urine

A New Zealand couple suffered a less-than-pleasant flight after sitting in a passenger’s urine during a 10-hour international flight from Bangkok to Sydney.The revolting incident unfolded just before New Year’s on December 30, 2023, as two Kiwis flew from Bangkok, Thailand, to Sydney, Australia, en route to their motherland, the New York Post reported.One of the unidentified travelers from Wellington described the moment they realized they had been stuck in a total nightmare: “Now we know that we have been sitting in…

A groundbreaking study by the University of Maryland and NIH researchers has revealed that the enzyme bilirubin reductase is responsible for the yellow color of urine. This discovery, linking the gut microbiome to various health conditions, marks a significant advance in understanding the biological processes and potential treatments for diseases like jaundice and inflammatory bowel disease. Credit: SciTechDaily.comIn a major scientific breakthrough, researchers have identified the enzyme responsible for urine’s yellow…

Scientists say they’ve finally answered an age-old question: Just why is our pee yellow? In new research, a team found the enzyme produced by gut bacteria that plays a major role in turning our urine mellow. Curiosity aside, the discovery may actually help scientists better understand the gut microbiome and how it can contribute to certain health conditions, like jaundice in newborns.Let’s Eat a Chocolate Xbox ControllerUrine is the finale of our body’s natural drainage system. It’s made out of excess water and waste…

Researchers have developed a novel way of detecting brain cancer, using nanowires to ‘catch-and-release’ DNA in urine, enabling them to detect mutations that signify the presence of a brain tumor. Their method may one day mean that invasive tissue biopsies are no longer required.The definitive way to diagnose a brain tumor is to take a tissue biopsy, which involves surgery to remove a small amount of tumor tissue for examination under a microscope. This is obviously invasive and uncomfortable for the patient. But what if…

A nanoparticle sensor developed by Professor Sangeeta Bhatia, SM ’93, PhD ’97, and colleagues including former MIT postdoc Liangliang Hao, now an assistant professor at Boston University, could make it possible to detect and monitor cancers with an affordable paper-based urine test. The nanoparticles are a variation on a type of “synthetic biomarker” developed in Bhatia’s lab that can produce a more easily detectable signal than the natural markers present in tiny quantities in people with cancer. When injected…

Diagnosing cancer early makes a significant difference to the chances of a patient's successful recovery, which is why cheap, non-invasive screening tests are so important.A new diagnostic tool development by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US needs little more than a sample of urine, making it possible for some types of cancer to be screened at home much like a pregnancy test. No need for a trip to the doctor or to hospital, and no need for expensive scanning procedures or…

Archaeologists have unearthed a treasure trove of old medical supplies in a Renaissance-era trash dump found in the Forum of Caesar in Rome. The supplies include a variety of containers, including several ancient “urine flasks” used to collect patients’ pee for testing. The 16th-century dump was originally excavated in 2021. It’s believed the dump was leftover from the Ospedale dei Fornari (also known as the Bakers’ Hospital), which was built in the same space as Ceasar’s Forum. A paper on the discovery was…

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a long-term condition where the kidneys gradually lose their ability to function properly. It can be caused by a variety of factors including high blood pressure, diabetes, and genetics. Symptoms of CKD include fatigue, swelling, and difficulty sleeping, and if left untreated, it can progress to end-stage renal disease requiring dialysis or a kidney transplant.Researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine have discovered biomarkers that can predict the likelihood of chronic kidney disease in…

Schematic illustration of ‘Development of on-site applicable strip-type sensor for cancer diagnosis through the amplification of urine metabolites’ developed by Dr. Ho Sang Jung’s research team at Korea Institute of Materials Science. Credit: Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS)A research team has succeeded in developing a strip-type urine sensor that can amplify the light signal of metabolites in urine and in diagnosing cancer in the field. This result came from an effort to find metabolites in urine that was led…

One day, ants might help save lives by acting as inexpensive bio-detectors. Their powerful sense of smell allows them to distinguish subtle molecular differences in biological samples that we would otherwise require expensive equipment to detect.A new proof-of-concept study just demonstrated this skill could be harnessed to detect cancers in urine samples, at least from lab mice."Ants show the potential to become a fast, efficient, inexpensive and non-invasive tool for detection of human tumors," Sorbonne University…