Developmental biologists have made surprising discoveries on the evolutionary origins of cell types, organs and body plans. Now, an elegant study in Drosophila raises interesting questions about the origin of two major endocrine organs of insects.

Face masks are key personal protective equipment for reducing exposure to viruses and other environmental hazards such as air pollution. Integrating flexible wearable sensors into face can provide valuable insights public health. The advantages that a breath-monitoring mask requires, including multi-functional sensing ability continuous, long-term dynamic breathing process monitoring, have been...

BACKGROUND Computerized analysis of breath sounds has relied on human auditory perception as the reference standard for identifying crackles. In this study, we tested the human audibility of crackles by superimposing artificial clicks on recorded breath sounds and having physicians listen to the recordings to see if they could identify the crackles. OBJECTIVES To establish the audibility of s...

The influence of breathing pattern on lung deposition and bronchodilator response to nebulised salbutamol is uncertain. Three different breathing patterns were assessed in eight patients with chronic stable asthma. Salbutamol solution (2 5 mg in 4 ml) mixed with technetium-99m labelled human serum albumin was nebulised by an Acorn nebuliser at a flow rate of6 litres a minute. Particles with a m...