… if you want to want to be alive. The rock band Wilco already said it back in 2002 when they released the much-acclaimed album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. This simple statement found in one of the songs of that LP was able to summarise the paradoxical essence of life: death. But leaving any philosophical meaning […]
A human body harbors around 37 trillion [1012] cells that came from a single fertilized egg by a process known as mitotic division or mitosis. While the first cellular divisions of an embryo occur without gaining mass, most of the following ones are linked to cell growth and are required for the correct development and […]
Biochemistry • Biomedicine • Molecular biology • Neurobiology
Natural selection has been sculpturing living organisms for millions of years, enabling them to get adapted to an ever-changing environment. Gradually, certain traits are selected over others based on the advantage they confer to the population. Natural selection is not a random process and it relies on genetic variation. Random mutations serve as the substrate […]
Few weeks ago, a new report by WHO reveals that antibiotic resistance is now a major threat to global public health: “ the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era ”. One of the priorities is the treatment of urinary tract infections caused by Escherichia coli strains isolated from several countries and which are resistant […]
Advances in the knowledge of the molecular basis of life have provided some of the most impressive and certain proofs to the notion that all organisms on Earth form part of a unique and ancient lineage. One of the most typical examples is the fact that the molecular machinery regulating the biochemical processes common to […]
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 […]