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Studying other galaxies can help us understand the origins of the universe. Here, the authors study a type of galaxies known as Green Peas gaining insights that could help inform our understanding of Lyman alpha emitters, one of the first types of galaxies that existed in the early universe.

The current five-year survival rate of metastasized prostate cancer is only 30% and occurs in every one in nine men. Researchers have shown that people with a type of dwarfism called Laron’s Syndrome are immune to cancer due to their low levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1). For this reason, experimentally modifying the level of IGF-1 could provide better insight into whether lowering the levels of IGF-1 in prostate cancer cell lines (e.g. PC-3) could be an effective treatment to reduce their rates of proliferation and migration and increase apoptosis. We selected three compounds, which researchers have shown decrease IGF-1 levels, to test and combine to determine which is the most promising.

A significant percentage of cancer survivors develop a second primary cancer. Using data of deceased patients provided by the Peninsula Regional Medical Center, Li and Holdai conducted a retrospective statistical analysis to investigate whether the type of the first cancer affects the occurrence time and type of the second primary cancer.

Van der Woude syndrome is a common birth defect caused by mutations in the gene Irf6. In this project, students used microarray expression analysis from wild-type and Irf6-deficient mice in order to identify gene networks or pathways differentially regulated due to the Irf6 mutation. They found NF-κB pathway to be activated in deficient mice.

The printing-related expenditure that is budgeted in 2014 for U.S. Federal agencies is $1.8 billion. A sample of five publically available documents produced by various federal agencies is analyzed and the cost savings arising from a change in font type are estimated. The analysis predicts that the Government’s annual savings by switching to Garamond are likely to be about $234 million with worst-case savings of $62 million and best-case savings of $394 million. Indirect benefits arising from a less detrimental impact on the environment due to lower ink production and disposal volumes are not included in these estimates. Times New Roman is not as efficient as Garamond, and the third federally-recommended font, Century Gothic, is actually worse on average than the fonts used in the sample documents.

Cancer is often caused by improper function of a few proteins, and sometimes it takes only a few proteins to malfunction to cause drastic changes in cells. Here the authors look at the genes that were mutated in patients with a type of pancreatic cancer to identify proteins that are important in causing cancer. They also determined which proteins currently lack effective treatment, and suggest that certain proteins (named KRAS, CDKN2A, and RBBP8) are the most important candidates for developing drugs to treat pancreatic cancer.

Environment affects the progression of life, especially at the cellular level. This study investigates multiple 3-dimensional growth environments, also known as scaffolds or hydrogels, and their effect on the growth of a type of cells called fibroblasts. These results suggest that a scaffold made of collagen and polyethylene glycol are favorable for cell growth. This research is useful for developing implantable devices to aid wound healing.

Textile waste from the fashion industry is a major environmental pollutant, but recycling waste into novel building material is a strategy to reduce the negative effects. This manuscript characterized five different binders that can be used to repurpose textile waste into bricks for construction purposes. Water-based glue, cement, white cement, plaster of Paris, and epoxy resin were mixed with shredded textile waste, and the mechanical characteristics and thermal insulation of each brick type were measured. Bricks with increased mechanical strength had the poorest thermal resistance, and the contrasting properties would suit different building purposes. This work provides a first step in generating recycled textile bricks for construction in a circular economy framework.

Here the authors investigated the natural recovery of stress-induced dopamine-related gene deficits in C. elegans by measuring the expression of cat-2 (dopamine biosynthesis) and sod-2 (oxidative stress) following exposure to starvation or hydrocortisone. They found that the reversibility of sod-2 and the expression of cat-2 were highly dependent on the type and severity of the stressor, suggesting that the body's natural ability to recover from dopamine dysfunction has biological limitations.

Here the authors hypothesized that reducing folliculin (FLCN) might affect p62 protein levels in the dorsal hippocampus of mice, given their potential functional connection and p62's role in neurodegenerative diseases. Their study, using western blots and a two-way ANOVA on young wild-type mice, found that p62 levels correlated with FLCN expression, but ultimately concluded there's no evidence of a functional connection between FLCN and p62 in this specific model.