News by Subject Technology & Engineering

Skin has a remarkable ability to heal itself. But in some cases, wounds heal very slowly or not at all, putting a person at risk for chronic pain, infection and scarring. Now, researchers have developed a self-powered bandage that generates an electric field over an injury, dramatically reducing the healing time for skin wounds in rats. They report their results in ACS Nano.

Immunity plays an immense role in the body's fight against cancer. Every day, the cells of the immune system check all the cells of our body for 'normalcy' and kill the degenerated cells. Sometimes cells hide from the immune system and escape the immunological control, and then a tumor develops. Today, there are many different ways to deal with tumors, but often they prove incurable.

Researchers at the University of Washington have genetically modified a common houseplant to remove chloroform and benzene from the air around it.

Osaka University researchers revealed that culturing human induced pluripotent stem cells with different isoforms of the extracellular component laminin led to the creation of cells specific to different parts of the eye, including retinal, corneal, and neural crest cells. They showed that the different laminin variants affected the cells' motility, density, and interactions, resulting in their differentiation into specific ocular cell lineages. Cells cultured in this way could be used to treat various ocular diseases.

A new study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution presents a novel approach to identify optimal priority areas for restoration, considering multiple criteria such as biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and reduction of costs. In a context of multiple local, national and global targets for ecosystem restoration, the study presents a flexible tool capable of increasing restoration cost-effectiveness by up to eight times.