Computational physicists have developed a novel method that accurately reveals how electrical vortices affect electronic properties of materials that are used in a wide range of applications, including cell phones and military sonar.

Biomedical researchers at Cedars-Sinai have invented a tiny drug-delivery system that can identify cancer cell types in the brain through “virtual biopsies” and then attack the molecular structure of the disease.

Japanese researchers have developed adaptable nano-capsules that can help in the diagnosis of glioblastoma cells – a highly invasive form of brain tumour.

Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in the Alps and has taken on an added distinction as the subject of the world's largest photograph. The Telegraph reported Monday that a photography team accomplished a world record-setting panoramic photograph of this majestic mountain—no small feat, born out of a desire among the photography specialists who did it to pay tribute to Mont Blanc.

At the end of 2013, a group of people calling itself Energy Aware, launched a Kickstarter project for a device they had created called Neurio—an electricity sensor that connects to a home's breaker panel and keeps track of usage—data is sent from it via WiFI to a cloud storage facility where it is analyzed put into a form that makes sense and then sent to the user's smartphone. The purpose of the device is first and foremost to give homeowners a better picture of where the electricity in their home is being used. The Kickstarter project was successful in that the team received far more in pledges than they were asking, which meant that they were able to put the finishing touches on their product and have it put into production. And now, those that made pledges are receiving their product.

New technology developed at The Ohio State University makes cell phone batteries last up to 30 percent longer on a single charge.

When Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse, he didn't give much thought to how he might bring his character to life in the real world. But robotics now puts that possibility within reach, so Disney researchers have found a way for a robot to mimic an animated character's walk.

If you're a college student wondering how your study and party habits will affect your GPA, wonder no longer. Dartmouth researchers and their colleagues have built the first app that automatically predicts college students' grade point average based on their smartphone data.

What if handheld tools know what needs to be done and were even able to guide and help inexperienced users to complete jobs that require skill? Researchers at the University of Bristol have developed and started studying a novel concept in robotics - intelligent handheld robots.

Portable electronics - typically made of non-renewable, non-biodegradable and potentially toxic materials - are discarded at an alarming rate in consumers' pursuit of the next best electronic gadget.

Twitter launched its Periscope application on Android-powered devices on Tuesday as the battle for live-streaming video spread to the world's leading smartphone platform.

Millions of city dwellers with smartphones in hand, pocket or bag, use trains to get around night and day, seven days a week. The incoming message from three researchers in China is that an attacker could track them based on information from a phone's accelerometer. The three, from Nanjing University, have completed a study which went up on the arXiv server earlier this month. "We Can Track You If You Take the Metro: Tracking Metro Riders Using Accelerometers on Smartphones" describes the attack.

It's only a centimeter long, it's placed under your skin, it's powered by a patch on the surface of your skin and it communicates with your mobile phone. The new biosensor chip developed at EPFL is capable of simultaneously monitoring the concentration of a number of molecules, such as glucose and cholesterol, and certain drugs.

Thousands of Mexico City taxi drivers snarled traffic in the mega-capital on Monday in a protest demanding that the government ban US ride-sharing service Uber.

The most challenging leg of Solar Impulse 2's landmark flight around the world powered only by the sun was delayed on Tuesday due to concerns about the weather, organisers said.

Two key Samsung companies are merging in a step toward ensuring the son of the group's ailing chairman inherits control of the theme parks to smartphones conglomerate.

The designer behind Apple's world-changing devices is rising to a new role that frees him to put his creative vision to work across the breadth of the company.

Timothy Long, one of three Virginia Outstanding Scientists for 2015, tells how materials of the future can be created to serve multiple functions. Printed on a 3D printer, walls of a "smart building" might be able to perform tasks such as move water or control sound. The research involves an interdisciplinary approach – chemists and other scientists working with architects and engineers.

Complementing the Government of Malaysia's efforts to encourage the use of environmentally friendly materials in the construction of green buildings, researchers from the faculty of civil engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA in Malaysia have successfully developed an environment friendly version of building concrete called green-mix concrete.

Researchers in Hong Kong have developed a new yarn manufacturing technology that can increase productivity with less energy consumption.

Is it price, perception or the sales person stopping Australians buying electric cars?

With the goal of achieving autonomous flight of drones, researcher José Martínez Carranza from the National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics (INAOE) in Mexico has developed a vision and learning system to control and navigate without relying on a GPS signal or trained personnel.

As TV watchers increasingly look online for their fix, cable companies are bulking up. In the latest round, Charter Communications is buying Time Warner Cable for $55.33 billion.

Tokyo Tech researchers demonstrate for the first time that application of pulsed reverse-voltages produce recovery of the performance of CMOS transistors damaged by the generation of electron-traps in the gate oxide due to hot carrier injection (HCI) of highly energetic electronics from the source-drain region.

Advanced eye tracking technology applied to driver training by a Perth company is improving drivers' hazard perception skills.

France's lower house of parliament has approved a bill aimed at boosting renewable energy and reducing the country's reliance on nuclear power, among other environment-friendly measures.

A slowdown in smartphone sales in China is cooling the global market for the devices, research firm IDC said Tuesday.

Hyundai is the first carmaker to offer Google's Android Auto system.

As the Internet has upended their business, cable companies have been racing to reinvent themselves as dominant broadband providers and distributors of online video.

Production of biogas from silage maize booms. But this green energy production also has its drawbacks: Maize monocultures block increasingly large areas for food production and result in a monotonous landscape. So far unused grass from landscaping is an ecological alternative, if economic drawbacks are compensated. This is the result of a recent study of KIT and the University of Hohenheim, which focused on locations in Baden-Württemberg.

Relying on top-notch, highly expensive vehicle parts to make automated transport a reality may provide sufficient guarantees for a large-scale deployment, but such an expensive setup might discourage investors. To resolve this conundrum, the KARYON project has developed a technology capable of adapting its behaviour to the reliability of its sensors and connection with other vehicles.

The Francis turbine is the most common type of water turbine used in Norwegian hydropower plants, and has been for many years. About half of the world's Francis turbines are found in Norwegian plants.

The U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published the first "roadmap" for the next 20 years of research needed to establish seamless, broadband public safety communications networks across the United States. The new roadmap, the first of a planned series on relevant technologies, focuses on location-based services to improve situational awareness for police, firefighters, emergency medical services and other first responders.

Charter Communications agreed to buy Time Warner Cable on Tuesday for $55.33 billion. Here's a look at some of the biggest cable and pay-TV deals, and deals that almost happened, in the last few years.

A fire at a huge plant owned by tech giant Apple Inc. in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa caused a section of the roof to collapse, but no one was hurt.

Amazon is hiring 6,000 full-time workers to staff up across its more than 50 distribution centers in the U.S.

The human brain is a highly organized, three-dimensional mass of cells responsible for our every move, thought and emotion. Snugly housed in the bony confines of the skull, it's also relatively inaccessible, making it difficult to study.

Children are more likely to use their strengths to effectively cope with minor stress in their life if they have parents who adopt a strength-based approach to parenting.

Researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have identified a master genetic regulator that could account for faulty brain functions that contribute to schizophrenia.

Obesity may be tougher on male immune systems than females, a new study in mice at the University of Michigan Medical School suggests.

An international team including scientists from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) has identified the molecular "lock" that the deadly Ebola virus must pick to gain entry to cells. The findings, made in mice, suggest that drugs blocking entry to this lock could protect against Ebola infection. The study was published in today's edition of the online journal mBio.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have identified two new classes of RNAs that are closely associated with a protein known to be a prognostic biomarker for breast cancer and could play a role in progression of prostate cancer. Their findings were published in the June issue of the scientific journal RNA.

Strapped into a motion-enabled simulator and wearing 3D glasses, 36 adolescent volunteers recently experienced what it was like to "travel" through a field of virtual stars. The experiments provided new and convention-busting data about how sensory stimuli are processed by the brains of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The team has completed two genomics studies on the tropical disease, a condition that is estimated to cause up to 30 million illnesses and over a quarter of a million deaths globally each year.

Two pennies can be considered the same—both are pennies, just as two elephants can be considered the same, as both are elephants. Despite the vast difference between pennies and elephants, we easily notice the common relation of sameness that holds for both pairs.

As emotions go, happiness usually hides in plain sight: seen in a broad smile, heard in a raucous laugh, felt in a big hug.

One of the major challenges of cocaine addiction is the high rate of relapse after periods of withdrawal and abstinence. But new research reveals that changes in our DNA during drug withdrawal may offer promising ways of developing more effective treatments for addiction.

Patients aged 80 and above are significantly less likely to be investigated or aggressively treated after surgery than their younger counterparts, reveals a national audit of hospital deaths, published in the online journal BMJ Open.

Being very overweight in your teens may double the risk of developing bowel cancer by the time you are middle aged, suggests research published online in the journal Gut.

Responding to rapidly shifting legal and cultural environments, researchers at the University of Montreal and CHU Sainte-Justine Children's Hospital have found a way to prevent, reduce or delay cannabis use amongst some at-risk youth. Cannabis users are at risk of neurocognitive deficits, reduced educational and occupational attainment, motor vehicle accidents, exacerbation of psychiatric symptoms, and precipitation of psychosis. Adolescents are particularly at risk due to the developing nature of their brain. Youth who have used marijuana have been shown to have less ability to sustain their attention and control their impulse control and have impaired cognitive processes.

Scientists at the Molecular Medicine Institute in Lisbon, Portugal, and at the University College London Ear Institute, United Kingdom, have developed a simple and efficient protocol to generate inner ear hair cells, the cells responsible for our hearing and sense of balance. This study is an important step for the future production of large numbers of these cells for use in cell transplantation therapies or large-scale drug screens. The research has just been published in the scientific journal Development.

Spouses of patients receiving hospice for three or more days more frequently reported reduced depression symptoms, compared to surviving spouses of patients who did not receive hospice, according to a study led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai published online today in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The Government is aiming for all adults to have online access to their health and social care records by 2020, but researchers from the Institute of Child Health, QMUL and the University of Bristol are concerned about the potential for unintended harm.

What are the psychological differences between women and men? What causes these differences, and are they shrinking over time?

The struggle of parenting is real, but are mothers and fathers making the situation worse by failing to give themselves sufficient credit?

Statins continue to show that their benefits extend beyond their original focus of lowering high cholesterol. With the increasing prevalence of asthma, scientists are studying the effects of statins in the lungs. In a new study in Physiological Reports, a team of researchers from the University of California, Davis, has demonstrated the feasibility of using statins to treat asthma.

Electronic cigarette (e-cig) use has now surpassed traditional cigarette use among middle and high school students, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This leaves many parents, public health officials and consumers asking whether e-cigarettes are better or worse for lung health than traditional cigarettes. Now, a team of researchers adds its findings to others that suggest nicotine in any form is damaging to lungs. This new research also suggests that non-nicotine-containing e-cig solutions have a damaging effect on lung health, leading researchers to call for more e-cig research.

Can the process of aging be delayed or even reversed? Research led by specially appointed Professor Jun-Ichi Hayashi from the University of Tsukuba in Japan has shown that, in human cell lines at least, it can. They also found that the regulation of two genes involved with the production of glycine, the smallest and simplest amino acid, is partly responsible for some of the characteristics of aging.

Commuting length, distance, and means are stress factors that can lead to burnout, says Annie Barreck of the University of Montreal's School of Industrial Relations. "A correlation exists between commuting stress factors and the likelihood of suffering from burnout. But their importance varies according to the individual, the conditions in which their trips take place, and the place where the individual works," she explained. Barreck will present her research today at the 83rd congress of the Association francophone pour le savoir (ACFAS).

Word emerged last week that Health Canada was reconsidering whether it should continue to view a serving of juice (125 ml) as being equivalent to a half cup of fresh/frozen fruit. I think this would be a wonderful development, and I believe that my own personal experience helps to explain why.

Promising results from a trial of a new stem-cell based therapy for a rare and debilitating skin condition have been published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. The therapy, involving infusions of stem cells, was found to provide pain relief and to reduce the severity of this skin condition for which no cure currently exists.

The benefits of eating slowly and chewing thoroughly have been proposed for over a century, but there has been little actual proof of the theory. Now, Naoyuki Hayashi and Yuka Hamada at Tokyo Institute of Technology have shown that, in the three-hour period after eating, energy expenditure is greater if the food was eaten slowly than if it was eaten quickly.

An international team of researchers at German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) have revealed in a collaborative study that neurons change on the molecular level when they are exposed to prolonged light. The researchers could identify that a feedback signalling mechanism is responsible for these changes. The innate neuronal property might be utilized to protect neurons from degeneration or cell death in the future.

Researchers at Newcastle University are part of a multi-million pound flagship project looking at antimicrobial resistance and the development of new antibiotics.

New UK research has challenged the assumption that people with rheumatoid arthritis always take their medication as prescribed.

Adam C. Levine, M.D., an emergency medicine physician at Rhode Island Hospital found that the World Health Organization's current weight-based guidelines for assessing malnutrition in children with diarrhea are not as reliable as measuring the child's upper arm circumference. His research was published in the Journal of Nutrition.

In a small study in Chile that included patients with gallbladder cancer, exposure to aflatoxin (a toxin produced by mold) was associated with an increased risk of gallbladder cancer, according to a study in the May 26 issue of JAMA.

Individually rare but collectively common intermediate-size copy number variations may be negatively associated with educational attainment, according to a study in the May 26 issue of JAMA. Copy number variations (CNVs) are regions of the genome that differ in the number of segments of DNA.

Despite previous findings suggesting a link between soy intake and decreased asthma severity, a new study from Northwestern Medicine and the American Lung Association Asthma Clinical Research Network shows soy supplements do not improve lung function for patients with asthma.

In an analysis that included more than 70,000 participants from 13 studies, subclinical hyperthyroidism was associated with an increased risk for hip and other fractures including spine, according to a study in the May 26 issue of JAMA. Subclinical hyperthyroidism is a low serum thyroid-stimulating hormone concentration in a person without clinical symptoms and normal thyroid hormone concentrations on blood tests.

Delayed clamping of the umbilical cord to help prevent iron deficiency in infancy was associated with improved scores in fine-motor and social skills in children at age 4, particularly in boys, although it was not associated with any effect on overall IQ or behavior compared with children whose cords were clamped seconds after delivery, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics.

Exercise scientists from Australia and the USA are advocating a 'whole person' approach to understanding and developing elite athletes.

Pregnant women are not getting enough information about the need to include iodine in their diets, despite high awareness of general advice for pregnancy nutrition.

Sperm in the first fraction of ejaculate are more numerous, move more and present better quality DNA than those lagging behind. This is the conclusion of a study led by the Ginemed fertility clinic, which confirms that while the objective of the first fraction is to fertilise the egg, the second phase is so that no sperm from any other male has a chance to fertilise it.

A typical characteristic of the brain of an Alzheimer sufferer is the presence of insoluble Tau protein aggregates. Scientists at VIB, KU Leuven and Janssen Pharmaceutica have demonstrated that the distribution of these aggregates through the brain is facilitated by synaptic connections between brain cells. This news is highly significant because the focus is increasingly on repairing synaptic connections as a therapeutic strategy in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. In fact, it is generally accepted that a loss of synaptic connections leads to a loss in cognitive skills.

Mitsuyoshi Nakao, Director of the Institute of Molecular Embryology and Genetics in Kumamoto University and Associate Professor Noriko Saitoh revealed that a cluster of defined, non-coding RNAs are mechanistically involved in endocrine therapy resistance in human breast cancer cells. Furthermore, resveratrol, a kind of polyphenol, was found to repress these RNAs and inhibit the proliferative activity of breast cancer cells which had acquired resistance. The work was published in Nature Communications on April 29th, 2015.

If you've been to the doctor, you probably know what to do when you're handed a plastic cup and shown to the bathroom.

A good working relationship with police is essential for the smooth operation of a busy Emergency Department. Police are in and out of EDs regularly, supporting EMS, transporting patients and helping to provide a safe environment for hospital staff.

Chronic pain affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide and is a major cause of disability, causing more disability than cancer and heart disease. Canadian researchers, including Michael Salter at SickKids are shedding light on the molecular dynamics of chronic pain. They have uncovered a critical role for a class of cells present in the brain and spinal cord, called microglia, in pain. They have found microglia-to-neuron-signaling to be crucial in the development of pain hypersensitivity after injury, but also for one of the paradoxical effects morphine and other opioids sometimes produce, called hyperalgesia, which is an increase in pain sensitivity. The identification of these key players in the development of chronic pain helps identify important targets for the development of novel therapeutic avenues. Dr. Salter presented his latest results at the 9th Annual Canadian Neuroscience Meeting, on May 26th 2015 in Vancouver,! British Columbia.

Maxing out the inherently stressed nature of treatment-resistant breast cancer cells thwarts their adaptive ability to evolve genetic workarounds to treatment, a new study suggests.

If you want to strike up a new relationship, simply smile. It works because people are much more attuned to positive emotions when forming new bonds than they are to negative ones such as anger, contempt or sadness. Don't try to fake it, however, because people can recognize a sincere smile a mile away. This is according to a study led by Belinda Campos of the University of California, Irvine, in the US that sheds light on how relationships are formed and maintained. The findings are published in Springer's journal Motivation and Emotion.

Seasonal influenza vaccination of children is likely to represent good short-term value for money in Thailand, according to a study published this week in PLOS Medicine. The study, led by Aronrag Meeyai of the Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program and Mahidol University, Thailand, uses an age-structured model to estimate the health benefits and cost-effectiveness of flu vaccination among Thai children aged 2 to 17 years.

Adherence to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) is linked to lower death rates in a low-income population in southeastern US.

University of Florida researchers have identified a biomarker that shows the progression of Parkinson's disease in the brain, opening the door to better diagnosis and treatment of the degenerative disease.

Carbon monoxide is known by many as a poisonous gas that causes brain injury and other neurological symptoms, including memory loss and confusion. But a new study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) suggests the opposite may be true: When administered in small, carefully controlled amounts, carbon monoxide may actually protect the brain from damage following subarachnoid hemorrhage, a devastating stroke that results from bleeding in the brain.

A genetically engineered herpes virus can halt the progression of skin cancer by killing cancer cells and sparking the immune system into action against tumours, a landmark clinical trial has shown.

A vaccine may one day help lower blood pressure for up to six months, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Hypertension.

Drinking two or more alcoholic beverages daily may damage the heart of elderly people, according to research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging. The study correlated weekly alcohol consumption among 4,466 people—average age 76—to the size, structure and motion of various parts of the heart.

Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation scientists have pinpointed a cell that begins the process of scarring in fatty tissue. The findings cast new light on a biological process that occurs with obesity and can lead to diabetes.

A risk gene for dyslexia is associated with impairments in visual motion detection, according to a study published May 27 in The Journal of Neuroscience.

New research published today in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes) indicates that consuming greater quantities of dietary fibre reduces the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

A study published by The BMJ today provides new evidence to confirm the link between newer contraceptive pills and higher risk of serious blood clots (known as venous thromboembolism or VTE).

The current focus on drugs to prevent hip fractures is neither viable as a public health strategy nor cost effective, argue an international team of researchers in The BMJ this week.

(HealthDay)—While the percentage of hospitals that send breast-feeding mothers home with formula packs has fallen dramatically during the last several years, about one-third of U.S. hospitals still do so, newly released data shows.

(HealthDay)—Self-hypnosis training does not reduce women's epidural use during childbirth, according to a study published online May 11 in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

(HealthDay)—Treatment of periodontitis may help reduce symptoms of prostate inflammation in prostatitis, according to a study published recently in Dentistry.

(HealthDay)—New U.S. government research connects severe vision loss with poverty, and reveals that people in the southern part of the country have the highest prevalence of both poverty and severe vision loss. The findings were published in the May 22 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

(HealthDay)—Certain perinatal factors, including sex of the child, maternal celiac disease, and type 1 diabetes, are associated with development of celiac disease in children, according to a study published in the May issue of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

(HealthDay)—For patients with type 2 diabetes, there are gender-based differences in glycemic control and hypoglycemia after insulin treatment, according to research published in the June issue of Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism.

Emergency medicine faces special challenges during this fall's changeover in how medical diagnoses are coded. Nearly a quarter of all ER clinical encounters could pose difficulties.

A new study has shed light on how cancer patients' attitudes and beliefs drive the use of complementary and alternative medicine. Published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings may help hospitals develop more effective and accessible integrative oncology services for patients.

A surgical skills laboratory and corresponding dissection curricula were established in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Cleveland Clinic in the 2011-2012 academic year. The authors describe how this came about and what it has meant for neurosurgical resident training and assessment of residents' surgical skills in the following paper: "Establishing a surgical skills laboratory and dissection curriculum for neurosurgical residency training" by James K. C. Liu, MD, and colleagues, published today online, ahead of print in the Journal of Neurosurgery.

A New Jersey man died Monday evening after been diagnosed with Lassa fever—a frightening infectious disease from West Africa that is rarely seen in the United States, a federal health official said.

An adjustable female shoe based on a new memory shape composite of leather and Nitinol material is now available. The new material allows fitting the shoe to the foot shape after obtaining anthropometric measurements through the Shopintantshoe portable scanner and modifying it with the Shoptool, a machine that completes the process directly in the shop. The consortium of EU-funded project Demo ShopInstantShoe presented the results in Villena, Spain, at Calzamedi's installations.

A powerful new antiseptic agent, called ozone nanobubble water, holds promise for the treatment of periodontitis, or severe gum infections, according to research published in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials.

Paramedics from seven ambulance services across the UK are to be recruited to help trial a new 'rapid response' treatment for stroke patients.

A cholera outbreak raging among Burundian refugees in Tanzania has slowed significantly with no new deaths reported in the past five days, the United Nations said Tuesday.

In one of South Africa's poorest areas, an imaginative new parenting programme is tackling the physical and emotional abuse of children. Oxford University's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Andrew Hamilton, travelled to the villages of the Eastern Cape to see the results for himself.

More than 100 million condoms were distributed in Zimbabwe last year, a huge increase on previous years, indicating that more people were practising safe sex in the battle against HIV, authorities said Tuesday.

You might have heard that microwaving your food is dangerous. Maybe your health nut friend told you that eating frozen veggies is less healthful than eating fresh ones. Is a glass of red wine really good for your heart?

The World Health Organization got the go-ahead Tuesday for a sweeping shake-up, including a $100-million war chest to battle future emergencies following the Ebola fiasco.

Stem cell transplant is essential in the care of many blood cancers, but leaves patients requiring in-home care for months after. Frequently the role of caregiver falls to family or other committed members of the patient's support network. Previous work shows dramatically increased stress in cancer caregivers, directly impacting the caregiver and indirectly impacting the cancer patient via reduced quality of care. A randomized control trial funded by the National Cancer Institute by members of the University of Colorado Cancer Center, published in the journal Bone Marrow Transplantation, demonstrates an intervention that successfully reduces the stress of caregivers in the context of cancer patients treated with stem cell transplantation.

(Phys.org)—In 1959 Moore observed that from the time the integrated circuit was invented, the number of transistors per square inch doubled about every eighteen months. A contemporary of Moore, Feynman, suggested that denser circuitry could be achieved by making molecular-scale circuitry. Since that time, mechanically interlocked molecules (MIMs) have proven a viable contender for eventually making molecular-based circuitry, including molecular switches. However, most molecular switches are made and studied in solution.

Rice University researchers have developed a method to detect rare DNA mutations with an approach hundreds of times more powerful than current methods.

MicroRNA can serve as a "decoder ring" for understanding complex biological processes, a team of New York University chemists has found. Their study, which appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, points to a new method for decrypting the biological functions of enzymes and identifying those that drive diseases.

We live in fear of 'superbugs': infectious bacteria that don't respond to treatment by antibiotics, and can turn a routine hospital stay into a nightmare. A 2015 Health Canada report estimates that superbugs have already cost Canadians $1 billion, and are a "serious and growing issue." Each year two million people in the U.S. contract antibiotic-resistant infections, and at least 23,000 people die as a direct result.

Cells are biological wonders. Throughout billions of years of existence on Earth, these tiny units of life have evolved to collaborate at the smallest levels in promoting, preserving and protecting the organism they comprise. Among these functions is the transport of lipids and other biomacromolecules between cells via membrane adhesion and fusion—processes that occur in many biological functions, including waste transport, egg fertilization and digestion.

An Australian research team has shown that smartphones can be reconfigured as cost-effective, portable bioanalytical devices, with details reported in the latest edition of the Open Access Journal 'Sensors'.

By unlocking the secrets of a bizarre virus that survives in nearly boiling acid, scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have found a blueprint for battling human disease using DNA clad in near-indestructible armor.