nutrients in a diet, especially for people in low-resource areas where food options are limited. To get the most out of these legumes, new research suggests choosing fast-cooking dry beans could be the way to go. A study in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that fast-cooking beans retained more protein, iron and other minerals than “slower” dry beans. According to the World Health Organization about 2 billi...

A group coordinated by the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste has built a three-dimensional computer model of the human genome. The shape of DNA (as well as its sequence) significantly affects biological processes and is therefore crucial for understanding its function. This new study has provided a first three-dimensional, approximate but realistic, identikit of the human genome. Thanks to the characteristics of the new method, the structural reconstruction based on...

Viaspan was the trademark under which the University of Wisconsin cold storage solution was sold. Currently, UW solution is sold under the ViaSpan trademark and several other trademarks. UW solution was the first solution thoughtfully designed for use in organ. Currently in the U.S. there are over 100,000 patients awaiting kidney or liver transplants with transplant rates of only 20% for kidney and 38% for liver. There is clearly a need to improve both preservation of the organs and to expand...

Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered a new pathway in the brain that can be manipulated to alleviate depression. The pathway offers a promising new target for developing a drug that could be effective in individuals for whom other antidepressants have failed. New antidepressant options are important because a significant number of patients don’t adequately improve with currently available antidepressant drugs. The lifetime prevalence of major depressive disorder is between 10 to 2...

A new helper in the fight against cancer and other diseases of the gut may be genetically altered bacteria that release medicines to tumors or the gut. Now, a new study performed using mice demonstrates how doctors might one day better regulate those therapeutic microbes by engineering them to respond to temperature. For instance, if engineered bacteria were administered to a patient with a disease, doctors could, in theory, instruct the bacteria to release medicine to just the site of intere...

Turn your smartphone into a gold-standard DNA analysis tool. No lab necessary. Biomeme's platform transforms your smartphone into a mobile lab for advanced DNA diagnostics and real-time disease surveillance. The system includes a docking station for real-time PCR, a mobile app to control the system and analyze results, and targeted test kits for preparing samples and identifying pathogens or diseases by their specific DNA or RNA signatures. The cutting edge platform performs to the gold stand...

Dario is a personalized, pocket-sized, all-in-one glucose meter coupled with a robust real time mobile app to manage diabetes quickly, efficiently and accurately. The Dario Smart Meter lets you test blood glucose levels in seconds, directly on your smartphone. Once connected to your mobile device, easily track, monitor and manage diabetes with a simple to use mobile app – when you need it, where you need it! The Dario mobile app delivers accurate results in real-time and actionab...

Red means "Green light, go for it!" Green means: "hmm, better not!" Like an upside down traffic light in our brain, color helps us decide whether or not to eat something. This, according to a study at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste and recently published in the journal Scientific Reports stating that vision is the main sense we use to guide us in food choices. To evaluate calorie intake, we rely on a "color code." Non-human primates evaluate food quality base...

Vegetables and fruits are an important part of a healthy diet, and variety is as important as quantity. No single fruit or vegetable provides all of the nutrients you need to be healthy. Eat plenty everyday. A diet rich in vegetables and fruits can lower blood pressure, reduce risk of heart disease and stroke, prevent some types of cancer, lower risk of eye and digestive problems, and have a positive effect upon blood sugar which can help keep appetite in check. Eat a variety of types and c...

The transparent belly of a tiny beast has revealed how algae-infecting chloroviruses bloom in freshwater around the world, says a new study from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Millimeter-sized crustacean known as a copepod excretes partially digested paramecia and the green algae living inside those paramecia. A new study has shown that this partial digestion exposes the otherwise-protected algae to chloroviruses, allowing the viruses to replicate and bloom in their freshwater habitats. ...

Lignocellulosic biomass—plant matter such as cornstalks, straw, and woody plants—is a sustainable source for production of bio-based fuels and chemicals. However, the deconstruction of biomass is one of the most complex processes in bioenergy technologies. Although researchers at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) had already uncovered information about how woody plants and waste biomass can be converted into biofuel more easily, they have now discovered t...

For each tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) that any person on our planet emits, three square metres of Arctic summer sea ice disappear. This is the finding of a study that has been published in the journal Science this week by Dirk Notz, leader of a Max Planck Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and Julienne Stroeve from the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre. These figures enable us for the first time to grasp the individual contribution to global climate change. The study ...

Atopic dermatitis (AD), also known as atopic eczema, is a type of inflammation of the skin (dermatitis). It results in itchy, red, swollen, and cracked skin. Clear fluid may come from the affected areas, which often thicken over time. The condition typically starts in childhood with changing severity over the years.In children under one year of age much of the body may be affected. As people get older, the back of the knees and front of the elbows are the most common areas affected. In adults th...

Using clinical and genomic databases, a team of scientists including a Northwestern Medicine investigator developed and validated the first molecular signature that can predict responses to radiotherapy for patients with prostate cancer, according to a recently published paper in Lancet Oncology. “This work is an exciting step toward the integration of genomic data into the real life, decision-making process for our patients,” said Edward Schaeffer, MD, PhD, chair of Urology. Schaeffer is als...

Fracture will change the way you think about photo printing. Watch our introduction video to learn more!. The future of photographic display Fractures are different from traditional pictures and frames. Instead of printing on paper, we print directly on glass. Instead of separating the picture, frame, and mount, a Fracture combines all three into a beautiful, lasting, final product. Taking pictures is great. Printing pictures can be time consuming, overwhelming, and not all that fun. Fr...

MIT’s 2016 Open House last spring, more than 100 visitors took rides on an autonomous mobility scooter in a trial of software designed by researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the National University of Singapore, and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). The researchers had previously used the same sensor configuration and software in trials of autonomous cars and golf carts, so the new trial completes the demonstratio...