Isolated pancreas cells stained bright green are shown sitting in the wells of the transport “egg carton”. Aurelien Forget , Author provided We have developed “smart egg-carton” packages for transporting live human pancreas cells for transplantation to diabetic patients. The egg-cartons provide oxygen and allow physical separation to prevent damage and death […]
David Camarillo and colleagues used computer simulations and data collected from football gear to study the complex nature of concussion. Credit: Saul Bromberger and Sandra Hoover It seems simple enough: Taking a hard hit to the head can give you a concussion. But, Stanford researchers report March 30 in Physical Review […]
The paradisiac Boldró beach, Fernando de Noronha archipelago, Northeast Brazil. Credit: Luciano Barros-Neto While people tend to describe tropical oceanic islands as ‘paradises on Earth’ and associate them with calm beaches, transparent warm waters and marvellous landscapes, archipelagos are often the product of a fierce natural force – volcanoes which […]
MOORFIELDS Doctors have taken a major step towards curing the most common form of blindness in the UK – age-related macular degeneration. Douglas Waters, 86, could not see out of his right eye, but “I can now read the newspaper” with it, he says. He was one of two patients […]
Acclaimed British theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author Stephen Hawking passed away peacefully at his home in Cambridge aged 76. Intel Corporation Stephen Hawking was one of the most prominent people in history to use a high-tech communication aid known as augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). His death comes in the year of the 70th […]
(Credit: Shutterstock) Empathy is widely agreed upon to be one of the most human emotions that we possess. Seriously, no one’s ever complained about too much empathy. It facilitates human relationships by allowing us to examine, understand and process the feelings and emotions of others. The absence of empathy is […]
ALEXANDER GLANDIEN, FOR SPECTRUM Originally published on Spectrum Satsuki Ayaya remembers finding it hard to play with other children when she was young, as if a screen separated her from them. Sometimes she felt numb, sometimes too sensitive; sometimes sounds were muted, sometimes too sharp. As a teenager, desperate to understand herself, she […]
Scientists recently determined that a certain strain of Earth bacteria could thrive under conditions found on Enceladus. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute For decades, ever since the Pioneer and Voyager missions passed through the outer Solar System, scientists have speculated that life might exist within icy bodies like Jupiter’s moon Europa. However, thanks the Cassini mission, scientists now […]
Living near humans may have tamed wild mice, a new study finds. ILYA KARNAUKHOV/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM From the floppy ears of dogs to the curly tails of pigs, domesticated animals sport a different look than their wild cousins—a look that scientists chalked up to human intervention. Now, a new study of wild […]
(Credit: Shutterstock) Returning sight to those for whom it’s slipped away has been a goal of scientists for decades. But repairing or replacing the delicate internal machinery of the human eye has proven difficult so far. A few experimental devices have managed to grant low-resolution sight to the blind, but […]