Tuberculosis (TB) represents a serious public health problem. The latest reports estimate an incidence of 8.7 million cases in 2001 and over 1.4 million deaths per year. The disease is usually be treated with a first-line drugs, isoniazid and rifampin, the two most potent anti-tuberculosis agents. However, the prevalence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis cause by […]
With most of the conferences scheduled between June and October, beginning of the year brings with few novelties in robotics. During this time, roboticists must wait and wonder what the advances and “hot research topics” will be in their respective fields. Most likely, this year too one of those “hot” areas will be robotic insertion […]
Biochemistry • Biomedicine • Molecular biology • Neurobiology
Nowadays we are more aware than ever about the relevance of eating a balanced and assorted diet. However, in the more industrialized countries obesity has become almost epidemic, and it is a condition that lies at the base of many different health issues, being the cardiovascular complications probably the most obvious. But also immunological and […]
The functioning of the human brain goes far beyond a bunch of cells packed together; each of them is able to produce, receive, and transform electrical signals into a concrete response that affects the neighboring cells, counted by hundreds. This image is already complex, but if we say that the electric signals are constituted by […]
Disruption of normal blood flow to vital organs such as the heart, lung, and brain is the main cause of death in adults in the Western world. Current therapies require hospital facilities, since clot-lysing drugs are administered systemically or through a catheter placed within the obstructed vessel. Besides, the doses are limited by the potential […]
It is common to think that sci-fi writers are extremely creative and smart when they depict alien creatures with weird (and usually disgusting) ways of reproducing, generally using for this purpose the bodies of incautious and often naïve human characters. And they truly are that creative and imaginative, I’m not going to take that credit […]
Animals like spiders, snakes, scorpions, and cone snails inject venoms to their preys to immobilize or kill them. But what there is in these venoms that can trigger such a strong effect? The venom of these animals is actually a cocktail of toxins, from which one of the main components are peptides. Due to their […]
One of the most surprising and fascinating facts about scientific research is that one never truly knows which directions investigations may take. Along the way that goes from gathering data, to the path that links our initial question and the answer we pursue, we find numerous, intriguing and unexpected little ramifications and hideous sideways that […]
The relation of cancer and the immune system has been traditionally regarded in terms of war; a force of courageous immune system soldiers representing, lets say, The United States of Your Body facing the evil forces of anarchy in the form of tumoral cells. Following this logic the immune system eradicates tumors (elimination phase) until […]
Biomedicine • Materials • Neurobiology • Physics • Physiology
Human brain has about 85 billion neurons. Each neuron forms thousands of chemical and electrical synapses with other neurons. To record the synaptic activity of each neuron in the brain an intracellular probe with a millivolt scale is required. Glass electrodes are widely used, but they are fragile and they have high impedance. An intracellular […]
