Month: January 2025

Annual health checkups regularly include urine tests that serve several purposes, including checking for symptoms of kidney disease. The presence of albumin in the urine is one indicator as is glomerular filtration rate. In diabetic nephropathy, albuminuria first appears, leading to excessive filtration and eventually a decrease in GFR. In the elderly, however, excessive filtration […]

Brazil’s Bolsa Família Program (BFP) is one of the largest conditional cash transfer programmes implemented worldwide. Since 2004, the BFP has provided financial support to the poorest families in Brazil, on the condition that they fulfil certain conditions such as taking their children to the doctor and ensuring school attendance. While these programmes are well-known […]

Scientists including an Oregon State University chemistry researcher have taken a key step toward next-generation optical computing and memory with the discovery of luminescent nanocrystals that can be quickly toggled from light to dark and back again. “The extraordinary switching and memory capabilities of these nanocrystals may one day become integral to optical computing — […]

Since its discovery in the 1990s, “programmed cell death protein 1,” or PD-1, has been regarded as a leading target in cancer treatments. A “checkpoint” receptor that often resides on the surface of immune system cells, the PD-1 molecule works as a type of off switch that keeps immune cells from attacking other cells. After […]

Life on Earth could not exist without carbon. But carbon itself could not exist without stars. Nearly all elements except hydrogen and helium — including carbon, oxygen and iron — only exist because they were forged in stellar furnaces and later flung into the cosmos when their stars died. In an ultimate act of galactic […]

Interactions with friends and family may keep us healthy because they boost our immune system and reduce our risk of diseases such as heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes, new research suggests. Researchers from the UK and China drew this conclusion after studying proteins from blood samples taken from over 42,000 adults recruited to […]

An inter-departmental research team at the LKS Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed) has conducted the world’s first analytic real-world cohort study on the association of clozapine, a highly efficacious antipsychotic drug, with the incidence of blood cancer. Their findings show that the risk of blood cancer associated with the use […]

Ebola is a deadly hemorrhagic disease caused by a virus that is endemic in parts of East-Central and West Africa. Most people are aware that a primary route for person-to-person transmission is through contact with bodily fluids from an infected person. But more recent outbreaks, including the 2013-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, demonstrated that […]

Groundbreaking cerium oxide-based thermal switches achieve remarkable performance, transforming heat flow control with sustainable and efficient technology. Thermal switches, which electrically control heat transfer, are essential for the advancement of sophisticated thermal management systems. Historically, electrochemical thermal switches have been constrained by suboptimal performance, which impedes their extensive utilization in the electronics, energy, and waste […]

Researchers have come up with a new way to identify more infectious variants of viruses or bacteria that start spreading in humans — including those causing flu, COVID, whooping cough and tuberculosis. The new approach uses samples from infected humans to allow real-time monitoring of pathogens circulating in human populations, and enable vaccine-evading bugs to […]

The joint research team led by Sangdong Kim and Bongseok Kim from the Automotive Technology Division of DGIST (President Kunwoo Lee) has developed a new radar signal-processing technology that can dramatically enhance the resolution of existing low-resolution radars. This technology enables precise object recognition using existing hardware specifications without the need for bandwidth expansion. Currently, […]

In a breakthrough set to revolutionize the semiconductor industry, the School of Engineering of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed the world’s first-of-its-kind deep-ultraviolet (UVC) microLED display array for lithography machines. This enhanced efficiency UVC microLED has showcased the viability of a lowered cost maskless photolithography through the provision of […]