In search of new knowledge and better treatments, cancer research is leaping out of the petri dish. Researchers at MIT and BU recently found that placing breast cancer cells in three-dimensional environments changes how they move around, bind to each other, and respond to drugs. The study, published in PLOS Computational Biology last week, adds to a growing body of three-dimensional cancer research that — experts hope — will enable greater understanding of the disease and how to fight it.

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Mussels, pounded by the oceans’ waves, fasten themselves to rocks as a matter of survival. Bacteria cast protein nets to hold onto surfaces for dear life. Now MIT researchers have combined the two in a clever new way, producing the best-ever underwater glue inspired by Mother Nature—and a potential replacement for today’s surgical stitches.

The new study, published in Nature Nanotechnology on September 21, describes glue made of super-sticky, self-assembling networks of protein fiber. Led by Chao Zhong—a physical science professor at ShanghaiTech University and former MIT post-doc—the study addresses an enormous need: man’s lack of effective underwater adhesives.

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Miles beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean, in cold, pressure, and complete darkness, Earth rips and folds along its seams. Seawater meets molten rock, and shoots upward as a superheated, chemical-laden soup. These are hydrothermal vents, the planet’s underwater volcanoes. Their bizarre world, full of strange creatures and extreme conditions, might seem like the last place to discover broadly applicable scientific breakthroughs. But the smallest organisms from this world, and the unexplored oceans at large, might hold profound insight for our own. Researchers have revealed that one hydrothermal vent microbe contains genetic material seen all over the world, and could help humans fight disease. Full Article »

Last month, I was fortunate enough to report on MIT ‘s “Make The Breast Pump Not Suck Hackathon,” during which about 150 engineers, designers, developers, and health care professionals gathered at the Media Lab to try to improve a very old piece of technology. If you feel like learning more about liquid superfoods, ZipTubes, and “Team Batman,” you can check out my coverage at the MIT News website.

The National Institutes of Health describes the childhood obesity epidemic as “a devastating public health crisis.” In just thirty years, obesity rates in American children in have doubled, reaching 18% as of 2012. An excess of body fat places these children at increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. But how did we get here? A controversial hypothesis published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings has proposed a new way to answer the question—and it doesn’t begin with the usual suspects.

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There should be a way for two women to have a child together. What’s the holdup?

There are many ways to start a family, and queer women take advantage of nearly all of them. A 2013 survey by the Williams Institute estimates that 24% of female couples are raising adopted, step, or biological children. Female couples who get pregnant together generally do so using donor sperm and Intra Uterine Insemination (or IUI). Many have developed strategies for maximizing the “together” part: one couple may choose a donor who resembles the partner whose genes are not directly represented, while another might decide to undergo “two-mom IVF,” in which one mom carries the other mom’s egg. Full Article »

Diet and exercise continue to make little headway against the obesity epidemic, which according to the CDC now affects over one-third of American adults. The recent FDA approval of Contrave adds another weapon in the fight against America’s growing waistline.

Patients taking Contrave, a combination of the two existing anti-depression and anti-addiction drugs bupropion and naltrexone, lost 6.1% of their total body weight in one clinical trial. Patients receiving placebo lost only 1.4%. These outcomes place Contrave squarely in line with Qsymia and Belviq, the two weight loss drugs that the FDA approved in 2012. Full Article »

It can be a challenge to make adhesives that stay sticky in wet conditions, but it’s an important task–especially in surgery, where repairs may need to hold strong amidst blood and other bodily fluids. But marine organisms like mussels, barnacles, and bacteria have figured out how to stick to wet rocks and surfaces with incredible strength. Researchers at MIT decided to steal a few tricks from these creatures. Read more at NOVA Next.

Pet owners rely on their furry friends for love and support, but many know very little about what their pets are fed, and with good reason. Commercial pet food labels can be tough to decipher and since pets need a different balance of proteins and nutrients than people, it’s hard to know if an animal is eating what they should. Here are four things you may not know about what your pet eats (and what it should be eating). Full Article »

In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published a study in The Lancet that has since been repeatedly and widely discredited, claiming that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine might cause autism. No such thing is true. It later came to light that Wakefield had violated ethics in many ways and deliberately lied about the results, and The Lancet retracted the paper in 2010.

Unfortunately, much damage was already done, as thousands of parents had decided not to vaccinate their children. In recent years, measles epidemics have been making a comeback, especially in Europe, where the MMR autism scare was greatest. In 2011 alone, measles outbreaks in Europe sickened 26,000 people and killed nine.

The irony of all this is that the MMR vaccine has been preventing autism all along, by protecting pregnant women from rubella. Full Article »