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Knees are among our hardest-working joints. They help us walk, pivot, jump and climb stairs. But strain, pain and diseases like arthritis can damage them so badly they need to be replaced. And unless they're designed, installed and loaded properly, knee replacements can also fail sometimes. Now a Western professor of mechanical and materials engineering is working with an international team to help knee replacements last longer.

Brown dwarfs - celestial objects that fall between stars and planets - are shown in this illustration with a range of temperatures, from hottest (left) to coldest (right). The two in the middle represent those in the right temperature range for clouds made of silicates to form. (Illustration by NASA/JPL-Caltech) A new study led by researchers at Western University provides critical information on sand clouds observed in distant planets and helps affirm a larger theory of how planetary atmospheres work.

By having study participants inhale polarized xenon gas while inside the MRI, the researchers see in real-time the function of the 300'500 million tiny alveolar sacs, which are responsible for delivering oxygen to the blood. (Supplied photo/Paulina Wyszkiewicz) Many who experience what is now called 'long-COVID' report feeling brain fog, breathless, fatigued and limited in doing everyday things, often lasting weeks and months post-infection.

A new study out of Jessica Grahn's music lab suggests music training may preserve certain rhythmic motor training abilities in early-stage Parkinson's disease. Grahn, a psychology professor and member of the Western Institute for Neuroscience , combines her unique background as a classically trained concert pianist and training as a neuroscientist to focus on why humans move to rhythm, and how and why movement and rhythm may be connected in the brain.  "Humans naturally perceive and move to a music beat, falling into the rhythm through clapping, tapping and dancing," she said.

Western biomaterials expert Kibret Mequanint - in partnership with Malcolm Xing from the University of Manitoba - has developed the first-ever hydrophobic (water-hating) fluid, which displaces body fluids surrounding an injury allowing for near-instantaneous gelling, sealing and healing of injured tissue.

A new international collaborative study, involving multiple institutions including Western University, has found computer-based cognitive behavioural therapy (CCBT) has significantly greater impact in treating depression among adults than treatment as usual (TAU).

When planning ongoing care for a stroke patient, the focus tends to rest on the patient with sometimes little consideration for the family member or friend who will be their caregiver. Now, a new study is shining a spotlight on the challenges faced by stroke survivor caregivers when accessing health and social services for themselves.

Dr. Xiao Zhen Zhou (left) and Dr. Kun Ping Lu recently joined Western's Schulich Medicine and Dentistry from Harvard University. (credit: Schulich Medicine and Dentistry) Scientists Drs. Kun Ping Lu and Xiao Zhen Zhou are navigating a delicate balancing act. They are studying a stress response enzyme involved in a puzzling inverse relationship between cancer and Alzheimer's disease: People at risk for one disease are less likely to get the other.

The new McGill-Western Initiative for Translational Neuroscience will focus its research on biotherapeutics and Parkinson's disease (iStock) Two of the world's most accomplished neuroscience research initiatives at McGill and Western University have combined their expertise to take on two large-scale brain research projects.

New research from Western provides evidence viruses may be evolving much like a social network, creating a web of intersecting subtypes. (credit: Usis/iStock) Researchers from Western University may have discovered a new meaning to the social media phrase, "going viral." New research from Western University suggests some viruses evolve more like a dynamic social network - rather than a rigid tree, as was previously believed - recombining with one another to create a web of intersecting subtypes.

For the first time, the Canadian census results reveal some insights about gender diversity in Canada. (credit: ajijchan/iStock) For the first time in history, the Canadian census gave a picture of how many cisgender men and women, transgender and non-binary people live in Canada. The 2021 census was the first that enabled people to distinguish their lived gender from their sex at birth.

Western Engineering researchers have teamed up with Core Geoscience Services Inc. (CoreGeo) in a project to investigate the use of cryopurification - water treatment by freezing - for treating contaminated water in a mine in Northern Canada. It is a nature-inspired technology based on physics pointing to ice crystals as essentially made up of pure water.

A sample of black glass that recorded at 2,370 C temperature (Source: Gavin Tolometti) If there was ever any doubt the 2011 discovery by a post-doctoral candidate was indeed the hottest rock on Earth, new findings from a Western-led research team are putting that uncertainty to rest.

A new study from the Netherlands has revealed breastfeeding infants may not have been standard practice among mothers in the 1800s, as common perception would suggest. Led by Western biological anthropologist Andrea L. Waters-Rist , the study found unusually low rates of breast-fed infants at a 19th century rural Dutch village, likely because the mothers then were busy working.

MRI images of the brain can help researchers identify biomarkers that detect Parkinson's disease (Photo credit: Ali Khan) Five years ago, Alice Jones (not the patient's real name for privacy) noticed she was having trouble wiggling her toes and using her left shoulder for everyday tasks like washing her hair.

When Greta Bauer submitted her first grant proposal to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) 15 years ago, she had to convince reviewers that the research team was going to survey more trans people than should exist in Ontario. Research data at the time estimated there should be about 550 trans individuals in the entire province.

Multidisciplinary teams of researchers at Western's BrainsCAN are developing innovative ways to develop breakthrough treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. Western neuroscientists and neurologists are combining efforts to develop more efficient ways to test the effectiveness of medication for neurodegenerative diseases - the leading cause of disability in Canada.

The brain is the most complex network of neurons and synapses, and brain diseases continue to puzzle and challenge scientists and researchers across the globe. Neurodegenerative conditions rank in the top 10 causes of death worldwide and are the number one cause of disability in Canada. The organ that makes us self-aware and intelligent also fails us at an alarming rate.

Romantic dealbreakers, like laziness and living too far away, may be "dealbenders" when it comes to committed relationships. A new study, inventively designed by Western psychologists Nicolyn Charlot and Samantha Joel as a 'choose-your-own-adventure' revealed one romantic relationship problem may not be enough to call it quits but problems add up over time, eventually turning dealbenders into a dealbreaker.

Researchers at Western University's Schulich Medicine & Dentistry have identified how specific lesions in the brain could be used as early predictors of cognitive decline and identify those who are at high risk of developing dementia. The new findings, recently published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association , identify the importance of brain lesions known as white matter hyperintensities as early predictors of cognitive decline - which could lead to earlier interventions and improvements in patient outcomes.