Ever since the International Astronomical Union (IAU) demoted Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006, people have begun to pay significantly more attention and draw more definitive lines to the concept of a “dwarf planet.”
Craving chocolate? Go ahead and grab a few pieces. A number of recent studies have found that compounds in cocoa called flavanol could improve cardiovascular health and reduce blood pressure.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded approval on Oct. 24 for breakthrough drug pembrolizumab, a first-line treatment for certain patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Neuroscientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have long been studying how the male and female brains differ. Researchers have, for example, consistently found significant performance differences on certain cognitive tasks between males and females.
In a retrospective study of medical records, researchers from Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania concluded that lowering testosterone levels in men with prostate cancer could be associated with an increased risk of developing dementia. These findings, if confirmed by future clinical trials, could alter the way doctors treat prostate cancer in the near future.
A recent study done at the Newcastle University in collaboration with the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrated that human brains fold universally.
Recent research conducted by an international team led by Christopher Conselice, an astrophysics professor at the University of Nottingham, found that the universe has about 2 trillion galaxies, which is 10 times more than previous estimates.
Preston Ge, a senior Neuroscience major, worked with the Ted and Valina Dawson lab to publish his research on Parkinson’s Disease in Science magazine. His findings, he says, will not only provide a novel therapy for patients with Parkinson’s disease but also help establish how research for neurodegenerative disease is conducted in the future.
Winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry were announced on Oct. 5. The annual Nobel Prizes in Chemistry are traditionally given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The three recipients for the award this year are Jean-Pierre Sauvage of France, British-American Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa of the Netherlands.
A new Hopkins study showed that 60 percent of gay and bisexual men are unaware of an anti-HIV pill. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a once-daily pill that can dramatically reduce the chances of contracting HIV.
Hopkins is no stranger to the Collegiate Inventors Competition, a national competition that awards undergraduate students for cutting-edge and creative inventions. In the past three years, four different Hopkins student projects have placed in the competition.
Scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have recently published evidence that suggests that the human lifespan may not be lengthened beyond the ages on record. The paper, titled “Evidence for a Limit to Human Lifespan,” was published in Nature and the researchers stated that the “upward arc for maximum lifespan has a ceiling — and we’ve already touched it.”
The semiconductor industry has long regarded five nanometers as the limit for transistor gate length. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) claim to have successfully shrunk the transistor gate to one nanometer.
Samsung has officially ended its production of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone. The announcement occurred after multiple reports of the Note 7 phones exploding. After various inspections and investigations on the phone, the battery was the perceived reason for the phones catching fire.
There may finally be an excuse to make amusement park trips a priority yearly. Researchers at Michigan State University (MSU) discovered that riding certain types of roller coasters can help patients pass kidney stones with an approximated 70 percent success rate. They suggest trying to ride roller coasters once a year as maintenance to reduce the chance of developing any stones.
The term “mitochondrial donation” might be a foreign concept even to professionals who are at the forefront of the biological fields. It is a newly developed medical technique used to repair the genetically defective mitochondria in a mother’s egg before it can be fertilized with a father’s sperm in a lab setting.
Recently, the outbreak of the Zika virus has been a cause for global concern. It is widely understood that the virus can be spread through mosquitoes, blood, sexual contact and contact between a pregnant mother and her fetus. However, a case in Utah where the virus may have been spread through tears or sweat has puzzled many scientists.
