A robotic brace that supports the neck during its natural motion is the first device shown to dramatically assist ALS patients in holding their heads and actively supporting them during range of motion. The brace should improve patients’ quality of life, not only in improving eye contact during conversation, but also in facilitating the use…

Construction workers are more likely to use drugs than workers in other professions, finds a new study. The study, published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, shows that construction workers are the most likely of all occupations to use cocaine and misuse prescription opioids (taking them for nonmedical purposes), and the second most likely…

A new method called Progressive Mechanoporation makes it possible to mechanically disrupt the membranes of cells for a short time period and let drugs or genes inside cells. In this way, researchers can test new therapies more easily than before. Modern vaccines such as those against Sars-CoV-2 use tiny lipid spheres to transport genetic information…

Multidrug resistance (MDR) — a process in which tumors become resistant to multiple medicines — is the main cause of failure of cancer chemotherapy. Tumor cells often acquire MDR by boosting their production of proteins that pump drugs out of the cell, rendering the chemotherapies ineffective. Now, researchers have developed nanoparticles that release bursts of…

Although touted as the best clean energy carrier, the explosive nature of hydrogen (H2) warrants highly sensitive gas sensors for detecting H2 leaks. Currently used gas sensors either require high operating temperatures or have low sensitivity. Now, scientists have designed a novel sensor using holey 2D zinc oxide nanosheets, which has high sensitivity and fast…

An international research team has used the X-ray laser European XFEL to gain new insights into how radiation damage occurs in biological tissue. The study reveals in detail how water molecules are broken apart by high-energy radiation, creating potentially hazardous radicals and electrically charged ions, which can go on to trigger harmful reactions in the…

Scientists assess the dynamics of positron acoustic waves (PAWS) in EPI plasmas whilst under the influence of magnetic fields, or magnetoplasmas. The authors studied the changes in PAWs using a framework of Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) and modified Korteweg-de Vries (mKdV) equations finding a former led to compressive positron acoustic solitary waves (PASWs), whilst the latter…

Researchers report that they have developed a gel that, when exposed to near infrared (NIR) light, safely whitens teeth without the burn. The growing demand for selfie-ready smiles has made tooth whitening one of the most popular dental procedures. Treatments at a dentist’s office are effective, but they use high-concentration hydrogen peroxide (30-40%). Home bleaching…

New research has identified that the frequently used chemotherapy drug (5-FU or Fluorouracil) is 100 per cent more effective at targeting tumors (rather than surrounding tissues) when administered using an optimized liposomal formulation. Now, world first research conducted by the University of South Australia has identified that the frequently used chemotherapy drug (5-FU or Fluorouracil)…

A research collaboration can read out optically previously indistinguishable spin states by using a newly developed spectroscopy method. Normally, electrons in a molecule occupy the quantum theoretically allowed orbits pairwise. The property of the electrons’ intrinsic angular momentum, their spin, is of pivotal importance here. According to the Pauli exclusion principle of quantum mechanics, two…