Breast cancer affects thousands of people every year. Scientists have shown many factors can influence breast cancer, like age, lack of physical activity, and obesity. But they don’t know exactly how obesity and breast cancer are linked. Researchers in the past hypothesized that tissue inflammation in obese patients was linked to cancer. Other researchers showed that obese patients have a… Source ..read more

Researchers led by Liangxue Lai at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health in China recently increased the time human stem cells can survive in animal embryos. The team is undertaking a 5-year project to grow human organs that can be transplanted into patients without waiting for a donor. So far, no scientists have successfully grown an organ with 100% human cells inside an animal… Source ..read more

Mars has long captured the attention and imagination of scientists, writers, and stargazers alike. Scientists have observed Mars with telescopes and rovers to study major questions like how planets in our solar system formed and what is necessary for the development of life. However, scientists are limited in what they can observe without landing humans on the red planet itself. Source ..read more

Cancer cells grow abnormally and are difficult to control. When this growth happens in the inner lining of the stomach, scientists call it gastric cancer. Gastric cancer is a global health concern in the United States, Eastern Asia, and Eastern Europe. It usually has no symptoms at the onset and often affects people who have been infected by a bacterial species called Helicobacter pylori. Source ..read more

The leading cause of human death is cancer, which causes nearly 13% of all fatalities worldwide. The World Health Organization’s Global Health Observatory shows that biological males (or people assigned male at birth) account for 56% of cancer-related deaths, while biological females (or people assigned female at birth) only account for 44%. Researchers have shown these disparities between… Source ..read more

Scientists who study speech in humans think this ability must have arisen in our brains as we evolved from primates, but they don’t know exactly how. These researchers can compare the human brain with other primate brains to see how it changed during evolution to confer human speech. Previous researchers have suggested structures in the front part of primate brains, like groove patterns… Source ..read more

Our world is dominated by single-celled, microscopic organisms that can survive in extreme and strange locations. These habitats include the human body, which houses about 1 microorganism for every human cell. While many of these microorganisms are neutral or even good for our health, some of them can make us very sick. Worse still, many of the dangerous microorganisms, called pathogens… Source ..read more

A core aspect of biomedical research is figuring out what drives physical characteristics, often called phenotypes, and how best to fix anomalies like diseases. Scientists use genetic techniques to hunt for and identify specific locations in the human genome related to diseases. Studies like these are called genome-wide association studies, or GWAS. Scientists use the results of these studies to… Source ..read more

One way nature creates a diverse array of flora and fauna is through a breeding process called hybridization. Hybridization occurs when 2 similar species interbreed and produce an offspring that inherits characteristics from both species. The offspring are called hybrids, like the mule is a hybrid of a donkey and a horse.  Hybrids carry a mix of inherited traits from both parent species, creating biological diversity. Sometimes hybridization can even cause new species to emerge, in an event scientists call hybrid speciation.  Scientists currently don’t know what environmental conditi ..read more

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia and affects millions of people worldwide. This disease affects brain parts that control memory, thoughts, and language. Most commonly, people with Alzheimer’s disease begin to show symptoms in their mid-60s. Scientists have shown some rare cases of Alzheimer’s disease are caused by a genetic mutation known as PSEN1-E280A, which causes people to develop Alzheimer’s as early as their mid-40s, a condition called early-onset Alzheimer’s. Scientists identified a man in Colombia who has the gene for early-onset Alzheimer’s along with a second g ..read more