Having a dog, cat or other pet can help older adults stay active and maintain a sense of purpose, but pet-related costs may increasingly strain their budgets, a new poll suggests.

By studying a bacterium responsible for a severe heart infection, the scientists show that disrupting bacterial communication can be associated with adverse clinical outcomes. Published in Nature Communications, these findings open the door to more targeted – and potentially more effective – therapeutic strategies against this type of infection. A team from NTU’s SCELSE (Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences and Engineering), a multidisciplinary biofilm and microbiome research centre, and UNIGE’s Faculty of Medicine is challenging a widely held assumption in infectious disease research: that blocking bacterial communication is always beneficial. Scientists found that when Enterococcus faecalis can no longer communicate with neighbouring bacteria, it forms larger, more resilient biofilms on heart valves, resulting in more severe clinical outcomes.

Recent research reveals that engineered microstructures within piezoelectric electrospun fibers, combined with piezoelectric enhancement strategies, are unlocking unprecedented therapeutic potential for tissue regeneration. Researchers from the Li Zhou team at Tsinghua University have pioneered a comprehensive review revealing how piezoelectric electrospun fibers harness mechanical energy to generate bioelectric signals, thereby accelerating tissue regeneration. This review presents a novel and systematic analysis of integrated multidimensional approaches to enhance piezoelectric performance in electrospun fibers. Additionally, various methods for generating electrical signals within these fibers are detailed, along with their diverse applications in tissue engineering.