Cholesterol is a major component of neuronal cell membrane and myelin sheath. In this study, the authors either transfected Neuro 2A cells with CYP46A1 cDNA or treated the cells with 24SHC. Cells expressing CYP46A1 had significantly less viability compared to the negative control. Up to 55% reduction in cell viability was also observed in 24S-HC-treated cells. This work supports that CYP46A1 and 24S-HC could directly trigger cell death. The direct involvement of 24S-HC in cell death provides further evidence that 24S-HC can be a promising biomarker for diagnosing brain damage severity.

Cilia are little hair-like protrusions on many cells in the human body, including those lining the trachea where they play a role in clearing our respiratory tract of mucous and other irritants. Genetic mutations that impair ciliary function have serious consequences on our well-being making it important to understand how ciliary function is regulated. By using a simple organism, such as the worm C. elegans that use cilia to move, the authors explore the effect of certain genetic mutations on the cilia of the worms by measuring their ability to move towards or away from certain odorants.

Salmonella is a genus of bacteria responsible for over 90 million cases of intestinal illnesses yearly. Like many bacteria, Salmonella can create a biofilm matrix, which confers stronger resistance against antibiotics. However, there has been relatively little research on the inhibition of Salmonella biofilm formation, which is a crucial factor in its widespread growth. In this study, Lee and Kim quantitatively measure the effectiveness of several common probiotics in inhibiting Salmonella bacterial growth. They found concentration-dependent antibacterial effects varied among the probiotics tested, indicating the possibility of probiotic species-specific mechanisms of Salmonella growth inhibition.

In this study, the authors test different infill patterns to determine which would be the strongest and most durable for 3D printing applications, which have become an integral part of many facets of life.

In this study, the authors conduct a series of experiments within an elevator traveling on an angle to determine if Einstein's Equivalency Principle and motion vector decomposition can be used to calculate the angle of inclination.

The authors investigate whether Western Bluebirds and other perching birds consume eggshells, as a source of calcium, at a greater rate before reproduction and during nest building when they are unable to store calcium.

The authors found that treatment with AS20 suppressed phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) and 5-flurouracil (5-FU) induction of COX2 expression. We also observed AS20 treated cells showed DNA fragmentation in HeLa cells.

Heliobacter felis causes gastritis which is accompanied by a range of unpleasant symptoms in small animals such as cats. In order to identify effective antibiotics for treating H. felis infections, the researchers investigate whether a combination of different antibiotics is more effective than the use of individual antibiotics alone. Of the antibiotics they selected, Streptomycin alone was better than any other single antibiotic or in combination. Their results have not yet been validated in live animals, but suggest that Streptomycin alone might be an effective treatment of H. felis-induced gastritis in cats.

Fear of mathematics is a widespread phenomenon. Pandey and Pandey investigate what this fear has to do with the place of mathematics in a school curriculum, by developing a method for comparing mathematical problem complexity to the complexity of English literature coursework.

Machine learning algorithms are becoming increasingly popular for data crunching across a vast area of scientific disciplines. Here, the authors compare two machine learning algorithms with respect to accuracy and user-friendliness and find that random forest algorithms outperform logistic regression when applied to the same dataset.