New study analyzes potential of bony fish head cartilage as alternative source of proteoglycans and chondroitin sulfate for health food formulations Chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (CSPGs), commonly obtained from salmon nasal cartilage, are a key ingredient of various health foods. As the popularity of health foods increases, scientists are searching for…

Phosphatidylinositol bisphosphate (PIP2) is essential for epithelial cell-cell adhesion and maintaining cellular identity Cells have certain proteins that help them adhere to each other while covering body surfaces and organs. Loss of these identifying proteins could result in cellular progression towards cancer and, subsequently, metastasis. However, lipids may play a…

The approach reduces the number of iterations before landing upon a feasible solution and then redefines the problem to drastically reduce solving time Bicycle sharing is an attractive zero-carbon transportation option for a world that is being increasingly disrupted by climate change. But bikes need to be restored at bike…

Researchers from Japan design a tunable physical reservoir device based on the dielectric relaxation at an electrode-ionic liquid interface Physical reservoir computing (PRC), which relies on the transient response of physical systems, is an attractive machine learning framework that can perform high-speed processing of time-series signals at low power. However…

KNT-127, a promising therapeutic, offers hope to patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders by acting to suppress fearful memories Fearful events negatively impact the brain. For instance, war veterans often go through post-traumatic stress disorder months after the cessation of the triggering event. Now, in a study led by Tokyo…

“Scents” of Alarm: Volatile Chemical Signals from Damaged Plants Warn Neighbors about Herbivore Attacks Researchers discover the epigenetic mechanisms of volatile-signal-induced activation of defense genes in plants Animals often use highly specific signals to warn their herd about approaching predators. Surprisingly, similar behaviors are also observed among plants. Shedding more…

The new bacterial strain belongs to the group Candidatus phylum Dependentiae, a group of organisms that can only grow inside other cells Certain types of bacteria are unable to survive and thrive outside host organisms. This makes their isolation and identification technically challenging. Recently, a researcher from Tokyo University of…

Japanese researchers develop a nanoparticle-based drug delivery system from corn/maize to target cancer cells Nanomaterials have revolutionized the world of cancer therapy, and plant-derived nanoparticles have the added advantage of being cost-effective and easy to mass produce. Researchers from Tokyo University of Science have recently developed novel corn-derived bionanoparticles for…

New insight into a key protein could lead to novel treatments for diseases such as contact dermatitis and asthma The CCL17/TARC chemokine is involved in many immune-mediated diseases, and is a well-known biomarker of atopic dermatitis. However, the proteins that regulate CCL17 expression are not clear. Recently, scientists from Japan…