The Future is Now
A “Fundamental Moment” in Cancer Research
Thursday, December 17th, 2009BBC:
Scientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of two of the most common cancers – skin and lung – a move they say could revolutionise cancer care. Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumours far earlier, they will also yield new drug targets, says the Wellcome Trust team.
Scientists around the globe are now working to catalogue all the genes that go wrong in many types of human cancer. The UK is looking at breast cancer, Japan at liver and India at mouth. China is studying stomach cancer, and the US is looking at cancers of the brain, ovary and pancreas.
Basically, this redefines cancer from a disease to a series of genetic mutations, each of which can be studied, prevented, treated, or cured. Skin cancer (melanoma) is a combination of 30,000 “errors” in the DNA of the cancerous cells which are not present in the healthy cells. Lung cancer is a series of 23,000 errors. So now, we not only know that sun exposure causes skin cancer and smoking causes lung cancer, but we know why and how they cause it.
I found this particularly eye-opening:
The experts estimate a typical smoker acquires one new mutation for every 15 cigarettes they smoke. Although many of these mutations will be harmless, some will trigger cancer.
Wellcome Trust researcher Dr Peter Campbell, who conducted this research, published in the journal Nature, said: “It’s like playing Russian roulette. Most of the time the mutations will land in innocent parts of the genome, but some will hit the right targets for cancer.”
By quitting smoking, people could reduce their cancer risk back down to “normal” with time, he said. The suspicion is lung cells containing mutations are eventually replaced with new ones free of genetic errors.
So, if you’re incredibly unlucky (meaning every genetic mutation you cause by smoking contributes to lung cancer), then you’ll have cancerous cells in your lungs after 1,534 cigarettes. Or, at a pack per day, in about 77 days. If only one mutation in ten hits the cancer jackpot, then you’ve got 767 days, or just over two years. After that, you’re counting on your body to produce healthy, “error-free” cells at an equal or faster rate than the cancer cells die. Too many cancer cells, and they’ll survive long enough to multiply faster than the healthy cells, at which point, you’ve got yourself a tumor.
Then again, now that we know which genetic defects are at fault, we could invent the medication that prevents the defect (or corrects it, or kills cells that contain it, etc.), effectively providing the “cigarette antidote.” Think of it – a pill that comes in every pack of cigarettes. When you finish the pack, swallow this. Problem solved.
The same applies, of course, to cancers that are contracted through less voluntary means. Targeted treatment against specific defects will redefine our definitions of treatment, side effects, and research priorities. Dr. Michael Stratton, of the Wellcome Trust team, calls it a “fundamental moment in cancer research:”
Categories: The Future is Now | 5 Comments »
21 Things That Became Obsolete This Decade
Saturday, December 12th, 2009Business Insider has published a list of the twenty-one things that have become obsolete during the 00’s. Unfortunately, it’s one of those sites that tries to increase their ad revenue by making you click twenty-one times to see the whole list (like advertisers don’t understand that it’s not twenty-one people seeing their ad, but the same person ignoring it over & over again? But, I digress). Anyway, since I’m technologically opposed to that sort of thing, here’s the full list (with links back to their pages in case you want to read the text behind each one). You’ll note that this list of twenty-one things has twenty-two items on it (a bonus item? Seriously? Sheesh…)
- PDA’s: Specifically, PDA’s that need a stylus, like the old Palm Pilot
- E-mail accounts you have to pay for: as storage got cheaper, e-mail accounts became free
- Dial-Up: the sound of a modem connecting to another modem has become relegated to War Games and movies like it.
- Getting Film Developed: Remember the old Fotomat booths in the shopping center parking lots? No more…
- Movie Rental Stores: Say goodbye to your local Blockbuster’s, if you still can, and sign-up for your Netflix account (or just use your TV provider’s On-Demand channel). Also obsolete: late fees.
- Maps: With GPS devices and Google Maps-enabled phones, why figure out how to fold (and un-fold) a map?
- Newspaper Classified Ads: Thank you, Craig Newmark.
- Landline Phones: When your cellphone works anywhere, why have a phone that plugs into your house? I’m not sure this one is gone for good yet, but it’s certainly getting there.
- Per-Minute Long Distance Charges: like storage (above), this got cheaper and cheaper until it became free. Most people pay a flat rate per month now, and VOIP is chasing that into oblivion too…
- Public Pay Phones: This one’s for you, Bennion. Again, when your cellphone works anywhere, why have a phone that plugs into a closet on a street corner?
- VCR’s: Even DVD’s are going away, now that Blu-Ray has won the day. The VCR has officially gone the way of the Betamax machine.
- Fax Machines: If anyone’s even sending faxes anymore, they’re winding up in e-mail boxes, not paper trays.
- Phonebooks, Dictionaries & Encyclopedias: What used to take up shelves, now takes up hard drive space. And now it’s searchable! Also becoming obsolete: the need to remember the order of the letters in the alphabet.
- Calling 411 for Information: My kids don’t even know about this! Phone numbers come from Google or some more specific search engine now…
- Music CD’s: Gone are the days of buying eight songs you don’t like to hear the two that you do like…
- Backing Up Data to Floppies & CD’s: This one’s a bit unfair, since it was both created and obsolesced this decade, but it’s true – backups go on external hard drives or UBS thumbnail drives now. It doesn’t save as much shelf space as the encyclopedias, but it still helps…
- Getting Bills in the Mail: or, for that matter, sending checks back to pay them. I honestly don’t know how much a stamp costs these days.
- Buttons on Electronic Devices: Touchscreens have brought us into the Minority Report world.
- Losing Touch with People: Thanks to Facebook and Twitter, we’re in touch with everyone we ever knew. Or ever will know…
- Personal Boundaries: also gone, thanks to Facebook and Twitter. Of course, I think this is more about us learning how to better use these tools than anything else. No one’s forcing you to post that picture of yourself dancing on the tables at the bar last night, ya’ know…
- Paper: It’s true. While everyone’s screaming about saving the environment, we’ve managed to eliminate a great deal of the paper in our lives, and it’s becoming moreso every day….
- Record Stores: Like the movies, people no longer need to go somewhere else to get their music. It comes to them…
A pretty good list, I think. Your turn to chime in – what did they leave off the list?
Categories: The Future is Now | 5 Comments »
Happy Moonday
Thursday, July 16th, 2009Forty years ago, they went there to begin a “giant leap for mankind.” Seven months ago, my family and I went there to begin a “guided tour for a couple of hours.” Launchpad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center, roughly forty years apart:
Watching the launch today, I can’t help but marvel at what we accomplished, but also at how positively primitive the technology was at the time. I also marvel at how, now that we have people living and working in outer space for months at a time, a similar launch is nothing more than a brief story on the evening news.
One giant leap, indeed…
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The Speculist has a good weekend
Monday, July 6th, 2009My friend Ilya turned me on to a blog called The Speculist, which I glance at periodically. Most of the time, it’s mildly interesting but nothing to blog home about. But this past weekend, it ran four stories that really caught my eye, so I figure I’ll force them upon share them with you.
Not so much interesting (or even practical), just really cool. The robots not only lure the creatures and “digest” them, but they use the energy from the digestion process to power the robot for capturing more pests:
2) Stephen Hawking on Evolution
Stephen Hawking believes we’ve developed the ability to evolve as a species based on more than just genetics:
But we are now entering a new phase, of what Hawking calls “self designed evolution,” in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA. “At first,” he continues “these changes will be confined to the repair of genetic defects, like cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy. These are controlled by single genes, and so are fairly easy to identify, and correct. Other qualities, such as intelligence, are probably controlled by a large number of genes. It will be much more difficult to find them, and work out the relations between them. Nevertheless, I am sure that during the next century, people will discover how to modify both intelligence, and instincts like aggression.”
Anyone want to tell Dr. Hawking he’s wrong? And remember, if this makes you angry, Dr. Hawking can rewire your brain to help with that…
3) The Declaration of Singularity
Just a little something to make Jeff Porten’s head spin off…
4) Coffee May Reverse Alzheimer’s
The 55 mice used in the University of South Florida study had been bred to develop symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. First the researchers used behavioural tests to confirm the mice were exhibiting signs of memory impairment when they were aged 18 to 19 months, the equivalent to humans being about 70.
Then they gave half the mice caffeine in their drinking water. The rest were given plain water. The mice were given the equivalent of five 8 oz (227 grams) cups of coffee a day – about 500 milligrams of caffeine.
When the mice were tested again after two months, those who were given the caffeine performed much better on tests measuring their memory and thinking skills and performed as well as mice of the same age without dementia. Those drinking plain water continued to do poorly on the tests.
In addition, the brains of the mice given caffeine showed nearly a 50% reduction in levels of the beta amyloid protein, which forms destructive clumps in the brains of dementia patients.
(emphasis is mine)
Now how’s that for great news? Next up – the Starbucks Center for Memory Enhancement.
Categories: The Future is Now | 3 Comments »
Good news abounds…
Monday, June 29th, 2009While the global media obsesses over a rash of celebrity deaths, I was pleased to find some good news in my newsfeed this morning.
1) U.S. Seeks New Roles as Troops Prepare Exit From Iraqi Cities
June 29 (Bloomberg) — Iraqi government officials will mark tomorrow’s long-planned withdrawal of U.S. forces from their cities by taking the day off, decorating cars with flowers and broadcasting patriotic music.
U.S. officers say that the Iraqis will be in exclusive control of major combat in urban areas, including the flashpoints of Baghdad, Mosul and Baquba, for the first time since the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein. U.S. forces will ring volatile cities to prevent rebel infiltration, provide intelligence and fight if Iraqis request.
The urban pullout is part of an accord signed by the Bush administration and the Iraqi government in November, which called for a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of 2011. President Barack Obama wants to pull out all but 35,000 to 50,000 soldiers by August 2010. About 131,000 American troops are now in Iraq, according to Pentagon figures.
2) Scientists kill cancer cells with “trojan horse”
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian scientists have developed a “trojan horse” therapy to combat cancer, using a bacterially-derived nano cell to penetrate and disarm the cancer cell before a second nano cell kills it with chemotherapy drugs.
Sydney scientists Dr Jennifer MacDiarmid and Dr Himanshu Brahmbhatt, who formed EnGenelC Pty Ltd in 2001, said they had achieved 100 percent survival in mice with human cancer cells by using the “trojan horse” therapy in the past two years.
The first wave of mini-cells release ribonucleic acid molecules, called siRNA, which switch off the production of proteins that make the cancer cell resistant to chemotherapy. A second wave of EDV cells is then accepted by the cancer cell and releases chemotherapy drugs, killing the cancer cell.
“The beauty is that our EDVs operate like ‘Trojan Horses’ They arrive at the gates of the affected cells and are always allowed in,” said MacDiarmid. “We are playing the rogue cells at their own game. They switch-on the gene to produce the protein to resist drugs, and we are switching-off the gene which, in turn, enables the drugs to enter.”
So, major steps forward toward world peace and a cure for cancer? Not a bad day…
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Colbert Nation launches into orbit
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009As disturbing as my last TV-related post was, this one really makes me smile.
Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s hilarious Colbert Report, has made a habit of asking his viewers to write in his name in a variety of public naming contests. To date, he’s managed to get a Hungarian bridge, a San Francisco Zoo-born eagle, a hockey team mascot, a species of trapdoor spider and a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor named after him.
His most recent target was the new node (i.e., room) on the International Space Station, which NASA has asked the public to name via on online poll. NASA’s suggestions were “Serenity,” “Legacy,” “Earthrise,” “Venture,” and the dreaded write-in vote. So enthusiastic are Colbert’s fans (which he has dubbed the “Colbert Nation”) that as of a few weeks ago, the write-in suggestion “Colbert” was beating it’s closest competitor (”Serenity”) by nearly 20,000 votes. NASA wisely reserved the right to ignore the poll results and pick an “appropriate” name, should they be unhappy with the public’s selection.
Well, as it turns out, after 1.2 million votes were cast, NASA went with “Tranquility,” one of the Top Ten suggestions in the poll, in honor of the upcoming 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic moon landing at the Sea of Tranquility.
In a nod to Colbert Nation, though, NASA has dubbed a treadmill that will eventually reside in the new node the “‘Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill,” or C.O.L.B.E.R.T. for short. Astronaut Suni Williams made the announcement on “The Colbert Report,” two years after running the Boston Marathon in space on a station treadmill similar to COLBERT.
Incidentally, the logo on the left is the actual image posted on the actual NASA page announcing the name of the new space station node.
Kudos to Steven Colbert for keeping the public enthusiastic about the space program, and kudos to NASA for not taking itself so seriously as to ignore the taxpayers that fund their important research.
Categories: Primetime TV, The Future is Now, The World Wide Weird | 1 Comment »
Life Finds a Way
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009An interesting juxtaposition of news articles over at The Speculist:
At this point, just about everyone knows that President Obama lifted the Stem Cell research ban imposed by George W. Bush at the beginning of his presidency. Less reported, though equally exciting is this story about a breakthrough in the use of induced pluripotent stem cells (iSPC’s), which are stem cells derived from somatic cells in adults.
Stem cells derived from adults are attractive for several reasons: they’re far easier to collect, they avoid the moral objections held by some about embryonic stem cells, and perhaps most importantly, they represent stem cells that exactly match the genes of the person in need of treatment.
So, good news all around. But here’s the part that really bends the mind:
What role did [George W. Bush's] restrictions play in inducing some researchers to begin working on iPSCs? Seeing as the work described [in the linked article] comes from Canada and the UK, it would be difficult to draw a direct line. But it would be, to say the very least, ironic if the much-hated stem cell research funding ban actually played a positive role in moving us towards a better solution.
This is another case of unintended consequences from government incentive programs. Those who oppose embryonic stem-cell research were generally seeking a ban on the this type of research altogether. The lack of funding in that area, though, has led (some) scientists to focus on ways to achieve the same results a different way. Would we have seen the benefits of stem-cell research sooner without the ban? Perhaps. But would anyone have ever focused on adult stem-cells if the ban hadn’t existed?
Categories: The Future is Now | 9 Comments »
Yet another step toward iPod gold…
Thursday, January 15th, 2009Back in July, I blogged about the Last.FM AppStore app for the iPhone, and how it moved digital music toward it’s holy grail – the impulse buy of a song when one hears it ambiently – such as on the radio or from some other streaming service.
I call this the holy grail because a person’s reaction to a good song on the radio is powerful, instant and short-lived. If a music vendor can provide the consumer with a “Buy it now” button while his/her toe is still tapping, the impulse purchase rate would likely be very high. And if it’s on a mobile device, which is often used in a group setting, there’s a “network effect” possibility (think a group of teens on a bus or at a party, and one says, “hey – check out this song!” and before you know it, a dozen kids have all clicked “Buy it now.”
If that button isn’t there at that exact moment, the person likely forgets about the song minutes after hearing it, and even if they have the opportunity to buy it soon afterwards, they probably don’t think to do so.
Today comes news of another AppStore app from Slacker Radio, which can access over 100 Internet radio stations, as well as custom stations derived from user preferences (genre, decade, popularity, etc.). While a given song is playing, the interface has a nice big “Buy on iTunes” button at the bottom of the screen (click the image to enlarge it). This, combined with the iPhone’s ITMS purchasing capability is pretty close to the situation described above. My only pie-in-the-sky request, at this point, is to make the “Buy” button 1-click, rather than opening the iTunes app. But then again, I’m picky that way.
Categories: The Future is Now | 2 Comments »
Shalom, readers!
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008I haven’t posted one of my “monthly” health-checks or “How People Found Me” entries in quite some time (bad blogger….bad, bad blogger), but this one caught my eye. And since I no longer trust myself to wait for the monthly posts, here it is:
According to my Google Analytics logs, someone from Givatayim, Tel Aviv, Israel came to my blog using this link over the weekend.
So first, it’s really cool that someone can read something I wrote in a different language that uses a different character set, and I don’t have to do anything to make it happen. Second, it’s meta-cool that I’m able to find out about it the very next day and narrow him/her down to a town halfway around the world.
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Oops, I’m Late!
Monday, November 10th, 2008As the iPhone has proven to us, any application that makes use of an internal GPS or gyroscope is inherently cool. LifeHacker provides us with one called Oops, I’m Late that isn’t for the iPhone, but it’s cool anyway.
Oops, I’m Late checks the calendar on your phone for meetings and their locations. It then uses the GPS device in your phone to determine how far away from the location you are and your current speed, in order to determine an estimated time of arrival (ETA). It can then send an e-mail, twitter, SMS, or Facebook message to each scheduled attendee in the meeting saying, “I’m running late, I’ll be there in X minutes.”
That’s pretty good use of multiple datasets in one device to create something inherently useful. Bravo…
Categories: Tech Talk, The Future is Now | No Comments »