Medical research

How a single protein could unlock age-related vision loss

Research led by Sanford Burnham Prebys professor Francesca Marassi, Ph.D., is helping to reveal the molecular secrets of macular degeneration, which causes almost 90% of all age-related vision loss. The study, published recently ...

Neuroscience

How neurons talk to each other

Neurons are connected to each other through synapses, sites where signals are transmitted in the form of chemical messengers. Reinhard Jahn, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, has ...

Medical research

Research challenges decades-old understanding of how we hear sound

Researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, have made several discoveries on the functioning mechanisms of the inner hair cells of the ear, which convert sounds into nerve signals that are processed in the brain. The results, ...

Cardiology

Widely used blood pressure drugs might put heart at risk

Drugs based on a molecule called dihydropyridine are commonly prescribed by doctors to treat high blood pressure and angina, a chest pain caused by reduced blood flow to the heart. However, there's a chance that these same ...

Medical research

A new pathway for an anti-aging drug

In 1972, Easter Island, called Rapa Nui, famous for its moai statues, offered a new wonder: the discovery of the drug rapamycin.

Immunology

The immune system: Knocked off balance

Instead of protecting us, the immune system can sometimes go awry, as in the case of autoimmune diseases and allergies. A Ludwig-Maximilian-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich team has dissected how mast cells regulate their calcium ...

Neuroscience

Cracking brain memory code

(Medical Xpress) -- Despite a century of research, memory encoding in the brain has remained mysterious. Neuronal synaptic connection strengths are involved, but synaptic components are short-lived while memories last lifetimes. ...

Arthritis & Rheumatism

How mitochondrial damage ignites the 'auto-inflammatory fire'

Mitochondria are self-contained organelles (they possess their own mini-chromosome and DNA) residing within cells and are charged with the job of generating the chemical energy needed to fuel functions essential to life and ...

Neuroscience

Amplifying communication between neurons

Neurons send signals to each other across small junctions called synapses. Some of these signals involve the flow of potassium, calcium and sodium ions through channel proteins that are embedded within the membranes of neurons. ...

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Calcium

Calcium (pronounced /ˈkælsiəm/) is the chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. It has an atomic mass of 40.078 amu. Calcium is a soft grey alkaline earth metal, and is the fifth most abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust. Calcium is also the fifth most abundant dissolved ion in seawater by both molarity and mass, after sodium, chloride, magnesium, and sulfate.

Calcium is essential for living organisms, particularly in cell physiology, where movement of the calcium ion Ca2+ into and out of the cytoplasm functions as a signal for many cellular processes. As a major material used in mineralization of bones and shells, calcium is the most abundant metal by mass in many animals.

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