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This micro-swimmer encased in a soft hydrogel-like material has fins that are mobile and can expand and contract when stimulated. Such structures could in the future be used to deliver treatments inside the human body. Image credit - Dr Florea
health | industry | frontier research
05 November 2019

Nanovehicles that mimic nature could deliver treatments of the future

Tiny vehicles up to 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair that are cloaked in biological camouflage could provide new ways of treating cancer with fewer side-effects.

More than half of people with advanced Parkinson's disease experience freezing of gait, which can lead to falls. Image credit - Fernandoz Himinaicela/ pixabay
health | frontier research
29 October 2019

Parkinson’s disease: Stimulation of brain, feet may help people overcome freezing episodes

Paolo Sanvito would often freeze like a statue after entering a meeting room when he was working as a manager in a multinational company. Known as freezing of gait, it’s a disabling symptom of Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative brain disorder that he suffers from.

In poorer countries, using raw wastewater to irrigate urban farms could be an underlying cause of antibiotic resistance. Image credit - SuSanA Secretariat, licensed under CC BY 2.0
environment | health
28 October 2019

Sewage, rivers and soils provide missing link in antibiotic resistance story

If you think that the key to beating antibiotic resistance is only for doctors to prescribe less and scientists to find new drug candidates, you are probably wrong. The fundamental solutions may lie far from medicine – in managing our rivers and soils.

Scientists are trying to work out how tardigrades survive extreme environments such as heat and drought. Image credit - Frank Fox, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 DE
health
24 October 2019

Dried-out tardigrades could point way to drug preservation, resilient crops

New insights into how tardigrades survive extremely dry environments could reveal new ways of preserving drugs, boosting crops’ tolerance to drought or fighting disease, but so far there is no simple answer to how these tiny creatures endure desiccation.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have had their antibiotic resistance reversed in Prof. Almqvist's lab. Image credit - Pixnio/ Janice Haney Carr, Jeff Hageman, M.H.S, USCDCP, licensed under CC0
health | frontier research
21 October 2019

Can we reverse antibiotic resistance?

In the battle against antibiotic resistance, some scientists are trying a new approach: re-sensitising bacteria to drugs they no longer respond to so that existing antibiotics can hit their target once more.

DNA or chromosome errors are found in 20% of women in their early 20s, say researchers. Image credit - ZEISS Microscopy, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
health | frontier research
15 October 2019

New findings about how a human egg matures may help prevent infertility and birth defects

Decoding how the human egg matures and how this process can go wrong could lead to ways of preventing genetic errors leading to infertility, birth defects or pregnancy loss.

Scientists aim to find new antibiotics that can overcome the resistance of superbugs. Image credit - Flickr/ Sheep purple, licensed under CC BY 2.0
health
14 October 2019

Scientists aim for new weapons in fight against superbugs

New weapons are needed to fight drug-resistant bacteria, one of the biggest threats to global health. By working on new antibiotics or finding ways to revive existing ones in our medical arsenal, scientists aim to avoid a return to a world where even everyday infections may mean death.

Mastitis, a bacterial infection that leads to inflammation of a cow's mammary glands and udders, has long been a scourge of the dairy industry. Image credit - Tomasz Jagielski, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
health
08 October 2019

Non-antibiotic cures for cows could speed up treatments for people

As the global antibiotic resistance crisis grows, chemical-based aerosol sprays and electrical signals to wake up the immune system are being developed to treat cow infections. These non-antibiotic therapies for livestock could also help to limit the spread of antibiotic resistance through the human food chain.

The radiation emitted by 5G will largely be the same as previous networks, except that it will be exposing us to something called milimetre waves for the first time. Image credit - Flickr/ Kārlis Dambrāns, licensed under CC BY 2.0
ict | health
07 October 2019

Is 5G bad for your health? It’s complicated, say researchers

The fifth generation of mobile internet is fast approaching.

Non-antibiotic drugs may also have a role to play in promoting antibiotic resistance, Dr Typas says. Image credit - Dr Nassos Typas
health | interview | frontier research
03 October 2019

Antibiotic resistance: How did we get here?

Finding ways to enlist the bacteria living in our bodies to defend against infections while better understanding their role in promoting antibiotic resistance are key to fighting this growing problem, says Dr Nassos Typas, a microbiologist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany.

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