Category Archives: Teach News

Having a rare genetic disease is actually pretty common. Rare diseases affect approximately 1 in 10 individuals, and more than 30 million people in the U.S. have a rare disease diagnosis. What makes them rare is that these 1 in 10 people affected have an estimated 7,000 different conditions, with treatments available for only about […]

Research led by Sichuan University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, has revealed genetic mechanisms that could prolong healthy aging. In the paper, titled “Partial inhibition of class III PI3K VPS-34 ameliorates motor aging and prolongs health span,” published in PLOS Biology, the team details the methods they used to narrow down the […]

Black residents living in highly segregated neighborhoods have significantly shortened life expectancies, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study published July 14 in JAMA Health Forum. Compared to residents living in less segregated predominantly white neighborhoods, life expectancies of people in highly segregated areas are four years shorter on average, the study found. By pinpointing significant […]

A benchmark for assessing how well large language models (LLMs) can answer medical questions is presented in a paper published in Nature. The study, from Google Research, also introduces Med-PaLM, an LLM specialized for the medical domain. The authors note, however, that many limitations must be overcome before LLMs can become viable for clinical applications. […]

Over the past two decades, conditional cash transfer programs have led to a 24% reduction in child mortality in Brazil, Mexico and Ecuador, equivalent to more than 700,000 child deaths averted, according to an impact evaluation study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by “la Caixa” Foundation. The results, […]

Aerobic glycolysis, the process by which cells transform glucose into lactate, is key for eye development in mammals, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study published in Nature Communications. While it has been well known that retinal cells use lactate during cell differentiation, the exact role that this process plays in early eye development was […]

A new study suggests that sight loss in people over 71 years old may be linked to dementia. The study was published on July 13 in JAMA Ophthalmology. The researchers at the University of Michigan in the US analyzed data from nearly 3,000 US citizens over 71 years old, who were part of a larger […]

Perovskites, a class of materials with a characteristic crystal structure, have proved to be very promising for the fabrication of solar cells and photovoltaics. One of these materials is lead triodide (FAPbI3), a perovskite that exhibits a long carrier lifetime and a high carrier mobility, as well as good light absorption and electrical conductivity. Energy […]

A research group led by Dr. Jialei He of Nagoya University’s Graduate School of Engineering has developed a method for processing cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) into micrometer-sized spherical particles. CLCs are a type of liquid crystal that possess a helical structure, giving them unique optical properties and the ability to selectively reflect light. By combining […]

Fusion, which replicates the same reaction that powers the sun, has long been viewed as an ideal energy source due to its potential to be safe, clean, cheap, and reliable. Since the early 1960s, scientists have pursued the possibility of using high-powered lasers to compress thermonuclear material long enough and at high enough temperatures to […]