Over the years there has been quite a bit of debate about whether house plants really can filter indoor air by removing toxins and particles. NASA tests in a spacecraft packed with plants showed markedly better air, but proving that plants are efficient filters in other situations hasn’t been so easy.
Cancer researchers dream of the day they can force tumor cells to morph back to the normal cells they once were. Now, researchers on Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus have discovered a way to potentially reprogram cancer cells back to normalcy.
For years, pathogens’ resistance to antibiotics has put them one step ahead of researchers, which is causing a public health crisis. But now scientists have discovered a new antibiotic that eliminates pathogens without encountering any detectable resistance — a finding that challenges long-held scientific beliefs and holds great promise for treating chronic infections like tuberculosis and those caused by MRSA.
Raw honey has been used against infections for millennia, before honey — as we now know it — was manufactured and sold in stores. So what is the key to its’ antimicrobial properties? Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have identified a unique group of 13 lactic acid bacteria found in fresh honey, from the honey stomach of bees. The bacteria produce a myriad of active antimicrobial compounds.
Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have conducted experiments on mice to find possible solutions for dementia (mice typically succumb to Alzheimer’s symptoms within a year of birth). They discovered that a daily dose of fisetin, a flavanol found in strawberries, mangos, cucumbers, and other fruit and vegetables, successfully arrested the progressive loss of memory and other deleterious symptoms associated with learning. The research was published in the journal Aging Cell.