Top Research Breakthroughs For 2019
Are our brains able to tune in to the Earth’s magnetic field? According to Joseph Kirschvink, a geobiology professor at the California Institute of Technology, the evidence suggests that they do. Kirschvink found that the participants responded to the experiment by subconsciously “freaking out,” suggesting that our brains can sense changes in the magnetic field on some level. Similar magnetic senses—or, to use the technical term, magnetoreception—have been observed in cattle, turtles, and pigeons.
One day, we may be building electronic devices from our own skin. Melanin, the pigment responsible for coloring our skin and hair, could be one of the building blocks of the bionic implants and technology of tomorrow. With a newly discovered technique, scientists can drastically improve the pigment’s ability to conduct electricity. In fact, Italian nanoscientist Paolo Tassini and his colleagues have managed to increase the conductivity of melanin a billion times over.
Alzheimer’s disease is a devastating chronic condition that currently has no known cure. However, neuroscientists at MIT’s Picower Institute have made a potentially great stride forward in developing a treatment. The group has discovered that exposing mice to flickering lights and rapid clicking noises seems to keep Alzheimer’s at bay. The strobe lights and high-speed clicking also appear to improve the memory skills of mice with symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. These external stimuli induce brain waves that positively alter the composition of proteins in the brain. According to the research findings, mice that listened to the clicks for an hour a day performed faster in maze challenges and had considerably better object recognition skills.
It looks as if we are one step closer to getting a male contraceptive pill. A recent trial found that the drug brought down the levels of hormones that lead the testes to produce sperm. Scientists will now need to determine whether the sperm count itself has fallen by a sufficient amount. During the trial, which was led by researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle, 40 healthy volunteers took a capsule each day with food. Three-quarters received a dose of the contraceptive drug 11-beta-MNTDC, and the remaining 10 just consumed placebos. Scientists discovered considerably lower levels of certain hormones among the men that took the drug, a decent indication that fewer sperm are being produced.
The human brain is a thing of exquisite beauty. It is also phenomenally complex. Neurons fire off messages at breakneck speed across an intricate web of pathways. Every one of our thoughts and actions—everything from complex emotions to jerk reflexes—is controlled by that great cerebral nexus. Creating a replica human brain would be a prodigious challenge. We aren’t even entirely sure how it works in the first place. In a staggering feat of science, researchers at Cambridge University have managed to grow a miniature, simplified human brain the size of a lentil. In some senses, the tiny bead of gray matter resembles the brain of a human fetus after three to four months of pregnancy. In terms of size, it sits somewhere between a cockroach and a zebra fish.
Experts are celebrating a potential watershed moment in mental health treatment after a ketamine-related antidepressant was given the green light earlier in the month. Esketamine, which will be branded as the nasal spray Spravato, has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment when traditional psychiatric drugs are not appropriate. There is a vast array of different brands and styles, all currently available antidepressants work in effectively the same way. Typically, patients are required to wait weeks before they feel the results of their treatment, whereas esketamine is said to be rapid-acting. The effects kick in within a matter of hours or days.
The donor of the transplanted stem cells has an unusual genetic mutation which makes them resistant to HIV. In the 18 months since the London patient stopped taking his antiretroviral medication, there have been no indicators that the HIV has returned. Researchers will never be able to consider bone marrow transplant as a large-scale cure for HIV. The procedure comes with a number of serious risks. However, the success of the London patient and of Timothy Brown, the first person to be cured back in the 2000s, serves as confirmation that recovery is possible.
Knobull suggests added details at: https://listverse.com/2019/04/01/top-10-scientific-breakthroughs-of-the-month-march-2019/