Photosynthetic Aphids

post from CR4 - Recent Blog Entries on 18 August 2012 10:57:06 PM. © CR4 - Recent Blog Entries

From Neatorama: Photosynthesis, the process of by which light energy is captured from the sun and turned into chemical energy, as any school children know, is what plants do every day. But scientists have discovered that an animal that may actually be able to do it. Read the whole a

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Pancreatic Cancer Isn’t Aggressive

post from Science Ain't So Bad on 18 August 2012 08:16:42 PM. © Science Ain't So Bad

A new doctor

Let's have a look at that pancreas

FINDING PANCREATIC CANCER EARLY

Five percent.

That?s the survival rate. By the time pancreatic cancer is found it?s been there for years. 11.7 years on average. You?re not gonna have much luck with a cancer that?s had 11.7 years to spread.

11.7 years? You thought this was an aggressive cancer, right? Boom! And you’re a goner?

Nay, nay! Pancreatic cancer is slow it seems. But it grows in a dark and dingy place. There’s plenty of time after the train leaves the station. But it’ll circle the world a million times before you notice something’s wrong. (Enough with the railroad metaphors?)

So.

Here?s the good news. Dr. Mike Wallace, a ?gut guy? at the Mayo Clinic, discovered a way to use an endoscope (camera on a stalk) to look at cells in the small intestine. These cells change their appearance if there?s cancer down in the pancreas. I know this sounds cheesy. Why would you look in the intestine? It surprised the Docs too. But it certainly seems to work (though they’re trying to reduce the number of “false positives”.) The Mayo clinic is in charge of a great big trial to see if his Polarization Gating Spectroscopy technique won’t save lives. Perhaps a lot of them.

And that’s not all.

There’s a new drug, rigosertib, that is now in phase II/III clinical trials (published in Clinical Cancer Research) and sounds very promising. It interferes with the peculiar timing of cancer cells so that they “get stuck” before completing their reproduction cycle and die out.

Pancreatic cancer’s one of the bad ones. Maybe, with some luck, that will change.

- – - – - – -

Image credits: Thank you me.

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http://scienceaintsobad.com/archives/11954

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The physics of the wet dog shake

post from Top stories on 18 August 2012 05:48:21 PM. © Top stories

Story Source

Anyone who has a dog as a pet knows to avoid getting close to them when they are wet because they have a remarkable ability to shake themselves in such a way that the water flies off and drenches everything nearby. The interesting questions are why they do that and how they do that.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/physics-wet-dog-shake

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The Potential of Cognitive Surplus

post from Top stories on 18 August 2012 03:18:08 PM. © Top stories

During his lecture at Singularity University's 2011 Graduate Studies Program, Clay Shirky talked about the emergence of global interconnectedness and its effects on business, culture and human rights.

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http://machineslikeus.com/videos/potential-cognitive-surplus

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Hackers Backdoor the Human Brain, Successfully
Extract Sensitive Data

post from CR4 - Recent Blog Entries on 18 August 2012 01:19:38 PM. © CR4 - Recent Blog Entries

From ExtremeTech: With a chilling hint of the not-so-distant future, researchers at the Usenix Security conference have demonstrated a zero-day vulnerability in your brain. Using a commercial off-the-shelf brain-computer interface, the researchers have shown that it's possible to hack yo

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http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/20836/Hackers-Backdoor-the-Human-Brain-Succes
sfully-Extract-Sensitive-Data?from_rss=1

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MIT 'Microthrusters' Are the Size of a
Penny, Could Reposition Tiny Satellites

post from CR4 - Recent Blog Entries on 18 August 2012 01:15:13 PM. © CR4 - Recent Blog Entries

From Engadget: Bus-sized satellites require massive engines for even the slightest movements, but as far smaller structures become a possibility, a tiny driving mechanism can offer usable thrust. To serve this next-gen tech, MIT saw a need to develop "microthrusters," which are each the

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http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/20835/MIT-Microthrusters-Are-the-Size-of-a-Pe
nny-Could-Reposition-Tiny-Satellites?from_rss=1

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NASA Unveils Tentative Travel Plans for Mars
Rover

post from CR4 - Recent Blog Entries on 18 August 2012 01:12:20 PM. © CR4 - Recent Blog Entries

From CNET News: The Curiosity Mars rover likely will spend the rest of the year near its landing site before striking out for Mount Sharp, where layered terrain is expected to hold clues to the planet's evolution. Read the whole article

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http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/20834/NASA-Unveils-Tentative-Travel-Plans-for
-Mars-Rover?from_rss=1

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In defense of uncharitable and superficial
history of philosophy

Story Source

Charity sounds like a good thing. And it sounds like a good thing when reading the history of philosophy.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/defense-uncharitable-and-superficial-history-philo
sophy

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Synthetic biology book written in DNA - literally

Story Source

Although George Church's next book doesn't hit the shelves until Oct. 2, it has already passed an enviable benchmark: 70 billion copies?roughly triple the sum of the top 100 books of all time. But they fit on your thumbnail.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/synthetic-biology-book-written-dna-literally

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Fun for all ages: creating and mapping a volcano

Here?s a fun, cheap, and only slightly messy demonstration activity for kids of all ages, even 46-year-old kids: creating and mapping an ancient volcano.

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http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/20120818-fun-for-all-ages-volcano.html

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