If you need yet another reason to increase your intake of nutrient-rich fruits, here’s one. Consuming four to five prunes each day may help prevent bone loss in postmenopausal women, according to a manuscript released this month by Taylor C. Wallace, a professor in George Mason University’s College of Health and Human Services. The beneficial effects of dried plums on bone health could relate to the phenolics, a type of antioxidant, found in fruits, Wallace said. A handful of small clinic...

If you want to create sustainable biofuels from less and for less, you’ve got a range of options. And one of those options is to go microbial, enlisting the help of tiny but powerful bacteria in creating a range of renewable biofuels and chemicals. In a recent study published in mBio, Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) assistant scientist Kim Lemmer and a team of collaborators focus on the microbes, reporting on a novel way to increase lipid production in bacteria. The finding ...

Some people travel to northern California for wine. However, Maren Friesen, Michigan State University plant biologist, treks to the Golden State for clover. The lessons of plant diversity and competition learned from a clover patch, which are featured in a special issue of the Journal of Ecology, can potentially unlock secrets on plant interactions around the globe. “There’s something quite special in how clover assemble such diverse communities. They compete, yet they have many traits in ...

Investigators found salivary molecules hold promise as reliable diagnostic biomarkers. The study exemplifies the quest by scientists to combat Alzheimer’s disease, a degenerative brain disorder with no cure and few reliable diagnostic tests. In the United States, Alzheimer’s is a health epidemic affecting more than 5 million Americans. Investigators seek to develop valid and reliable biomarkers, diagnosing the disease in its earliest stages before brain damage occurs and dementia begins. R...

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a simple, disposable sensor for detecting hazardous uranium ions, with sensitivity that rivals the performance of much more sophisticated laboratory instruments.   The sensor provides a fast, on-site test for assessing uranium contamination in the environment, and the effectiveness of remediation strategies, said Yi Lu, a chemistry professor at Illinois and senior author of a paper accepted for publication in...

Multi-spectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT) is an imaging technology that generates high-resolution optical images in scattering media, including biological tissues. MSOT illuminates tissue with light of transient energy, typically light pulses lasting 1-100 nanoseconds. The tissue absorbs the light pulses, and as a result undergoes thermo-elastic expansion, a phenomenon known as the optoacoustic or photoacoustic effect. This expansion gives rise to ultrasound waves (photoechoes) that are d...

We’ve always known that sleep is good for your brain, but new research from the University of Rochester provides the first direct evidence for why your brain cells need you to sleep (and sleep the right way—more on that later). The study found that when you sleep your brain removes toxic proteins from its neurons that are by-products of neural activity when you’re awake. Unfortunately, your brain can remove them adequately only while you’re asleep. So when you don’t get enough sleep, the toxic p...

Skin scarring after deep dermal injuries is a major clinical problem due to the current therapies limited to established scars with poor understanding of healing mechanisms. From investigation of aberrations within the extracellular matrix involved in pathophysiologic scarring, it was revealed that one of the main factors responsible for impaired healing is abnormal collagen reorganization. Here, inspired by the fundamental roles of decorin, a collagen-targeting proteoglycan, in collagen remodel...