Sharks don’t have bones. Instead, their skeletons are made from mineralized cartilage that helps them constantly move through water. To understand the internal “sharkitecture” that helps keep these animals strong and graceful, researchers are putting sharks under the microscope. A new study, published in ACS Nano, found some surprising results. After analyzing shark cartilage, there appear to be two different regions within it. And each appears to have vastly different structures. These s ...read more
The most obvious home function we associate with the bladder is plumbing. But transplanting a bladder is much more complex than reconnecting a replacement to existing pipes. It also requires attaching the organ to a complex network of veins located deep within the pelvic cavity. Then there’s the possibility of rejection by the immune system.But a team of surgeons overcame these obstacles in the first-ever whole in-human bladder transplant. More accurately, it was a kidney-and-bladder transplan ...read more
In a move that should help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease (AD) cheaper, earlier, and easier, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first blood test to help identify AD in its early stages, potentially leading to more effective treatments. AD’s hallmark is progressive memory loss and dementia. It is often not detected until patients present such symptoms, making slowing down disease progression more difficult than if treatment began earlier.“Alzheimer’s disease impacts to ...read more
Key Take-aways on the Hubble Space Telescope: The Hubble Space Telescope launched on April 24, 1990 and is celebrating its 35th anniversary in 2025.The telescope has a 2.4-meter mirror, main types of science instruments, including a suite of spectrographs and cameras that have been upgraded through five astronaut-serviced missions.From mapping dark matter to refining the Hubble Constant, the rate at which the universe expands, the Hubble Space Telescope has been central to some of the most trans ...read more
CRISPR (short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) — the genetic equivalent of a word processor — has received its most powerful upgrade yet: the ability to insert an entire gene at the most potentially effective spot, according to an article in the journal Science.This marks a key step in cell and gene therapy, all of which aim to treat illnesses by making corrections or additions to the “misspelled” genes that can lead to disease.Before CRISPR, delivering gene ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine