Two years of battling COVID-19 has been bad news for tuberculosis (TB) programmes. Respiratory clinicians and researchers have had their time and focus directed elsewhere. And TB has taken advantage. In 2021, the number of TB deaths rose for the first time in over a decade. The barriers caused by lockdowns and overstretched healthcare systems […]
C ardiovascular diseases currently form the most important class of non-contagious diseases and a leading cause of mortality in industrialized nations . Specifically, coronary heart disease is the first cause of death among the cardiovascular diseases . The myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a “heart attack”, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops in […]
Inorganic and organic light-emitting diodes (ILEDs and OLEDs, respectively) are quickly replacing incandescent light bulbs and compact fluorescent lamps. The reasons for the success are easy to understand. For instance, ILEDs’ performance has met the market requirements for in-/out-door applications with single-point sources. However, ILEDs cannot be considered a sustainable solution as of today. One […]
While waiting to board a plane on a recent trip out of town, an airline staff member asked me to momentarily take off my face mask to allow the facial recognition technology to check me in to expedite my boarding process. I was taken aback by the bluntness of the request — I did not […]
A cement is any of various substances used for bonding or setting to a hard material. A popular one, Portland cement, is a mixture of calcium silicates and aluminates made by heating limestone (CaCO3) with clay (that contains aluminosilicates) in a kiln. The product is then ground to a fine powder. When Portland cement is […]
Since humans are not very good at predicting the future, even if the help of a magic ball, scientists have developed a new system based on artificial intelligence to help us predict the future risk of suffering from Alzheimer’s disease by analysing certain parameters in brain scans. The research, recently published in the journal Diagnostics […]
We live in a time when scientific applications are growing by leaps and bounds. This exponential growth has been possible, among other tools, thanks to the application of nanotechnology. There is something that nanotechnology has taught us: In science, size matters. When studying matter at nanometric levels, we find that the properties are completely different […]
In the mid-1990s, there was research going on at Stanford University that would change the way we think about computers. The Media Equation experiments were simple: participants were asked to interact with a computer that acted socially for a few minutes after which, they were asked to give feedback about the interaction. Participants would provide […]
Catalysis-based approaches for the activation of anticancer rely on the use of metal catalysts capable of deprotecting inactive precursors of organic drugs or transforming key biomolecules available in the cellular environment. Nevertheless, the efficiency of most of the schemes described so far is rather low, limiting the benefits of catalytic amplification as a strategy for […]
Topological materials have special universal properties, which are protected against perturbations. The name comes from the fact that such properties are theoretically described by topology, a branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of geometrical objects that are unchanged by continuous deformations. Topological materials behave like an ordinary insulator in the bulk but have conducting […]