Cancer – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com Open Source Entertainment, on Demand. Mon, 22 Feb 2016 02:47:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.3 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/cropped-favicon-32x32.png Cancer – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com 32 32 Cancer Drug & New Planet | SciByte 125 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/54812/cancer-drug-new-planet-scibyte-125/ Tue, 08 Apr 2014 19:52:29 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=54812 We take a look at a new cancer drug, a dwarf planet, new dinosaur, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and more!

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We take a look at a new cancer drug, a dwarf planet, new dinosaur, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

Possible New Cancer Drug

  • A new study has developed a new drug, ZL105, that can manipulate the body\’s natural signalling and energy systems, allowing the body to attack and shut down cancerous cells
  • Medicine Based on Precious Metals
  • Platinum-based drugs are used in nearly 50% of all chemotherapeutic regimens, they damage DNA and cannot select between cancerous and noncancerous cells
  • This new drug based on the precious metal iridium is specifically designed not to attack DNA and has a novel mechanism of action, means that it could not only dramatically slow down and halt cancer growth, but also significantly reduce the side effects
  • Treatment
  • Existing cancer treatments often become less effective after the first course, as cancer cells learn how they are being attacked, the newly developed drug is a catalyst and is active at low doses
  • The energy-producing machinery in cancer cells works to the limit as it attempts to keep up with quick proliferation and invasion, this makes cancer cells susceptible to minor changes in the cell \’power-house\’
  • This drug pushes cancer cells over the limit causing them to slow and shut down, whilst normal cells can cope with its effects
  • It can attack cancer cells in multiple ways at the same time, so the cancer is less able to adapt to the treatment, which means the new drugs could be much more effective than existing treatments
  • Effectiveness and the Future
  • Preliminary data indicate that the novel drug may be ten times more effective in treating ovarian, colon, melanoma, renal, and some breast cancers, according to data obtained by the US National Cancer Institute
  • Researchers now aim to expand the study to cancers that are inherently resistant to existing drugs and to those which have developed resistance after a first round of chemotherapy treatments.
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • New drug raises potential for cancer treatment revolution | MedicalXPress.com

— NEWS BYTE —

A Possible New Dwarf Planet

  • Astronomers have discovered a probable dwarf planet that orbits the Sun far beyond Pluto
  • Discovery
  • Astronomers been hunting for distant objects with the Dark Energy Camera, a 520-megapixel camera on the 4-meter Blanco telescope in Chile
  • They captured 2012 VP113 during their first observing run, in November 2012, on the fifth image of the hundreds they would eventually snap, for months they tracked the object, until its full orbit became more apparent
  • There have been a number of similar objects similar to this that have been found in the last decade that probably belong to the inner part of the Oort cloud
  • **The New Object [2012 VP113] **
  • The newfound object\’s official name is 2012 VP113, but the discovery team calls it VP for short, or just \’Biden\’ — after US Vice-President Joe Biden
  • It is roughly 450 kilometers across, just one-fifth Pluto\’s, if Pluto were as big as a basketball, this new world a mere golf ball
  • It\’s orbit takes it from 80 to 452 AU from the sun, never approaching Neptune (30 AU) or Pluto (39.5 AU).
  • Pluto orbits the sun every 248 years, the new world requires 4340 years
  • In several years time, after observations have pinned down its orbit, the scientists will submit a name for consideration by the International Astronomical Union (IAU)
  • Origins
  • Astronomers now have to come up with ideas to explain how these objects remain tightly gravitationally bound to the Sun when they orbit so far away.
  • There are several competing ideas for how objects such as Sedna and 2012 VP113 got to where they are today
  • One leading hypothesis proposes that in the Solar System’s infancy, a nearby star gravitationally perturbed the coalescing system and dragged some fragments out towards the edge
  • Another possibility is that a massive rogue planet passed through at some point, kicking objects from the Kuiper belt outwards into the inner Oort cloud.
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • New Dwarf Planet Has Most Distant Trajectory Known | Scientific American
  • ScienceShot: Small World Spotted Far Beyond Pluto | Science/AAAS
  • Discovery! Possible Dwarf Planet Found Far Beyond Pluto\’s Orbit | UniverseToday.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

New Dinosaur Found in the Dakota’s

  • Scientists unveiled the discovery, naming and description of a sharp-clawed, 500-pound, bird-like dinosaur that roamed the Dakotas with T. rex 66 million years ago
  • New Dinosaur, Anzu
  • Three partial skeletons of the dinosaur – almost making up a full skeleton – were excavated from the uppermost level of the Hell Creek rock formation in North and South Dakota
  • Like many \”new\” dinosaurs, Anzu wyliei fossils were discovered some years ago, and it took more time for researchers to study the fossils and write and publish a formal scientific description
  • The new dinosaur was 11.5 feet long, almost 5 feet tall at the hip and weighed an estimated 440 to 660 pounds
  • Its jaws were tipped with a toothless beak, and its head sported a tall, rounded crest similar to that of a cassowary (a large ground bird native to Australia and New Guinea)
  • The neck and hind legs were long and slender, also comparable to a cassowary or ostrich, the forelimbs of Anzu were tipped with large, sharp claws, and the tail was long and robust
  • The researchers believe Anzu, with large sharp claws, was an omnivore, eating vegetation, small animals and perhaps eggs while living on a wet floodplain
  • Studies of the rocks in which several of the most complete caenagnathid skeletons have been found show that these strata were laid down in humid floodplain environments
  • Two skeletons show signs of trauma, one with a broken and healed rib, the other has an arthritic toe bone that may have been caused by an avulsion fracture (where a tendon ripped a piece off the bone to which it was attached).
  • Whether these injuries were the result of combat between two individuals or an attack by a larger predator remains a mystery
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Nearly complete \’chicken from hell,\’ from mysterious dinosaur group | ScienceDaily
  • A \’chicken from hell\’ dinosaur: Large feathered dinosaur species discovered in North America | Phys.org

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

European Space Agencies Cometary Spacecraft Rosetta

  • ESA sent a wake-up call to the 100-kg (220-lb) lander riding aboard the Rosetta spacecraft, bringing it out of its nearly 33-month-long slumber and beginning its preparation for its upcoming
  • Philae Lander
  • The lander, Philae, will touch down on the surface of a comet in November of 2014 and is received a “personal wake-up call” from Earth, 655 million kilometers away.
  • A confirmation signal from the lander was received by ESA five and a half hours after the initial signal was sent
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube Philae touch down | European Space Agency, ESA European Space Agency, ESA
  • Twitter | ESA Rosetta Mission Verified account @ESA_Rosetta
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • ESA Awakens Rosetta\’s Comet Lander | UniverseToday.com

Opportunity Rover Power Boost

  • Opportunity rover on Mars has gotten a 70% boost in power over the past few weeks from a partial cleaning of dust from its solar panels
  • Combined, with the seasonal effect and multiple dust-cleaning events have increased the amount of energy available each day from the rover\’s solar array by more than 70 percent compared with two months ago
  • A good portion of that comes from the fact that its springtime in Mars’ southern hemisphere where Oppy now sits, so the Sun is now shining longer and higher in the sky.
  • Several recent gusts of wind – or perhaps small dust devils – have also cleaned much of the dust off the rover’s solar panels.
  • The rover team reported that between Sols 3605 and 3606 (March 15 and March 16, 2014), there was a dust cleaning event which resulted in about a 10% improvement in power production to 574 watt-hours, another cleaning event this week has put the power output to 615 watt-hours
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Mars Exploration Rover Mission | MarsRover.nasa.gov
  • Opportunity Rover Gets Power Boost from Wind Events on Mars | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • Arriving at New Science Location
  • The rover has reached a vantage point for its cameras to survey four different types of rock intersecting in an area called \”the Kimberley\”
  • This is the spot on the map the team has been headed for, on a little rise that gives a great view for context imaging of the outcrops at the Kimberley
  • The science team expects to take several weeks for observations, sample-drilling and onboard laboratory analysis of the area\’s rocks
  • The mission\’s investigations at the Kimberley are planned as the most extensive since Curiosity spent the first half of 2013 in an area called Yellowknife Bay
  • Researchers plan to use Curiosity\’s science instruments to learn more about habitable past conditions and environmental changes.
  • Multimedia
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Scoping Out Next Study Area – Mars Science Laboratory | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • April 9, 1959 : 55 years ago : First astronauts selected : NASA announced the selection of America\’s first seven astronauts for project Mercury. Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton were chosen from 110 applicants. Their training program at Langley, which ranged from a graduate-level course in introductory space science to simulator training and scuba-diving. Project Mercury, NASA\’s first high profile program, was an effort to learn if humans could survive in space. NASA required astronaut candidates to be male, not over 40 years old, not more than 5\’ 11\” height and in excellent physical condition. On 5 May 1961, Shepard became the first American in space

Looking up this week

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Strange Exoplanet & Cancer Therapy | SciByte 98 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/39077/strange-exoplanet-cancer-therapy-scibyte-98/ Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:44:46 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=39077 We take a look at a rule breaking exoplanet, non-toxic cancer therapy supplement, hidden antarctic mountains, a new astronaut class, and more!

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We take a look at a rule breaking exoplanet, non-toxic cancer therapy supplement, hidden antarctic mountains, a new astronaut class, story updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | Video | Torrent | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

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Book Pick:

Mysterious ExoPlanet

  • The gap in the cloud seen in the dust surrounding one star, probably arose when a planet under construction swept through the dust and debris in its orbit
  • This small planet (6 to 28 times Earth’s mass) if we can confirm it, shouldn’t be there according to conventional planet-forming theory
  • Current Formation Theories
  • Seeing such a gap follows what we think we know about planetary formation
  • You start with a cloud of debris and gas swirling around a star, then gradually the bits and pieces start colliding, sticking together and growing bigger into small rocks, bigger ones and eventually, planets or gas giant planet cores
  • If there is a planet and there is no dust larger than a grain of sand farther out, that would be a huge challenge to traditional planet formation models
  • How we Think it Should Have Formed vs. How it Appears
  • This planet is far from its star, TW Hydrae, about twice Pluto’s distance from the sun
  • TW Hydrae is a red dwarf star, which lies about 176 light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra
  • Given that alien systems’ age, that world shouldn’t have formed so quickly.
  • Astronomers believe that Jupiter took about 10 million years to form at its distance away from the sun
  • This planet near TW Hydrae should take 200 times longer to form because the alien world is moving slower, and has less debris to pick up
  • TW Hydrae is only 55 percent as massive as our sun and is believed to be only 8 million years old.
  • What This Might Mean
  • Astronomers are seriously investigating other theories about how this potential planet can to be formed
  • If we can actually confirm that there’s a planet there, we can connect its characteristics to measurements of the gap properties
  • These observations will add to planet formation theories as to how you can actually form a planet very far out
  • One alternative brought up in the press release: perhaps part of the disc collapsed due to gravitational instability
  • If that is the case, a planet could come to be in only a few thousand years, instead of several million
  • Direct collapse” theory, though: astronomers believe it takes a bunch of matter that is one to two times more massive than Jupiter before a collapse can occur to form a planet
  • This world is no more than 28 times the mass of Earth, as best as we can figure and Jupiter itself is 318 times more massive than Earth
  • There are also intriguing results about the gap, the dust grains in this system, orbiting nearby the gap, are still smaller than the size of a grain of sand
  • Astronomers plan to use ALMA and the James Webb Space Telescope, which should launch in 2018, to get a better look
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Should This Alien World Even Exist? This Young Disk Could Challenge Planet-Formation Theories | UniverseToday.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Non-Toxic Cancer Therapy Supplement

  • A research team from the Hyperbaric Biomedical Research Laboratory at the University of South Florida has found that a combination of nontoxic dietary and hyperbaric oxygen therapies effectively increased survival time in a mouse model of aggressive metastatic cancer
  • The research shows the effects of combining two nontoxic adjuvant cancer therapies, the ketogenic diet and hyperbaric oxygen therapy, in a mouse model of late-stage, metastatic cancer
  • This study demonstrates potential cost-effective, nontoxic therapies to contribute to current cancer treatment regimens
  • The Study
  • Metastasis, the spreading of cancer from the primary tumor to distant spots, is responsible for over 90 percent of cancer-related deaths in humans
  • In the study, mice with advanced metastatic cancer were fed either a standard high carbohydrate diet or carbohydrate-restricted ketogenic diet
  • Mice on both diets also received hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which uses a special chamber to increase the amount of oxygen in the tissues
  • Ketogenic Diet
  • The ketogenic diet forces a physiological shift in substrate utilization from glucose to fatty acids and ketone bodies for energy
  • Normal healthy cells readily adapt to using ketone bodies for fuel, but cancer cells lack this metabolic flexibility, and thus become selectively vulnerable to reduced glucose availability
  • Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
  • Solid tumors also have areas of low oxygen, which promotes tumor growth and metastatic spread
  • Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves breathing 100 percent oxygen at elevated barometric pressure, saturating the tumors with oxygen
  • The Combination
  • When administered properly, both the ketogenic diet and hyperbaric oxygen therapy are non-toxic and may even protect healthy tissues while simultaneously damaging cancer cells
  • Both therapies slowed disease progression independently, animals receiving the combined ketogenic diet and hyperbaric oxygen therapy lived 78 percent longer than mice fed a standard high-carbohydrate diet
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Talk| UCLA Health
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Nontoxic cancer therapy proves effective against metastatic cancer | MedicalXPress

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Buried Antarctic Mountain

  • The British Antarctic Survey, Bedmap2 has used millions of new measurements of the frozen continent\’s surface elevation, ice thickness, and bedrock topography from a wide variety of sources collected over several decades
  • The original Bedmap relied mostly on ground-based measurements, which limited the scientists in terms of how much land they could cover
  • A NASA program called Operation IceBridge sends out airplanes that fly over the entire continent.
  • The airplanes part of Operation IceBridge are equipped with lasers that measure the surface mountains\’ heights and other features, as well as ice-penetrating radar that maps subglacial bedrock-\”giving [scientists] a more 3-D picture of the ice sheet itself
  • The new data has revealed several smaller features-both on Antarctica\’s surface and buried under the ice-that were missed in the previous Bedmap effort
  • Scientists want to know the shapes of mountains and rocks to model how fast ice will move across these features on its way to the ocean, where the ice can melt and contribute to sea level rise
  • Multimedia
  • IMAGE | Interactive Slider of Two Views
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Antarctic\’s Mountains Revealed By Sharpest Map Yet | NationalGeographic.com

New NASA Astronaut Class of 2013

  • The 2013 astronaut candidate class comes from the second largest number of applications NASA ever has received — more than 6,100
  • This group might be among the first to ride commercial spacecraft to the Space Station, or NASA says perhaps even missions to an asteroid or Mars
  • The new astronaut candidates will begin training at NASA\’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in August
  • The Astronauts
  • Josh A. Cassada, Ph. D | A former naval aviator is a physicist by training and currently is serving as co-founder and Chief Technology Officer for Quantum Opus
  • Victor J. Glover, Lt. Commander, U.S. Navy | An F/A-18 pilot and graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School currently serving as a Navy Legislative Fellow in the U.S. Congress
  • Tyler N. Hague, Lt. Colonel, U.S. Air Force | Currently is supporting the Department of Defense as Deputy Chief of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization
  • Christina M. Hammock | Currently is serving as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Station Chief in American Samoa
  • Nicole Aunapu Mannl, Major, U.S. Marine Corps | Is an F/A 18 pilot, currently serving as an Integrated Product Team Lead at the U.S. Naval Air Station, Patuxent River
  • Anne C. McClain; Major, U.S. Army | Is an OH-58 helicopter pilot, and a recent graduate of U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Naval Air Station, Patuxent River
  • Jessica U. Meir, Ph.D. | Currently is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
  • Andrew R. Morgan, M.D, Major, U.S. Army | Has experience as an emergency physician and flight surgeon for the Army special operations community, and currently is completing a sports medicine fellowship
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube NASA Unveils 2013 Astronaut Class | VideoFromSpace
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NASA Selects 2013 Astronaut Candidate Class | NASA.gov

— Updates —

ARKYD Telescope Upgrade Available

LEGO Curiosity Rover

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • Answering Camera Questions
  • The team has received a lot of questions about the cameras on the rovers and are now trying to answer some of them
  • The Curiosity rover actually has 17 cameras on it, which is the most of any NASA planetary mission ever.
  • Many of the black and white images that come back from the rover are black and white, or gray scale, because that\’s all the rover really needs in order to detect rocks and other obstacles
  • Other cameras are color, such as the Mastcam imager, because the scientists use the color information to learn about the soil and the rocks
  • There are 1-megapixel black and white imagers for the engineering cameras and 2-megapixel color imagers for the science cameras
  • Camera Rundown
  • MARDI, or the Mars Descent Imager, took pictures as the rover was landing on Mars
  • MAHLI is the camera mounted on the end of the arm, and that takes close-up, high-resolution color photos
  • Hazard avoidance cameras, or the HazCams, there are four of these in the front and four in the back, and they\’re used to take pictures of the terrain near the wheels and nearby the rover
  • Mast Cameras, which are color imagers, which are used to do geology investigations
  • Navigation Cameras, which take pictures that are used to drive the rover
  • A remote microscopic imager, is part of the ChemCam laser instrument and is used to document the laser spots, that the rover makes on the surface
  • Video
  • In addition to the video taken when the rover was descending to the surface, the team has taken movies of the soil being shaken in the scoop
  • Since video files are pretty large and because they have a limited downlink each day, the scientists prefer to take still images of new targets
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Curiosity Rover Report (June 13, 2013): Curiosity\’s Cameras | JPLnews
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Video Transcript: Curiosity\’s Cameras | jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • June (18?), 240 BC : 2253 years ago : Eratosthenes : A Greek astronomer and mathematician, estimated the circumference of the earth. As the director of the great library of Alexandria, he read in a papyrus book that in Syene, approaching noon on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, shadows of temple columns grew shorter. At noon, they were gone. The sun was directly overhead. However, a stick in Alexandria, far to the north, could cast a pronounced shadow. Thus, he realized that the surface of the Earth could not be flat. It must be curved. Not only that, but the greater the curvature, the greater the difference in the shadow lengths. By measurement on the ground and application of geometry, he calculated the circumference of the earth.

Looking up this week

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Breast Cancer & Mayan Calender | SciByte 69 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/26761/breast-cancer-mayan-calender-scibyte-69/ Tue, 30 Oct 2012 20:38:10 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=26761 We take a look at strange quasars, fighting breast cancer, peek-a-boo, Mayan Calendar, and up in the sky this week.

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We take a look at strange quasars, fighting breast cancer, peek-a-boo, Mayan Calendar, updates on stories, spacecraft and Curiosity and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Download | Ogg Download | Video | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | Ogg Feed | iTunes Feed | Video Feed

Support the Show:

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Show Notes:

Crazy Quasar

  • What are Quasars?
  • Quasars (short for quasi-stellar object) are the brilliant cores of galaxies where infalling material fuels a supermassive black hole
  • The black hole is so engorged that some of the energy escapes as powerful blasts of radiation from the surrounding disk of accreting material
  • They are thought to be roughly 10–10,000 times the Schwarzschild radius of the black hole
  • The quasar can appear as a jet-like feature and if the beam shines in Earth’s direction and it can appear as a quasar that can outshine its surrounding galaxy a hundred or a thousand times.
  • They are among the most luminous, powerful, and energetic objects known in the universe emitting up to a thousand times the energy output of the Milky Way.
  • More than 200,000 quasars are known and only a handful of these very distant ultra-luminous quasars were found by the SDSS in about one quarter of the whole sky
  • The low down
  • Quasars have been the best and most easily observed beacons for astronomers to probe the distant Universe
  • Now, one of the most distant and brightest quasar is providing a bit of a surprise
  • Astronomers studying a distant galaxy, dubbed J1148+5251 and which contains a bright quasar, are seeing only the quasar and not the host galaxy itself
  • Significance
  • It has been thought that the quasar has been feeding on a handful of stars every year in order to bulk up to its size of three billion solar masses over just a few hundred million years.
  • However, we can not see the galaxy where all the stars would be
  • Near infrared views with the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 are only providing hints of what might be taking place
  • It is believed that the galaxy is so enshrouded with dust that none of the starlight can be seen and only the bright, glaring quasar shines through
  • Observations
  • The quasar was first identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the follow-up submillimeter observations showed significant dust but not how and where
  • Astronomers used Hubble to very carefully subtract light from the quasar image and look for the glow of surrounding stars.
  • Even after subtracting the quasar’s light remarkably Hubble didn’t find any of the underlying galaxy
  • Of Note
  • The early universe was dust-free until the first generation of stars started making dust through nuclear fusion most early galaxies contain hardly any dust
  • In order to make that much dust in an early galaxy it would need to make lots of short-lived massive stars earlier on that would lose their mass at the end of their lifetime
  • Because we don’t see the stars, we can rule out that the galaxy that hosts this quasar is a normal galaxy
  • This would be among the dustiest galaxies in the universe, so widely distributed that not even a single clump of stars is peeking through
  • Multimedia
  • Image An artist’s rendering of the most distant quasar | ESO.org | ESO/M. Kornmesser
  • Image Chandra Scores A Double Bonus With A Distant Quasar | chandra.harvard.edu | NASA/CXC/A.Siemiginowska(CfA)/J.Bechtold(U.Arizona)
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Ancient Quasar Shines Brightly, But All the Galaxy’s Stars Are Missing | UniverseToday.com
  • Quasar may be embedded in unusually dusty galaxy | Phys.org

— NEWS BYTE —

Suppressing tumors and metastases in breast cancer

  • The protein that is necessary for lactation, Elf5, in mammals inhibits the critical cellular transition that is an early indicator of breast cancer and metastasis
  • The low down
  • This is the first confirmed report that this protein, called Elf5, is a tumor suppressor in breast cancer
  • These findings provide new avenues to pursue in treating and diagnosing breast cancer and possibly cancers of other organs as well
  • Promising is that this includes findings from both animal and human breast cancer models.
  • Significance
  • Under normal circumstances, Elf5 is a transcription factor that controls the genes that allow for milk production
  • Elf5 keeps normal breast cells in their current shape and restricts their movement
  • When Elf5 levels are low or absent, epithelial cells become more like stem cells, morphing into mesenchymal cells
  • Mesenchymal cells, changing their shape and appearance and migrating elsewhere in the body which is how cancer spreads
  • The protein works suppressing the epithelial-mesenchymal transition by directly repressing transcription of Snail2, a master regulator of mammary stem cells known to trigger the EMT
  • Elf5 loss is frequently detected early and is also found that little or no Elf5 in human breast cancer samples correlated with increased morbidity.
  • Experiments conducted also show that this could also be an important diagnostic tool
  • Of Note
  • Research shows that the EMT-Snail 2 pathway is a valuable one to target for early breast cancer intervention
  • One way would be designing something to recapture the repressive effect of Elf5 or a drug that could mimic Elf5 activity
  • This is just one molecule, part of a big network, scientists are now creating a detailed map of this molecule and its associated partners in order to give a better idea of what to look for\
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Lactation protein suppresses tumors and metastasis in breast cancer, scientists discover | MedicalXPress.com

Peek-a-boo I don’t see you

  • The low down
  • Why do children think they can render themselves invisible if they cover their eyes, and why have nearly all young children come to this same conclusion?
  • Researchers at the University of Cambridge performed a variety of simple tests on groups of 3 and 4-year-old children to try and figure this out
  • Significance
  • They first placed children in eye masks and asked them whether they could be seen by the researchers
  • The researchers could see other adults if those adults were wearing eye masks
  • In addition nearly all the children felt that an adult would not be seen by other adults if those adults were wearing eye masks
  • Another test with a second group of children had them wearing one of two different sets of goggles
  • The first set of goggles were blacked out completely and the second set were one-way-mirrored
  • Most of the children wearing the mirrored goggles didn’t properly grasp the idea of one-way-mirrors
  • Those who did get it all thought they were hidden from view regardless of whether they were wearing blacked out goggles or the mirrored pair
  • When pressed on exactly what their invisibility meant, the children in both of the aforementioned phases of the study admitted that, their bodies were still visible when their eyes were covered
  • However their “self” that was hidden, or at least that is the implication
  • Of Note
  • The children in the study seem to draw a distinction between body and “self”
  • Self seems to be universally described as living in the eyes in some sense–unless the eyes of two people meet, they cannot actually perceive each other.
  • Another study seems to back this conclusion up
  • Researchers looked directly at the child subjects while the children averted their eyes and another group the with child looking on and researcher averting their gazes
  • In both instances, the children largely felt they were not being seen as long as the eyes didn’t meet
  • Now you know why your toddler won’t look at you when you’re delivering a scolding. The look-away is the perfect getaway
  • Multimedia
  • Peekaboo I see you. doctorlizardo via Flickr
  • Image Gallery |
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Why Do Children Think Covering Their Eyes Makes Them Invisible? | popsci.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

The Milky Way in Nine Gigapixels

Mayan Calendar

  • Guatemala’s Mayan people have accused the government and tour groups of perpetuating the myth that their calendar foresees the imminent end of the world for monetary gain
  • The low down
  • The Culture Ministry is hosting a massive event in Guatemala City—which as many as 90,000 people are expected to attend and tour groups are promoting doomsday-themed getaways.
  • Maya leader Gomez urged the Tourism Institute to rethink the doomsday celebration, which he criticized as a “show” that was disrespectful to Mayan culture.
  • Oxlajuj Ajpop is holding events it considers sacred in five cities to mark the event and Gomez said the Culture Ministry would be wise to throw its support behind their real celebrations
  • Of Note
  • The Mayan calendar has 18 months of 20 days each plus a sacred month, “Wayeb,” of five days
  • B’aktun" is the largest unit in the time cycle system, and is about 400 years
  • The broader era spans 13 B’aktun, or about 5,200 years
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Maya demand an end to doomsday myth | phys.org
  • Maya calendar | Wikipedia

Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Announcement on Thursday

  • The low down
  • NASA is planning to announce a discovery from its Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope on Thursday (Nov. 1) that will shed light on the early universe, officials said.
  • The announcement will “discuss new measurements using gamma rays to investigate ancient starlight,”
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NASA to Announce Early Universe Findings Thursday | Space.com

– SPACECRAFT UPDATE –

Increasing the population on the ISS

— Updates —

Oct 17 San Francisco Bay Area Meteor

  • Last time on SciByte
  • Exoplanets & Universal Translator | SciByte 68 [October 23, 2012]
  • The low down
  • A Novato, Calif. resident read about the fireball and recalled hearing a sound on her roof that night, she and neighbors found a ding on the roof
  • On closer inspection, that crust was thought to be a product of weathering of a natural rock, not from the heat of entry
    +When a second similar find 2.5 miles from that location was found, that person cut the rock in half which confirmed the meteor classification
  • Scientists are currently analyzing both unusual and hard to identify meteorites
  • Of Note
  • If you are in Marin or Sonoma counties W or NW of the San Pablo Bay area, check the map in the Show Notes to see if you are in the flight path
  • There is a map of the projected band (light area) where meteorites of different size may have fallen
  • If you live North-North-East of Novato and you saw an airship over (or within a few miles from) your property Friday, chances are that you could be the owner of a space rock.
  • The airship was following the path of the falling meteorites as calculated from the NASA/CAMS meteor video surveillance project.
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance | cams.seti.org
  • Meteorite From California Fireball Is Meteor-wrong, Scientist Says | Space.com

– CURIOSITY UPDATE –

  • MastCam
  • On Oct. 24, it was used to view soil material on the rover’s observation tray.
  • These observations will help assess movement of the sample on the tray in response to vibrations from sample-delivery and sample-processing activities of mechanisms on the rover’s arm.
  • CheMin
  • A sieved portion from the fourth scoop of soil it collected at the “Rocknest” patch was delivered
    ChemCam
  • Did its very first depth profile, in which we shot the laser 600 times in a single location, in order to tunnel through the surface of the rock making a hole about 0.04 in [1 mm]
  • This can help scientists understand how the composition of the sample changes from the surface to the interior.
  • SAM [Sample Analysis at Mars]
  • Material from the fourth scoop is also being used to scrub internal surfaces of the rover’s sample-processing mechanisms in preparation for delivery of a sample from a later scoop to SAM
  • Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) / Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS)
  • Both monitoring of environmental conditions and analysis of an atmosphere sample
  • "Rocknest Analysis
  • One of the rocks in the area if called Zephyr, t is interesting because it appears to be made of 2 different types of materials.
  • A harder, more resistant material on the top about 1 in. long, capping it, and then beneath it has a lighter colored softer material that appears to erode more easily
  • When they went to analyze the material with the ChemCam they used 9 points instead of just 2, just to make sure we would hit the material of interest
  • They ended up hitting both the dark and the light material and found that there was indeed a compositional difference
  • In addition to composition, they have also been able to make a three-dimensional model of the surface of this target using images from the Remote Micro-Imager part of ChemCam
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube Curiosity Rover Report (Oct. 26, 2012): Working with Curiosity’s ChemCam Laser | JPLNewshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDgv14Qtl1c
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Assessing Drop-Off to Mars Rover’s Observation Tray | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
  • Working with Curiosity’s ChemCam Laser | nasa.gov
  • Working with Curiosity’s ChemCam Laser | nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Nov 2, 2000 | 12 years ago | International Space Station| An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts became the first permanent residents of the international space station, at the start of their four-month mission. After their Soyuz spacecraft linked up at 11:00am GMT, William Shepherd, Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko entered the station, turned on the lights and life support systems, and proceeded to set up a live television link with the Russian mission control to confirm that the move-in was going well. They were confined to two of the space station’s three rooms until space shuttle Endeavor arrived in early Dec. with giant solar panels that would provide all the necessary power.

NExt Week Thursday!!!

Looking up this week

The post Breast Cancer & Mayan Calender | SciByte 69 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Mayan Calendar & Cancer Research | SciByte 46 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/19587/mayan-calendar-cancer-research-scibyte-46/ Tue, 15 May 2012 22:46:13 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=19587 We take a look at a new archeological site concerning the Mayan calendar, a new use for breathalyzers, cancer research, and more!

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We take a look at a new archeological site concerning the Mayan calendar, a new use for breathalyzers, cancer research, exoplanet, retinal prostheses, spacecraft updates,and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

Mayan prediction for end of the world?



YouTube channels : NationalGeographic | AP

  • Thanks for making sure I saw this story Michael Henriques
  • 6 Maya Apocalypse Myths Debunked
  • Magnetic Flip : while magnetic evidence in rocks confirms that continents have undergone such drastic rearrangement, the process took millions of years slow enough that humanity wouldn’t have felt the motion
  • Planet X crash : if there were a ( planet / brown dwarf / etc ) that was going to be in the inner solar system three years from now, astronomers would have been studying it, and it would be visible to the naked eye by now
  • Galactic Alignment : some worry the path of the sun in the sky would appear to cross through what, from Earth, looks to be the midpoint of our galaxy, but there is no alignment in 2012. A type of “alignment” occurs during every winter solstice, when the sun, as seen from Earth, appears in the sky near what looks to be the midpoint of the Milky Way.
  • End of Calendar : During the 2012 winter solstice, time runs out on the current era of the Long Count calendar, which began on what the Maya saw as the dawn of the last creation period
  • Sun to Savage Earth : While the sun isn’t always on schedule; the peak of solar activity this cycle probably won’t happen for a year or two
  • Predictions Calendar : The Maya did pass down a graphic end-of-the-world scenario, it was undated
  • The low down
  • Just 6 square miles (16 square kilometers) of jungle floor the Mayan city now known as Xultun was first discovered in 1915 in northeast Guatemala, and less than 0.1 percent of the city has been explored to date
  • Looters damaged much of the ancient city in the 1970s losing much of historical significance; archaeologists still don’t even know how far the boundaries of the town extend.
  • In 2010, archeologists (from Boston University) were mapping the city when one undergraduate student while looking into an old trench dug by looters, reported seeing traces of faint red and black lines of ancient paint.
  • Paint doesn’t preserve well in the rain forest climate of Guatemala, so it was assumed the find would not yield much information
  • In the end the professor decided he should excavate the room looters had tried to reach if only to be able to report the size of the structure along with the paint finding.
  • The Murals
  • They were shocked to run into a 1,200-year-old 6×6 foot room with a brilliantly painted portrait: a Mayan king, sitting on his throne, wearing a red crown with blue feathers flowing out behind him.
  • Other figures in the room are three loincloth-clad figures sit, wearing feathered headdresses and a man painted in brilliant orange wearing jade bracelets reaches out with a stylus
  • Unfortunately the name of the king pictured in the mural room has been lost, but the scribe and king are referred to as Older/Senior & Younger/Junior Obsidian
  • In front of the mural of the king talking to a kneeling attendant is a plaster bench that resembles those used by Mayan rulers at royal court meetings
  • The murals only survived, because, instead of collapsing the room, Mayan engineers filled it with rubble and then built on top of it.
  • The Calendars
  • Along the north and east walls of the room researchers noticed several barely visible hieroglyphic texts, painted and etched
  • The team scanned all of the paintings and numbers, digitally stitched them together, the images were then sent the images to a epigrapher who specializes in studying Maya inscriptions
  • Analysis revealed that at least five of the numerical columns were topped by hieroglyphs that Maya scribes once used to record lunar data
  • The numbers on the wall were calculations that scribes could refer to, much like those in the back of textbooks, to help them track vast amounts of time
  • The books the scribe would have written using these references would have been filled with elaborate calculations intended to predict the city’s fortunes.
  • The calendars mentioned are the 260-day ceremonial calendar, the 365-day solar calendar, the 584-day cycle of the planet Venus and the 780-day cycle of Mars.
  • Symbols of gods head the top of each lunar cycle, suggesting that each cycle had its own patron deity.
  • Near the calendars is a “ring number”-something previously known only from much later Maya books, where it was used as part of a backward calculation in establishing a base date for planetary cycles.
  • These newly discovered astronomical tables are 600 years older than the previous known examples.
  • The markings also suggest dates more than 7,000 thousand years in the future
  • Of Note
  • Until now, Maya astronomical tables were known from bark-paper books, the ‘Dresden Codex,’ created 400 years or more after the ancient civilization’s demise
  • Researchers believe that both these calculations and the ‘Dresden Codex’ came from earlier books that long ago rotted away
  • This room was likely the ancient workroom of a Maya scribe, a record-keeper of Xultún
  • This space is where someone important was living, this important household of the noble class, and here you also have a mathematician working in that space which shows how closely those roles were connected in Mayan society
  • It is likely that this type of room exists at every Maya site in certain periods of the Mayan civilization, but it’s currently the only example thus far
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO : Mysterious Maya Calendar & Mural Uncovered | NationalGeographic
  • YouTube VIDEO : Doomsday Delayed? New Maya Calendar Unearthed | AP
  • VIDEO : History News: Mysterious Maya Calendar & Mural Uncovered | nationalgeographic.com
  • VIDEO : Explorers Journal | nationalgeographic.com (vimeo)
  • IMAGES : New Maya Mural, Calendars Debunk 2012 Myth | nationalgeographic.com
  • IMAGE : Calender | LiveScience.com
  • IMAGE GALLERY : Maya Murals: Stunning Images of King & Calendar
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Ancient Maya Astronomical Tables from Xultun, Guatemala | sciencemag.org
  • Painted ancient Maya numbers reflect calendar reaching well beyond 2012 (w/ Video) | phys.org
  • Looting Leads Archaeologists to Oldest Known Mayan Calendar | news.sciencemag.org
  • Nevermind the Apocalypse: Earliest Mayan Calendar Found | news.discovery.com
  • Mayan Ruins Describe Dates Beyond 2012 ‘Doomsday’ | news.discovery.com
  • Unprecedented Maya Mural Found, Contradicts 2012 “Doomsday” Myth | nationalgeographic.com
  • 2012 Pictures: 6 Maya Apocalypse Myths Debunked | nationalgeographic.com
  • End of the World Averted: New Archeological Find Proves Mayan Calendar Doesn’t End | universetoday.com
  • Painted ancient Maya numbers reflect calendar reaching well beyond 2012 (w/ Video) | phys.org
  • Maya wall calendar discovered | ScienceNews.org

*— NEWS BYTE — *

A breathalyzer that does more than find out how much you’ve had to drink



Credit: YouTube Channel VideoNSF

  • The low down
  • Blow into the Single Breath Disease Diagnostics Breathalyzer, and you get tested for a biomarker, a sign of disease
  • The unit is about half the size of your typical shoe box and weighs less than one pound
  • Lights on top of the box will give you an instant readout
  • Green light means you pass (bad breath is not indicative of an underlying disease; perhaps it’s just a result of the raw onions you ingested recently)
  • Red light means you might need to take a trip to the doctor’s office to check if something more serious is an issue.
  • Significance
  • Inside is a sensor chip that is coated with tiny nanowires that look like microscopic spaghetti and are able to detect minute amounts of chemical compounds in the breath
  • The nanowires enable the sensor to detect just a few molecules of the disease marker gas in a ‘sea’ of billions of molecules of other compounds that the breath consists of
  • The nanowires can be rigged to detect infectious viruses and microbes like Salmonella, E. coli or even anthrax
  • Of Note
  • Individual tests such as an acetone-detecting breathalyzer for monitoring diabetes and an ammonia-detecting breathalyzer to determine when to end a home-based hemodialysis treatment–are still being evaluated clinically now
  • Researchers envision developing the technology so that a number of these tests can be performed with a single device
  • It might be possible self-detect a whole range of diseases and disorders, including lung cancer, by just exhaling into a handheld breathalyzer.
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube : Science Nation – This Breathalyzer Reveals Signs of Disease | VideoNSF
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • This breathalyzer reveals signs of disease (w/ Video) | cdn.physorg.com

—TWO-BYTE NEWS—

New cancer research

  • Cancer Inhibitor
  • Bowman-Birk Protease Inhibitor (BBI), has shown promise for preventing certain forms of cancer in clinical trials.
  • BBI is derived from the large amounts of soybeans in traditional Japanese diets might underpin low cancer mortality rates in Japan
  • The current method of extracting BBI from soybeans is time-consuming and involves harsh chemicals
  • Scientists have now found that soybean seeds incubated in water at 122 degrees Fahrenheit naturally release large amounts of BBI that can easily be harvested from the water
  • The protein appeared to be active, with tests showing that it stopped breast cancer cells from dividing in a laboratory dish.
  • Surviving chemotherapy
  • Some cancers are resistant to chemotherapy because they harbor an overactive gene called MGMT, which repairs the cancer cells after chemotherapy damages them.
  • To counteract the gene, physicians sometimes add an MGMT-blocking drug, benzylguanine, but is also makes healthy blood and bone marrow cells easy to kill.
  • Scientists wondered what would happen if healthy cells had mutated version of MGMT called P140K
  • Researchers inserted the P140K gene into the patient’s blood stem cells in bone marrow
  • Immediately after a chemotherapy session the team infused the tweaked stem cells back into each patient.
  • Within weeks, the stem cells had developed into mature blood and marrow cells, with 40% to 60% of them carrying the mutated gene.
  • The chemoresistant healthy cells helped patients undergo the benzylguanine treatments
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Soybeans soaked in warm water naturally release key cancer-fighting substance | phys.org
  • A Shield Against Chemotherapy | news.sciencemag.org

M2-F2 lifting body crash of 1967

  • The low down
  • A Lifting body is a fixed wing aircraft that is designed so that it produces its own lift, where a flying wing has no fuselage a lifting body does
  • On May 10, 1967, the NASA lifting body M2-F2 launched
  • When attempting roll maneuvers the craft unfortunately had a soft feel, which caused the pilot to overcompensate trying to bring the plane under control
  • This lead to “Pilot induced oscillations”, and while the pilot did eventually get control, the aircraft crashed when the pilot saw a rescue helicopter that seemed to pose a collision threat
  • While trying to land in a lakebed, altitude was very hard to judge and the aircraft hit the ground before the landing gear was fully deployed and locked
  • The pilot actually survived and recovered from the crash, but lost vision in his right eye due to infection
  • Significance
  • Portions of the video from that flight from the ground video of the oscillations and the pilot camera were seen in the TV movie The Six Million Dollar Man
  • A brief shot of a later HL–10 model was also seen as it released from its carrier plane
  • Of Note
  • The M2-F2, was reborn as the M2-F3, and was later given to Smithsonian Air and Space Museum You can see it hanging there now.
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO : M2-F2 03 | knightwizz
  • YouTube VIDEO : The Six Million Dollar Man TV Intro | The1970sChannel
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • A Crash Made Famous on TV | blog.nasm.si.edu

Light from another planet

  • The low down
  • In 2004, scientists discovered one of the first known stars to host an extrasolar planet, 55 Cancri, via radial velocity measurements
  • Infrared light from ’Hot Jupiters" has been seen from Spitzer, Hubble and Kepler telescopes
  • Spitzer became the first telescope to detect light from a planet beyond our solar system, when it saw the infrared light of a “hot Jupiter
  • When a telescope gazes at a star as a planet circles behind it, the planet disappears from view, the light from the star system dips ever so slightly, but enough that astronomers can determine how much light came from the planet itself
  • The information does however reveal the temperature of a planet, and, in some cases, its atmospheric components
  • Other current planet-hunting methods obtain indirect measurements of a planet by observing its effects on the star.
  • Now for the first time that same method has been used to detect light from a “SuperEarth”
  • At about 8.57 Earth masses Cancri e is tidally locked, so one side always faces the star
  • It was a radius 1.63 times that of Earth, a density is 10.9 ± 3.1 g cm–3 (the average density of Earth is 5.5 g cm–3)
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Light From a ‘SuperEarth’ Detected for the First Time | universetoday.com

Eye see you

  • The low down
  • A handheld computer processes images from a video camera that sits on specialized goggles.
  • Lasers using infrared light inside the goggles send that information to photovoltaic chips implanted in the eye, one-third as thin as a strand of hair
  • Electric currents from the photodiodes on the chip would then trigger signals in the retina, which then flow to the brain, enabling a patient to regain vision.
  • Scientists tested the process in rat retinas in vitro and how they elicited electric responses, which are widely accepted indicators of visual activity, from retinal cells
  • They are now testing the system in live rats, taking both physiological and behavioral measurements
  • There are several other retinal prostheses being developed, and at least two of them are in clinical trials.
  • Those devices require coils, cables or antennas inside the eye to deliver power and information to the retinal implant
  • This new device uses near-infrared light to transmit images, thereby avoiding any need for wires and cables, and making the device thin and easily implantable
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Solar-panel-like retinal prosthesis could better restore sight to blind | phys.org
  • Retinal implants could restore partial vision | sciencenews.org

The water of Earth

  • The low down
  • Although oceans of water cover about 70 percent of Earth’s surface, these oceans are shallow compared to the Earth’s radius
  • This illustration shows what would happen is all of the water on or near the surface of the Earth were bunched up into a ball
  • Further Reading / Media
  • All the Water on Planet Earth | Astronomy Picture of the Day; nasa.gov

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

Opportunity Rover



Credit: marsrover.nasa.gov

Curiosity Rover

SpaceX Dragon



Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • May 16, 1866 : 146 years ago : Rootbeer : Charles Elmer Hires a pharmacist from Pennsylvania formulated the eponymous Hires Root Beer. Some say Hires discovered root beer on his honeymoon in New Jersey where the woman who ran his honeymoon hotel served root tea. Hires thought that “root beer” would be more appealing to the working class. Originally, Hires packaged the mixture in boxes and sold it to housewives and soda fountains. They needed to mix in water, sugar, and yeast.He became a millionaire just for selling drinks.
  • May 18 1980 : 32 years ago : Mt. St. Helens : Following a weeklong series of earthquakes and smaller explosions of ash and smoke, the long-dormant Mount St. Helens volcano erupted in Washington state, U.S., hurling ash 15,000 feet into the air and setting off mudslides and avalanches. The eruptions caused minimal damage in the sparsely populated area, but about 400 people – mostly loggers and forest rangers – were evacuated. The explosion was characterized as the equivalent of 27,000 atomic bombs. The cloud of ash eventually circled the globe

Looking up this week

The post Mayan Calendar & Cancer Research | SciByte 46 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Top 3 Modern Medical Miracles & Inception Review! | Jupiter@Nite | 7.19.10 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/2399/top-3-modern-medical-miracles-inception-review-jupiternite-71910/ Mon, 19 Jul 2010 22:34:22 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=2399 Tonight's episode of Jupiter@Nite takes a look at some of the absolutely amazing developments in modern medicine there may just be a matter of a few short years away.

The post Top 3 Modern Medical Miracles & Inception Review! | Jupiter@Nite | 7.19.10 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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A bionic eyeball, the cures for Cancer & HIV, and then a review of Inception.

Tonight’s episode of Jupiter@Nite takes a look at some of the absolutely amazing developments in modern medicine there may just be a matter of a few short years away.

MEDICINE

 

Telescopic Eye Implant approved by FDA:

https://www.engadget.com/2010/07/08/telescopic-eye-implant-approved-by-the-fda/

     Invented to combat macular degeneration

     Made by a CO named: VisionCare

     Not as cool as it sounds:  $15,000 to go from “complete impairment” to “moderate impairment”.

     Only works about 75% of the time.

     VisionCare says it expects the F.D.A. to give its O.K. later this year.

     After implantation, extensive therapy is crucial, to learn to deal with the different abilities of the eyes.

 

Advances toward HIV vaccine:

https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703609004575355072271264394.html

     U.S. government scientists say they have discovered three powerful antibodies, the strongest of which neutralizes 91% of HIV strains.

     Previous attempts at a vaccine, like a recent one in Thailand, reduced the chances of infection only by about 30%

     The HIV antibodies were discovered in the cells of a 60-year-old African-American man.

     Vaccines are preventative only – don’t work as a cure.  However, vaccines for polio and smallpox have almost completely eliminated their spread in developed countries.

 

Cancer is immortal, but not for long!

https://io9.com/5589587/robbing-cancer-cells-of-their-immortality-could-stop-the-disease-in-its-tracks

     Cancer cells are capable of reproducing forever (read first couple paragraphs?)

     Researchers at Washington State University!

     Wait, wait… Cancer cells are immortal?  Can we adapt this to live forever?

     Substory:  What causes cancer?

              https://io9.com/5576960/cancer-caused-by-dna-repair-gone-haywire

     Mutations during copy & repair of damaged DNA (caused by carcinogens)

     Usually due to interruptions.  Compare to computers attempting to repair lost/damaged data from a backup drive with bad wiring.

 

Human sperm cells have not changedin 600 million years:

https://io9.com/5584575/human-sperm-gene-hasnt-changed-at-all-in-600-million-years?skyline=true&s=i

     A universal gene known as “Boule” is found in all species’ reproductive, uhm… juice.

     Scientists are talking about targeting this gene (somehow?) to kill off parasites and such.

              — Or, yknow, THE ENTIRE WORLD MAYBE.

 

 

MOVIE REVIEW:  ((SPOILER ALERT!))

INCEPTION

              Premise:  High tech military scientists discover a way to induce shared dreaming, using a fancy breathing suitcase.  Black market criminals get their hands on it and use it to steal “secrets” from peoples’ dreams.  Leonardo DiCaprio leads a team that is really good at this.  So good that he’s eventually hired instead to place an idea within someone’s mind — an infinitely more difficult task than stealing one.

              The rest of the film is a combination of a psychological thriller, and a heist film.  It turns out that Leo is carrying some serious baggage that is interfering with other peoples’ dreams when he joins their subconscious.  He wins by confronting his past.

 

* The movie is attempting to act like it’s a lot smarter than it really is.  Using high-brow pseudo-scientific terms and psychological mumbo-jumbo, it tries to pull the wool over your eyes and make itself seem a lot more epic than it is.  It’s really about on par with a comic book.

* I like the concept, but hate the execution.  Bad science.

– Dreams are extremely convoluted and charged with raw unchecked emotions and sudden shifts of mood.  These dreams are somehow stabled and as unbending as reality.

– Conscious and subconscious can rarely co-exist.  By realizing that you are dreaming, you attempt to force confinement and structure into an experience that is otherwise interpretive.

– “Being John Malcovich” had more convincing dream sequences.

* Leo is a boring actor.  He always seems to play the same role.

* Some of the special effects are outstanding (the no-gravity sequences and the dream cityscapes stand out).

 

 

Download:

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