Health & Fitness

A new study finds that Zika infection during the first trimester of pregnancy can impact fetal retinal development and cause congenital ocular anomalies. The virus does not appear to affect ocular growth post-natally.

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Terahertz light holds enormous potential for tomorrow's technologies. It might succeed 5G by enabling extremely fast mobile communications connections and wireless networks. The bottleneck in the transition from gigahertz to terahertz frequencies has been caused by insufficiently efficient sources and converters. A research team with the participation of HZDR has now developed a material system to generate terahertz pulses much more effectively than before. It is based on graphene, coated with a metallic lamellar structure.

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Humans are generally reluctant to give up on something they've already committed time and effort to. It's called the 'sunk costs' phenomenon, where the more resources we sink into an endeavor, the likelier we are to continue -- even if we sense it's futile. A new study shows that both capuchin monkeys and rhesus macaques are susceptible to the same behavior and that it occurs more often when the monkeys are uncertain about the outcome.

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Social holidays improve holiday makers' overall satisfaction with life, as well as satisfaction with the quantity and quality of their leisure time, and social life, according to a new study. The study analyzed the effect of social holidays on holiday makers' subjective well-being and experience of inclusion.

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Individuals with high ADHD-traits that do not meet the criteria for a diagnosis are less able to perform tasks involving attentional regulation or emotional control after a sleepless night than individuals with low ADHD-traits, a new study reports.

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Scientists have used machine intelligence to improve the accuracy and reliability of a powerful brain-mapping technique, a new study reports. Their development gives researchers more confidence in using the technique to untangle the human brain's wiring and to better understand the changes in this wiring that accompany neurological or mental disorders such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease.

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The first cell atlas of an important life stage of Schistosoma mansoni, a parasitic worm that poses a risk to hundreds of millions of people each year, has been developed.

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Fibrous proteins such as collagen and fibrinogen form a thin solid layer on the surface of an aqueous solution similar to the 'skin' that forms on warm milk, according to a team of Penn State Researchers, who believe this finding could lead to more efficient bioprinting and tissue engineering.

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With the number of people who suffer from organ failures and the growing need for available organs for transplant, finding a new way to provide organs and therapeutic options to transplant patients is a critical need. In a new article, researchers show for the first time that newly established stem cells from pigs could provide a solution, laying the groundwork for growing transplantable human organs.

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Osteopontin is discovered as the culprit behind systemic sclerosis patients' main cause of death: lung fibrosis. However, a repurposed immunosuppressive drug may combat the pro-inflammatory protein.

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New research shows that since modern crop varieties were introduced in the developing world starting in 1961, they have substantially reduced infant mortality, especially for male babies and among poor households.

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A new evidence review has found there is still no consensus between researchers about why exercise works for low back pain patients - despite decades of studies on the topic.

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Economists have identified an important challenge in designing age-related guidelines for when to start breast cancer screenings: Women who start getting mammograms at age 40 may be healthier than the population of 40-year-old women as a whole, with a lower incidence of breast cancer at that age.

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DNA that ends up where it doesn't belong in cancer cells can unleash an immune response that makes tumors more susceptible to immunotherapy, the results of two new studies indicate. The findings suggest that delivering radiation - which triggers DNA release from cells - before immunotherapy could be an effective way to fight cancers that are challenging to treat.

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Optogenetics offers a direct way to manipulate gut bacterial metabolism in a temporally, quantitatively and spatially controlled manner and enhance host fitness.

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