The Research

, Credit: Northwestern University Specially programmed stem cells demonstrated the potential to regenerate lost muscle mass in muscular dystrophy, according to a Northwestern Medicine study published in Nature Communications.   Scientists reprogram stem cells to regenerate muscle in muscular dystrophy Images showing MiPs inducing regeneration of both heart and muscle tissue (green), and subsequent destruction of regenerated tissue when the MiPs are turned off by the molecule AP20187.  Elizabeth McNally, MD, Ph.D., the Elizabeth J. Ward Professor of Genetic Medicine, was a co-author on the study and Mattia Quattrocelli, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in McNally's lab, was one of the study's co-senior authors. Muscular dystrophy is a genetic disease characterized by the progressive loss of both skeletal and cardiac muscle mass. While there is no cure, physical therapy or medication can offer relief for symptoms, and recent advancements in induced pluripotent stem c...

Machine learning computer systems, which get better with experience, are poised to transform the economy much as steam engines and electricity have in the past. They can outperform people in a number of tasks, though they are unlikely to replace people in all jobs. So say Carnegie Mellon University’s Tom Mitchell and MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson in a Policy Forum commentary to be published in the Dec. 22 edition of the journal  Science.  Mitchell, who founded the world’s first Machine Learning Department at CMU, and Brynjolfsson, director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy in the Sloan School of Management, describe 21 criteria to evaluate whether a task or a job is amenable to machine learning (ML). “Although the economic effects of ML are relatively limited today, and we are not facing the imminent ‘end of work’ as is sometimes proclaimed, the implications for the economy and the workforce going forward are profound,” they write. The skills people choose to develo...

Singing in groups could make you happier – according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA). Researchers examined the benefits of singing among people with mental health conditions including anxiety and depression. They found that people who took part in a community singing group maintained or improved their mental health. And that the combination of singing and socialising was an essential part of recovery because it promoted an ongoing feeling of belonging and wellbeing. Lead researcher Prof Tom Shakespeare from UEA’s Norwich Medical School and his researcher Dr Alice Whieldon worked in collaboration with the Sing Your Heart Out (SYHO) project, based in Norfolk. The grassroots initiative runs weekly singing workshops, aimed at people with mental health conditions as well as the general public. It originally began at Hellesdon psychiatric hospital in 2005, but afterwards moved into the community. Around 120 people now attend four free workshops each we...

Ever sleep poorly and then walk out of the house without your keys? Or space out while driving to work and nearly hit a stalled car? A new study led by UCLA’s Dr. Itzhak Fried is the first to reveal how sleep deprivation disrupts brain cells’ ability to communicate with each other. Fried and his colleagues believe that disruption leads to temporary mental lapses that affect memory and visual perception. Their findings are published online by  Nature Medicine. “We discovered that starving the body of sleep also robs neurons of the ability to function properly,” said Fried, the study’s senior author, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Tel Aviv University. “This leads to cognitive lapses in how we perceive and react to the world around us.” The international team of scientists studied 12 people who were preparing to undergo surgery at UCLA for epilepsy. The patients had electrodes implanted in their brains in order to pinpoin...