Medical News

Over two million Muslim travelers just finished the annual religious pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, traveling during some of the country's hottest weather. New research finds pilgrims in future summers may have to en...

(Credit: Sara López Gilabert/SAPIENS) It is early morning on a wide plain in Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya. With a small Dixie cup and a wooden tongue depressor, Susan Alberts picks up a fecal sample left by ...

Targeting specific areas of the measles virus polymerase, a protein complex that copies the viral genome, can effectively fight the measles virus and be used as an approach to developing new antiviral drugs to treat the ...

An international team of researchers has discovered a new pathway that may improve success against an incurable type of children's brain cancer. The study results suggest that scientists have identified a unique way to d...

Researchers have discovered the mechanism through which ultraviolet radiation, given off by the sun, damages our skin.

In what likely is the first study on the evolution of dietary preferences across the animal kingdom, researchers report several unexpected discoveries, including that the first animal likely was a carnivore and that huma...

(Credit: Odua Images/Shutterstock) A human's genes are laid down at conception. A fetus' heart, brain and other organs start to form five weeks later. At six months, an unborn child has most of its body parts. But there ...

Over the last 40 years, the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, has invaded every continent thanks to the transportation of its eggs via human trade and transportation. Researchers have now used the genomes of the mo...

Research into the self-destruction of cells in humans and plants could lead to treatments for neurodegenerative brain diseases and the development of disease-resistant plants. A study has identified the role certain prot...

In the first continent-wide genomic study of malaria parasites in Africa, scientists have uncovered the genetic features of Plasmodium falciparum parasites that inhabit different regions of the continent, including the g...

The first detailed map of individual malaria parasite behavior across each stage of its complicated life cycle has been created by scientists. Researchers used advanced single-cell technology to isolate individual parasi...

Adults carrying a gene associated with a higher risk of Alzheimer's disease had a harder time accessing recently acquired knowledge, even though they didn't show any symptoms of memory problems, according to a new study.

Animal-assisted therapy has many benefits in health care. Yet, its biological and psychosocial effects in the military are unknown, especially for injured, airlifted patients. Researchers teamed up with a non-profit anim...

The cryoEM structure of a simian immunodeficiency virus protein bound to primate proteins shows how a mutation in early humans allowed our ancestors to escape infection while monkeys and apes did not. SIV's Nef protein f...

A new app has been designed to help new parents become more 'tuned in' to what their babies are thinking and feeling.

The CRISPR-Cas system has become the go-to tool for researchers who study genes in an ever-growing list of organisms, and is being used to develop new gene therapies that potentially can correct a defect at a single nucl...

A new computational tool called ProtFus screens scientific literature to validate predictions about the activity of fusion proteins -- proteins encoded by the joining of two genes that previously encoded two separate pro...

Research led by Kyushu University finds that E. coli from cattle share widespread genetic similarities with those that cause food poisoning in humans, indicating that the traits that are harmful to humans may emerge to i...

Light touch plays a critical role in everyday tasks, such as picking up a glass or playing a musical instrument, as well as for detecting the touch of, say, biting insects. Researchers have discovered how neurons in the ...

Ginkgo Biloba, one of the oldest living trees species, may offer some clues in better treatments for Type 2 Diabetes, says one researcher.

Researchers have found that high levels of ketone bodies, molecules produced by the breakdown of fat, help the intestine to maintain a functional stem cell pool, which are crucial for intestinal regeneration.

Researchers have discovered a scorpion toxin that targets the 'wasabi receptor,' a chemical-sensing protein found in nerve cells that's responsible for the sinus-jolting sting of wasabi. Because the toxin triggers a pain...