Press monitoring
Scientists make mice from non-egg cells
16.9.2016 | Press monitoring
Scientists have shown for the first time that offspring can be made from non-egg cells, a discovery that challenges two centuries of received wisdom. Eggs can be 'tricked' into developing into an embryo without fertilisation, but the resulting embryos, called parthenogenotes, die after a few days because key developmental processes requiring...
Measuring forces in the DNA molecule
14.9.2016 | Press monitoring
DNA, our genetic material, normally has the structure of a twisted rope ladder. Experts call this structure a double helix. Among other things, it is stabilized by stacking forces between base pairs. Scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have succeeded at measuring these forces for the very first time on the level of single base...
Human sperm grown in a lab for the first time, claims study
12.9.2016 | Press monitoring
Is this the first lab-grown human sperm? A French team claiming the achievement has moved a stage closer to convincing sceptics by having the work published in a peer-reviewed journal. But some researchers say the evidence offered still falls short of what’s required to make such a large and historic claim. Through a 20-year project, the French...
Fear of vaccine safety is higher in Europe than in the US
9.9.2016 | Press monitoring
Europe is the world’s most vaccine-sceptic region. That’s according to a study that has surveyed 66,000 people living in 67 countries about their views on the importance and safety of vaccines. People in France showed the least confidence – 41 per cent of those surveyed said they disagreed that vaccines are safe. The global average was 12 per...
First gene-edited meal served up from CRISPR cabbage
7.9.2016 | Press monitoring
It's not often that two people sitting down to dinner marks a huge step forward for science, but that was the case when two men in Sweden tucked into a meal of pasta and fried vegetables recently. The historic ingredient? Cabbage that had had its genome edited with CRISPR-Cas9, making it the first time such a plant had been grown, harvested,...
Sabotaging bacteria propellers to stop infections
5.9.2016 | Press monitoring
"When you have a bacterial infection, the first action is to take antibiotics," said Prof Fadel Samatey, leader of the Trans-Membrane Trafficking Unit and one of the authors of the study. "The goal of antibiotics is to kill any bacterium. But this goal has side effects, because not all the bacteria that live in our body are harmful. So, what...
Legions of nanorobots target cancerous tumours with precision
2.9.2016 | Press monitoring
Researchers from Polytechnique Montréal, Université de Montréal and McGill University have just achieved a spectacular breakthrough in cancer research. They have developed new nanorobotic agents capable of navigating through the bloodstream to administer a drug with precision by specifically targeting the active cancerous cells of tumours. This...
Safe, edible battery designed to power ingestible medical devices
31.8.2016 | Press monitoring
We've seen numerous ingestible medical devices dreamt up over the years, including camera pills, and capsules designed to listen out for your heartbeat and breathing rate. But if use of such smart capsules is to become widespread, then we need to be totally sure that they're not going to cause harm. With that goal in mind, a team of researchers...
Scientists can see through these rodents
29.8.2016 | Press monitoring
Seeing through objects may seem like something straight out of a comic book, but researchers have found a way to make entire animals transparent—from their brains to their bones. The method lets fluorescent proteins visibly shine through bodies, lighting up entire vascular systems (above) and other structures. To produce such light shows,...
Directly reprogramming a cell\'s identity with gene editing
26.8.2016 | Press monitoring
Researchers have used CRISPR—a revolutionary new genetic engineering technique—to convert cells isolated from mouse connective tissue directly into neuronal cells. In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka, a professor at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyoto University at the time, discovered how to revert adult connective tissue cells, called...
