All Stories by Nathan Seppa
- Health & Medicine
Blood-cell transplants slow kidney cancer
A new transplant technique that uses blood transfusions from a sibling combined with decreasing doses of immune-suppressing drugs enables some patients to fight off advanced kidney cancer.
- Health & Medicine
Clot buster attached to red blood cells avoids complications
Attaching a clot-busting drug to red blood cells limits the drug's side effects, a study in animals shows.
- Health & Medicine
Transplant Hope: New thymus tissue jump-starts immune system in babies
A thymus tissue transplant enables babies born with DiGeorge syndrome to develop functional immune systems.
- Physics
Antiglare eye black is better than tape
Black grease that athletes smear under their eyes to control the glare of the sun really helps them discern contrast; what's more, it works better than black tape, a newer antiglare aid.
- Health & Medicine
Intestinal Fortitude: Treatment for colitis shows early success
Given as a drug, a protein fragment called epidermal growth factor induces remission in people with ulcerative colitis, apparently by healing intestinal lesions.
- Health & Medicine
Metal’s Mayhem: Cadmium mimics estrogen’s effects, thwarts DNA repair
Cadmium causes endocrine disruption by mimicking estrogen in rats and also thwarts routine DNA repair, causing mutations, two studies show.
- Health & Medicine
DNA Differences Add Risk: Altered genes show up in Lou Gehrig’s disease
People with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are more likely than healthy people to have certain variations in the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene, suggesting variant VEGF contributes to the disease.
- Health & Medicine
Epilepsy drug eases diabetes woes
The epilepsy drug topiramate relieves pain, seems to initiate nerve repair, aids weight loss, and may have other benefits for persons with diabetes.
- Health & Medicine
Strict regimen pays off years later
Diabetes patients who adhered to a strict program of blood sugar control over nearly 7 years starting in the 1980s are still showing heart benefits.
- Health & Medicine
Lethal Emergence: Tracing the rise of dengue fever in the Americas
Using the genetics of viruses, scientists have tracked a virulent form of dengue virus in Latin America back to its roots in India.
- Health & Medicine
Can poliovirus fix spinal cord damage?
Scientists have devised a version of the poliovirus that can deliver genes to motor neurons without harming them, a step toward a gene therapy that reawakens idle neurons in people with spinal cord damage.
- Health & Medicine
Prevention in a Pill? Baldness drug might avert prostate cancer
The drug finasteride, given to alleviate baldness and prostate problems, might prevent some cases of prostate cancer.
