The collaboration between cardiologist and orthopedist may at first seem novel, if not odd. But just such an interdisciplinary connection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has yielded potentially useful fruit: a bioengineered, rhythmically beating experimental model of heart muscle.

The new model system is a bioartificial trabeculum, or BAT. Trabecula are thin sections of cardiac tissue within the inner surface of the heart’s main pumping chambers. Although still some

New polymer could prevent burns, food poisoning, traffic accidents

Imagine a fire door that changes color when hot, football jerseys that can tell when a player is overheating, road signs that change color indicating icy road conditions, and food packaging stamps that disappear when products have been kept at room temperature for too long. At the University of Rhode Island, chemists Brett Lucht and Bill Euler and chemical engineer Otto Gregory are working to make these products a real

When physicists sandwiched together different types of semiconductor to create the first transistor in 1947, they made bulky vacuum valves obsolete and so revolutionised the electronics industry. Since then researchers have been pushing the boundaries of semiconductor technology hoping for another revolution. At the 26th International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors in Edinburgh from 29 July to 2 August, progress towards ultra-high density magnetic recording, and a new branch of nanotech

The long-term use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) does not increase the risk of endometrial cancer and may even protect the endometrium (the lining of the uterus) from the disease, concludes a study in this week’s BMJ.

In one of the largest long-term studies of its kind researchers from across the UK collected data from 534 postmenopausal women. Before the study began, 364 of the women had taken oestrogen and progestogen hormone replacement therapy in which the two hormones were given s

Children could be protected from a potentially lethal parasitic disease if dogs were fitted with insecticide-impregnated collars, suggest authors of a study in THE LANCET this week.

Zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis is caused by transmission of a parasite, Leishmania infantum, from animals (mostly domestic dogs) by blood-sucking sandflies. In people, clinical symptoms of the disease, which is often fatal if left untreated, include fever, swollen liver and spleen, and anaemia.

Clive Da

Researchers in this week’s issue of The Lancet have developed a new method that can accurately predict how tumours will behave by the genes they express.
Dr Kathy Pritchard-Jones and her colleagues, from the Institute of Cancer Research, UK, studied children who had the commonest form of Wilms’ tumour with favourable histology. Overall, these children have a good chance of survival, but little is know about the genetic alterations that determine their outcome.

The group used a new metho