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Gut microbiota - the population of microbes that live in our intestine - can be used to predict the occurrence of colorectal cancer, the second most common type of cancer in women and the third in men. Research by an international team of scientists including Brazilians has found a link between colorectal cancer and changes in gut microbiota patterns that do not depend on the dietary habits of the populations studied. The discovery paves the way to the development of non-invasive tests capable [...]

Cyclists in London should take a different route back home during evening peak-time hours to avoid breathing in harmful black carbon from vehicles, suggests a new collaborative air pollution study from the University of Surrey's Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), jointly with University of São Paulo (Brazil) and University of Twente (Netherlands). According to the Department of Transport, London has just over three million licensed vehicles - 2.7 million of which are cars. In the [...]

A microscopic aquatic fungus is responsible for the heaviest biodiversity loss ever found to be due to a single pathogen, according to an article published in the journal Science on March 28. The microorganism causes chytridiomycosis, an infectious disease that affects amphibians worldwide. In the past 50 years, it has caused a decline in the populations of at least 501 species of amphibians. In some cases, they have dwindled to less than 10% of their original distribution, and 91 species are [...]

Liposomes are small spherical vesicles with walls comprising two layers of lipids and containing an aqueous core. These artificial structures have been developed for drug delivery or as carriers of active substances in cosmetic products. Another possible application involves the encapsulation of magnetic nanoparticles in liposomes to use them to transmit signals. This possibility is discussed in an article published by a group of Brazilian researchers supported by São Paulo Research [...]

A new study has found that the microbial food web accounts for most of the carbon circulating in Amazonia's lakes, floodplains and wetlands. "We concluded from our research that the amount of carbon circulating in the microbial food web in floodplain lakes in the Amazon is up to ten times the amount circulating in the classical phytoplankton-zooplankton-fish food chain," said Hugo Miguel Preto de Morais Sarmento , a professor in the Hydrobiology Department of the Federal University of São [...]

Physicists in the United States, Austria and Brazil have shown that shaking ultracold Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) can cause them to either divide into uniform segments or shatter into unpredictable splinters, depending on the frequency of the shaking. "It's remarkable that the same quantum system can give rise to such different phenomena," said Rice University physicist Randy Hulet, co-author of a study about the work published online today in the journal Physical Review X. Hulet's lab [...]

Although neglected diseases account for 11% of the global disease burden, they are targeted by only a small proportion of the new drugs developed every year. Between January 2012 and September 2018, a total of 256 new drugs entered the market, but only eight (3.1%) were designed to treat neglected diseases. This value exceeds the proportion for 1975-99, which was 1.1%, but falls short of the 4.3% mark recorded for 2000-11. The term "neglected diseases" refers to malaria, diarrheic diseases, [...]

Brazilian researchers have discovered that a drug regularly prescribed to control cholesterol can also be used to treat cachexia, or wasting syndrome, a condition characterized by rapid weight loss and muscle atrophy associated with extreme physical weakness. This condition is common among patients with chronic diseases such as cancer, heart failure and AIDS. The study was supported by FAPESP - São Paulo Research Foundation and has been published in Scientific Reports, an online journal owned [...]

A group of Brazilian scientists have long conducted experiments with roundworms to investigate the role of schizophrenia-linked genes in patients' response to antipsychotic drugs. The results obtained thus far point to new ways of understanding resistance to certain classes of medication. The studies are conducted by researchers in the Pharmacology Department of the Federal University of São Paulo's Medical School (EPM-UNIFESP), collaborating with colleagues at the University of Campinas [...]