Health
- Even with increased physical costs, female barn swallows prioritize the needs of their offspring over their own health. Though songbirds are the focus of the new study, it might pertain to many species—humans included—and the price of parenthood.
- CU Boulder researcher Jesse Kurland shows in a new study that aging is a complex process affecting genetic networks, and altering one gene won’t stop it.
- Federal regulators approved the first over-the-counter oral contraceptive. CU Boulder’s Amanda Stevenson says the impacts could be sweeping. But she cautions that real threats to contraceptive access in the U.S. still exist.
- In the wake of the devastating Marshall Fire, a team of chemists and engineers from CU Boulder undertook a first-of-its-kind study to explore homes that survived the blaze. Their results reveal the potential health hazards that wildfires can leave behind in buildings.
- Maciej Walczak, CU Boulder associate professor of chemistry, won a $2 million NIH grant to investigate how certain sugars modify a brain protein associated with neurodegeneration.
- New research shows that cancer cells can adapt in as little as one to two hours to new drugs called CDK2 inhibitors. The good news: Adding a second, widely available drug disables this workaround, squelching tumor growth.
- An ancient, virus-like protein best known for its essential role in placental development may, when over-expressed, fuel ALS—aka Lou Gehrig's disease—and other neurodegenerative diseases, according to new research. The discovery opens the door to a new class of potential treatments.
- A revolutionary technique for editing genomes, called CRISPR-Cas9, has already helped cure sickle cell disease in dozens of people. But it also raises ethical concerns, which a panel of preeminent scientists grappled with at an event on the CU Boulder campus.
- A study led by a CU Boulder researcher finds that flavored tobacco products reduce the likelihood of cessation later, but researchers say more investigation is needed.
- A new study led by Angela Bryan, a CU Boulder professor and cancer survivor, is among the first to assess how cannabis bought over the counter at dispensaries—rather than government-supplied or synthetic varieties—impacts cancer symptoms or chemotherapy side effects.