Science & Technology

A new ‘cocktail’ drug under development could provide an effective and economical treatment to lessen symptoms for up to 45 per cent of patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a chronic muscle-wasting disease.

Among people with no memory or thinking problems, having a poor score on a simple memory test may be linked to biomarkers in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease as well as very early signs of memory impairment that precede dementia by several…

Time for a road trip. You punch the destination into your GPS and choose the suggested route. But is this shortest route the safest? Not necessarily, according to new findings.

Patients with both a high lipoprotein(a) and high coronary artery calcium score (CAC) face a more than 20% risk of heart attack or stroke over the following 10 years, according to findings from a multicenter study led by preventive cardiologists.

A discovery made in a new study helps to identify poor response tumors already prior chemotherapy is applied and opens new avenues for the development of combination therapies.

An analysis of data from more than 11,000 older Japanese adults suggests that seniors who own a dog may be at lower risk of disability than those who have never been dog owners.

A research team has used changing patterns of salt in the ocean to estimate that between 1970 and 2014, at least two times more freshwater shifted from the equator to the poles than our climate models predicted — giving us insights about how the globa…

Physicists observed an exotic ‘multiferroic’ state in a perfectly two-dimensional material for the first time. The findings could lead to faster, more efficient magnetic data storage devices.

Patients treated for Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) face a five-year recurrence rate of 40% — markedly higher than the recurrence rates for melanoma and other skin cancers. Additionally, in the study cohort of more than 600 patients, 95% of MCC recurrenc…

A new analysis of human remains that were buried in African archaeological sites has produced the earliest DNA from the continent, telling a fascinating tale of how early humans lived, traveled and even found their significant others.

Some genetic mutations linked to leukemia are less than useful guides to making treatment decisions for patients. A new study suggests a group of clinical signs that can be paired with genetic testing to better inform the timing of more aggressive trea…

Researchers have found that soybean crops planted near pollinator habitat produce larger soybeans than soybean crops that are not planted near pollinator habitat.

The Colorado potato beetle has evolved resistance to more than 50 different kinds of insecticides, making the insect a ‘super pest’ that wreaks havoc on potatoes around the world. New research finds that the beetle achieved this feat largely by turning…

After an E.coli outbreak in 2006 devastated the spinach industry, farmers were pressured to remove natural habitat to keep wildlife — and the foodborne pathogens they can sometimes carry — from visiting crops. A study of California strawberry farms f…

A new study has found diet, malaria, substance use and a lack of antenatal care services are linked to one in 10 babies in the Pacific Island region being born preterm and of low birth weight.

Succinic acid is an important precursor for pharmaceutical and cosmetic products and also serves as a component in biodegradable plastics. It is currently derived mainly from petroleum-based processes. Researchers are using the marine bacterium Vibrio …

In the context of trade-offs between land use and biodiversity, geographers have simulated land saving potentials for agriculture.

A research team has provided an important clue to the origin of the element Ytterbium in the Milky Way, by showing that the element largely originates from supernova explosions. The groundbreaking research also provides new opportunities for studying t…

Researchers have determined that a gene linked to feeling touch may moonlight as an olfactory gene. That’s the conclusion drawn from studying a very small, transparent worm that shares many similarities with the human nervous system.

Study shows how blocking cellular housekeeping system leads to buildup and spread of abnormal protein aggregates in the brain.