University of Basel

With about 40 million bacteria living in and on you, some microbes have developed a tiny speargun that injects lethal poisons to their neighbors to thin out the competition. Now, researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland have finally figured out just how the deadly weapon works.

​The human brain remains an enigma, but neuroscience is beginning to unravel its secrets. To help us navigate the murky waters of peering into the human mind, researchers from Switzerland have proposed four new human rights relating to limitations on how the brain should be read or manipulated.

Some larger types might opt for a lizard or even a frog, but the great majority of spiders love to eat insects. So much so, that the world's spiders consume somewhere between 400 and 800 million of biomass each year consisting almost entirely of creep crawlies, a new study has shown.

Like soldiers, white blood cells need to be precise when fighting off invaders, otherwise healthy parts of the body could be damaged. Researchers have just uncovered the role of an enzyme in the process that allows white blood cells to attack with sniper-like precision while limiting friendly fire.

Depending on the part of the body and the nature of the injury, cartilage either doesn’t grow back at all, or does so very slowly. Now, however, researchers are reporting that cartilage cells harvested from a patient’s own nose can be used to grow replacement cartilage for their knee.

Researchers from Switzerland's University of Basel have performed nose reconstruction surgery using engineered cartilage grown in the laboratory. The cartilage was spawned form the patient's own cells in an approach that could circumvent the need for more invasive surgeries and their side-effects.