A study in Psychological Medicine has found that prucalopride, a drug used to treat chronic constipation, improved several cognitive test results in adults with a history of depression. Researchers from the University of Birmingham and the University of Oxford tested whether activating a serotonin receptor found in the brain could ease the memory and concentration…
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Researchers at UC Berkeley have identified a nearly complete museum skull as Adelphailurus kansensis, an early saber-toothed cat that lived in North America more than 5 million years ago. The discovery, described in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, gives scientists a rare look at a little-known branch of the cat family before saber teeth reached…
A 96% cost reduction could make advanced cell-free protein synthesis far more practical for synthetic biology labs. A study in Trends in Biotechnology reports that researchers led by POSTECH developed an automated and modular platform that produces proteins in test tubes, with higher yields and a two-day preparation workflow. The system is called i-POPFLEX, short…
A study in Neuron found that two sugars with the same calories can send very different messages to the brain. Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center showed in mice that fructose uses a distinct gut-brain pathway and has a weaker effect on hunger-related neurons than glucose. The finding matters because fructose is a major…
