Machine learning to the rescue

The tsetse fly has wreaked devastation across large swaths of sub-Saharan Africa. About the size of a housefly, the insect transmits a parasite that can be lethal to both humans (sleeping sickness) and animals (nagana) – especially cattle. In many countries of the sub-Sahara, there are large regions where farmers cannot raise cattle; most eventually…

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At what age do you feel 65?

SEATTLE – At what age do you feel 65? A 30-year gap separates countries with the highest and lowest ages at which people experience the health problems of a 65-year-old, according to a new scientific study. Researchers found 76-year-olds in Japan and 46-year-olds in Papua New Guinea have the same level of age-related health problems…

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THOR wrangles complex microbiomes into a model for improving them

IMAGE: Bacillus bacteria, marked with green fluorescence, changed its growth pattern around other members of the THOR community, spreading around and over other bacteria. view more  Credit: Gabriel Lozano and Jo Handelsman MADISON, Wis. — “Microbial communities run the world,” says Jo Handelsman, director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “People…

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Precision drugs could unmask cancers to immune system and boost effects of immunotherapy

NHS-approved PARP inhibitor therapy found to boost the body’s immune response Drugs could be used to increase number of patients who respond to immunotherapies Treatment developed for ovarian and breast cancers could also work in some lung cancers Precision cancer drugs called PARP inhibitors have a previously unknown ability to boost the immune system, and…

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