Following a space flight to the International Space Station and back to earth thousands of tiny worms are set to help researchers understand more about muscle loss in astronauts. During spaceflight an astronaut’s body changes. Losing muscle mass can affect their ability to work on a long space mission. Astronauts can lose up to 40% of their muscle after 6 months in space.
Worms can tell us more about human ageing than you might think, according to research led by the Babraham Institute. In a cluster of papers, the latest of which has just been published, shows how researchers have used the tiny worm C. elegans to understand more about the link between metabolism and ageing.
Are you aware of inspiring research, supported by BBSRC, making a real, tangible difference to people’s lives? If so, this is an opportunity to put your writing skills to the test.
UK organisations holding grants from Horizon 2020, the European Union’s flagship programme for research and innovation, need to submit information about them into a UKRI portal designed to capture basic details about the grants. This will ensure that UKRI can keep UK researchers and businesses informed of the next steps if the government needs to underwrite Horizon 2020 payments.
Researchers have made a significant break-through in understanding how a family of viruses, including the norovirus, initiate infections. The new study, published in Nature and led by the University of Glasgow, reveals the inner workings of the calicivirus family, which includes norovirus and sapoviruses – highly infectious viruses that can cause outbreaks of diarrhoea and vomiting.
