News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
A pattern recognition algorithm scoured 6850 accounts of people’s experiences with 27 drugs to learn more about how they alter consciousness Health 16 March 2022 By Matthew Sparkes A colour-enhanced scanning electron microscope image of magic mushroom spores Ted Kinsman/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Artificial intelligence has been used to analyse thousands of written reports of personal … Read more
A baby in North Carolina has received a first-of-its-kind heart transplant that may prevent his body from rejecting the organ without the need for lifelong drugs to suppress the immune system. The child, Easton Sinnamon, is the first person to receive a heart transplant along with implantation of thymus tissue from the same donor, according to a statement from Duke … Read more
An experimental new type of cancer treatment has yielded some impressive results in mice: the eradication of advanced-stage ovarian and colorectal cancer in the animals as little as six days. The new therapy has only been tested in mice so far, so let’s not get too excited just yet. However, the early signs are … Read more
Making new molecules to treat disease has relied upon the painstaking art of synthetic chemistry, but now we’re developing robots that could do it all for us Technology 2 March 2022 By Katharine Sanderson Graham Carter Perhaps the most storied aspect of modern chemistry is total synthesis. This is the craft of taking simple molecules … Read more
It takes 10 to 15 years and around US$1 billion to develop one successful drug. Despite these significant investments in time and money, 90 percent of drug candidates in clinical trials fail. Whether because they don’t adequately treat the condition they’re meant to target or the side effects are too strong, many drug candidates … Read more
Drugs to help people fall in love are increasingly becoming viable, but they could cause harm as well as happiness, says Anna Machin Comment | Comment 9 February 2022 By Anna Machin Simone Rotella LOVE is unpredictable and complex. After spending many years researching its layers, I remain in awe of how it engages every … Read more
A rare variant of the SIRT6 gene increases DNA repair in human cells, and learning its effects could help to develop anti-ageing drugs Health 31 January 2022 By Michael Le Page A cake for a 100th birthday kajakiki/Getty Images A rare gene variant identified in people who have lived to 100 or more appears to … Read more
Sex has many beneficial physical and psychological effects, including reducing high blood pressure, improving the immune system and aiding better sleep. The physical act of sex and orgasm releases the hormone oxytocin, the so-called love hormone, which is important in building trust and bonding between people. But there’s a dark side: people sometimes die … Read more
Laboratory tests show a tiny robot with a helical propeller inspired by bacteria can swim through veins and deliver clot-busting drugs Technology 10 January 2022 By Alex Wilkins Illustration of a blood clot and, inset, the helical microrobot CHRISTOPH BURGSTEDT/Getty Images/Science Phot Library. Inset: Qianqian Wang, Xingzhou Du, Dongdong Jin, and Li Zhang A corkscrew-shaped … Read more
A strain of the antibiotic-resistant bacterium MRSA seems to have colonised the skin of hedgehogs more than 200 years ago – and many other similarly evasive bugs might exist in nature Life 5 January 2022 By Jessica Hamzelou A European hedgehog Coatesy/Shutterstock A strain of the antibiotic-resistant bacterium MRSA seems to have evolved in hedgehogs … Read more