Chemists have settled the debate about a fundamental question that is relevant to the conversion of one color into another and demonstrated how to influence the efficiency of this process by changing the refractive index around the material.
A new brain imaging study in Australia found a “stop mechanism” that determined brain signals telling the individual to stop drinking water when no longer thirsty. The study, which used magnetic resonance imaging, also gauged the brain effects of drinking more water than required.
In order to track the movements of biological particles in a cell, scientists at Heidelberg Univ. and the German Cancer Research Center have developed a powerful analysis method for live cell microscopy images. This so-called probabilistic particle tracking method is automatic, computer-based and can be used for time-resolved 2-D and 3-D microscopy image data.
Using only data from an fMRI scan, researchers led by a Yale Univ. undergraduate have accurately reconstructed images of human faces as viewed by other people. The increased level of sophistication of fMRI scans has already enabled scientists to use data from brain scans taken as individuals view scenes and predict whether a subject was, for instance, viewing a beach or city scene, an animal or a building.
Doctors commonly use MRI to diagnose tumors, damage from stroke and many other medical conditions. Neuroscientists also rely on it as a research tool for identifying parts of the brain that carry out different cognitive functions. Now, a team of biological engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology is trying to adapt MRI to a much smaller scale.
In 2007, Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists developed a type of microscopy that allowed them to detail the interior of a living cell in 3-D, without adding any fluorescent markers or other labels. This technique also revealed key properties, such as the cells’ density. Now the researchers have adapted that method so they can image cells as they flow through a tiny microfluidic channel.
When cancers become advanced, tumor cells from the primary tumor can enter the bloodstream and cause metastasis at another organ with deadly effect. While researching the biological implications of CTC spread, Creatv MicroTech researchers found a group of previously unreported cells associated with primary cancer spread. These macrophage-like cells could serve as biomarkers.
Skeletal muscles are built from small contractile units, the sarcomeres. Many of these sarcomeres are connected in a well-ordered series to form myofibrils that span from one muscle end to the other. Scientists recently identified a key mechanism how this basic muscle architecture is built during development.
If you’ve ever suffered the misery of food poisoning from a bacterium like Salmonella, then your cells have been on the receiving end of “nanoinjectors”, microscopic spikes made from proteins through which pathogens secrete effector proteins into human host cells, causing infection. Researchers are using advanced nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry to unlock the structure of these injector, which are built from 20 different proteins.
For scientists to determine if a cell is functioning properly, they often must destroy it with ionizing radiation, which is used in x-ray fluorescence microscopy to provide detail that conventional microscopes can’t match. To address this, Argonne National Laboratory researchers created the R&D 100 Award-winning Bionanoprobe, which freezes cells to “see” at greater detail without damaging the sample.
Delivering drugs into the brain to treat neurological diseases and disorders has been a challenge. The current best and easiest way to get drugs anywhere in the body is to take them orally or to administer them intravenously. But the challenges for these routes of drug delivery for targets in the brain are multiple.
Defective blood coagulation is one of the leading causes of preventable death in patients who have suffered trauma or undergone surgery. To provide caregivers with timely information about the clotting properties of a patient’s blood, researchers have developed an optical device that requires only a few drops of blood and a few minutes to measure the key coagulation parameters that can guide medical decisions.
Keep this in mind: Scientists say they’ve learned how your brain plucks information out of working memory when you decide to act. Brown Univ. cognitive scientists have identified specific brain regions that work together to allow us to choose from among the options we store in working memory.
Researchers have developed the technology for a catheter-based device that would provide forward-looking, real-time, 3-D imaging from inside the heart, coronary arteries and peripheral blood vessels. With its volumetric imaging, the new device could better guide surgeons working in the heart, and potentially allow more of patients’ clogged arteries to be cleared without major surgery.
To improve their chances of success, in vitro fertilization clinics need to assess the viability of the sperm they use. Now doctors may soon have a new technique to help them sort the good sperm cells from the less viable ones: a tracking system, developed by a team of researchers from four European institutions, that takes 3-D movies of living sperm.
The lipid-rich membranes of cells are largely impermeable to proteins, but evolution has provided a way through—in the form of transmembrane tunnels. A new study in Germany shows in unmatched detail what happens as proteins pass through such a pore.
Microscopy is growing at a rapid rate as the result of substantial investment in nanotechnology research. Advances in nanotechnology not only support advances in materials technology, they support developments in the semiconductor and medical devices industries. These billions of dollars drive support for advanced microscopy technologies, which are expected to become a $5 to 6 billion market globally by 2018.
We tend to be creatures of habit. In fact, the human brain has a learning system devoted to guiding us through routine, or habitual, behaviors. At the same time, the brain has a separate goal-directed system for the actions we undertake only after careful consideration of the consequences. We switch between the two systems as needed. But how does the brain know which system to give control to at any given moment? Enter The Arbitrator.
A new microscopy method could enable scientists to generate snapshots of dozens of different biomolecules at once in a single human cell, a team from the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard Univ. reported in Nature Methods. Such images could shed light on complex cellular pathways and potentially lead to new ways to diagnose disease, track its prognosis or monitor the effectiveness of therapies at a cell level.
The human intestinal tract, or gut, is best known for its role in digestion. But this collection of organs also plays a prominent role in the immune system. In fact, it is one of the first parts of the body that is attacked in the early stages of an HIV infection. Knowing how the virus infects cells and accumulates in this area is critical to developing new therapies for the over 33 million people worldwide living with HIV.
Every time you open your eyes, visual information flows into your brain, which interprets what you’re seeing. Now, for the first time, Massachusetts Institute of Technology neuroscientists have noninvasively mapped this flow of information in the human brain with unique accuracy, using a novel brain-scanning technique.
Millions of people each year remove wrinkles, soften creases and plump up their lips by injecting a gel-like material into their facial tissue. These cosmetic procedures are sometimes called “liquid facelifts” and are said to be minimally invasive. It’s rare, but sometimes things go wrong. In a matter of minutes, patients’ skin can turn red or blotchy white and the injected area becomes painful.
Living cells are ready for their close-ups, thanks to a new imaging technique that needs no dyes or other chemicals, yet renders high-resolution, 3-D, quantitative imagery of cells and their internal structures—all with conventional microscopes and white light.
Biomedical engineer Lihong Wang and researchers in his laboratory work with lasers used in photoacoustic imaging for early cancer detection and a close look at biological tissue. But sometimes there are limitations to what they can do; and as engineers, they work to find a way around those limitations. The team found a novel way to use an otherwise unwanted side effect of the lasers they use—the photo bleaching effect—to their advantage.
A new MRI method to map creatine at higher resolutions in the heart may help clinicians and scientists find abnormalities and disorders earlier than traditional diagnostic methods, researchers at the Univ. of Pennsylvania suggest in a recent study. The preclinical findings show an advantage over less sensitive tests and point to a safer and more cost-effective approach than those with radioactive or contrasting agents.