Cancer Drug Toxicity

3D rendition of T cells attacking cancer cells. Credit: La Jolla Institute for Immunology

Researchers uncover a new strategy to avoid cancer immunotherapy side effects.  It’s not often that a failed clinical trial leads to a scientific breakthrough.


When patients in the UK started experiencing negative side effects during a cancer immunotherapy trial, researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) Center for Cancer Immunotherapy and University of Liverpool went back, examined the data, and worked with patient samples to determine what went wrong.


Their findings, published today (May 4, 2022) in the journal Nature, provide critical clues to why many immunotherapies trigger dangerous side effects—and point to a more effective strategy for treating patients with solid tumors.

“This work shows the importance of learning from early stage clinical trials,” says La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) Professor Pandurangan Vijayanand, M.D., Ph.D., who co-led the new research with Christian H. Ottensmeier, M.D., Ph.D., FRCP, a professor with the University of Liverpool, The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust, and adjunct professor at LJI.  READ MORE...

Flying By

 

Sugar Beneath the Ocean

Many coastal areas around the world are home to lush green meadows — all thanks to seagrasses.

As the only flowering plants growing in marine environments, these meadows are magic: One square kilometer of seagrass stores nearly twice as much carbon as land-based forests, and it does so 35 times faster. This makes seagrasses one of the most efficient global sinks of carbon dioxide on Earth.

And this isn't the only remarkable thing about them, a new study has revealed. Submerged beneath the waves, seagrass ecosystems hold colossal reserves of sugar we never knew existed before, with roughly 32 billion cans of Coca-Cola's worth of sweet stuff hiding in the seabed.

Naturally, this holds major implications for mitigating climate change and carbon storage.

Sweet, sweet seagrass
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, reported in a study published in the journal Nature Eco­logy & Evol­u­tion that seagrasses release colossal amounts of sugar into their soils, which is also known as the rhizosphere. Under the seagrass, sugar concentrations were unexpectedly at least 80 times higher than previously measured in marine environments.  READ MORE...

Waterfall

Birds

Grave For Men Holds Woman

Scientists tested the ancient DNA of 14 people interred at the monumental cemetery at

Li: Pascal Radigue; CC BY 4.0)

ve

The mysterious 6,500-year-old burial of a woman and several arrowheads in northern France may reveal details of how women were regarded in that society during the Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, a new study finds.


The researchers investigated giant graves known as "long barrows" — large earthen mounds, often hundreds of feet long and sometimes retained by wooden palisades that have since rotted away. Of the 19 human burials in the Neolithic cemetery at Fleury-sur-Orne in Normandy, the team analyzed the DNA of 14 individuals; but only one was female.


The woman was buried with "symbolically male" arrows in her grave, and the researchers argue that she may have had to be regarded as "symbolically male" to be buried there.

"We believe that these male-gendered artefacts place her beyond her biological sexual identity," said study lead author Maïté Rivollat, an archaeologist and geneticist at the University of Bordeaux. "This implies that the embodiment of the male sex in death was necessary for her to gain access to burial in these giga Dntic structures."

Archaeologists attribute the barrows at Fleury-sur-Orne to the Neolithic Cerny culture. Several other Cerny cemeteries have been found hundreds of miles away in the Paris Basin region to the southeast, but Fleury-sur-Orne is the largest yet found in Normandy.  READ MORE...

Dog at Ocean

 

Giant Claw Marks on Mars

While it still has plenty of mysteries for us to solve, Mars is becoming clearer to us every day, thanks to the dozen functioning robots we currently have either on the red planet's surface or in its orbit.

In this latest release from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express orbiter, a unique feature of Mars's geology is shown with breathtaking detail.

Looking like giant scratches across the planet's surface, these grooves are part of a giant fault system on Mars known as Tantalus Fossae.

Aside from the detail in the image, what's really gobsmacking is the scale we're looking at – these troughs are up to 350 meters (1,148 feet) deep and 10 kilometers wide (6.2 miles) and can stretch for up to 1,000 kilometers.

The image is true color, which means it represents what humans would see if they were looking at the region with their own eyes.

It's not technically a 'photo'; the image was generated from a digital terrain model of Mars and using the color channels of the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA's Mars Express – but it presents an incredibly clear view of the vast area.  READ MORE...

Dog Musician

 

Restore Hearing

According to a new study, scientists have uncovered a single master gene that programs ear hair 

cells into either outer or inner ones, overcoming a major hurdle that had prevented the 

development of these cells to restore hearing.

‘We have overcome a major hurdle’ to restore hearing, investigators say.

• Gene discovery allows the production of inner or outer ear hair cells 
• Death of outer hair cells due to aging or noise cause most hearing loss 
• Master gene switch turns on ear hair cell development

Hearing loss caused by aging, noise, and some cancer therapy medications and antibiotics has been irreversible because scientists have not been able to reprogram existing cells to develop into the outer and inner ear sensory cells — essential for hearing — once they die.

But Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered a single master gene that programs ear hair cells into either outer or inner ones, overcoming a major hurdle that had previously prevented the development of these cells to restore hearing, according to new research published today (May 4, 2022) in the journal Nature.

“Our finding gives us the first clear cell switch to make one type versus the other,” said lead study author Jaime García-Añoveros, PhD, professor of Anesthesiology and Neuroscience and in the Ken and Ruth Davee Department of Neurology. “It will provide a previously unavailable tool to make an inner or outer hair cell. We have overcome a major hurdle.”

About 8.5% of adults aged 55 to 64 in the U.S. have disabling hearing loss. That increases to nearly 25% of those aged 65 to 74 and 50% of those who are 75 and older, reports the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).  READ MORE...

Twirling Sheet

Basic Economics - Opportunity Costs (Trade Offs)

What are opportunity costs?

Opportunity costs are those costs that are associated with a gain or a loss of revenue or income as a result of the choices you make.

For example:  going to college or not going to college

Let's look at not going to college first    

You are 18 years old and will be earning $24,000 annually and after 10 years your wages increase by $500/year.  After 20 they increase by $1,000.  After 30 they increase by $1,500.  After 40 they increase by $2,000

18-28 =  $240,000 first 10 years
28-38 =  $245,000 second 10 years
38-48 =  $345,000 third 10 years
48-58 =  $360,000 fourth 10 years
58-68 = $600,000 fifth 10 years (at 68 you retire)
             $1,790,000  Total lifetime earnings (+/-)

Let's Look at going to college

You are 24 years old and your first job earns you $50,000/year because you have a Masters's Degree.  After 10 years you receive a $1,000/year increase.  After 20 years you receive a $1,500/year increase.  After 30 years you receive a $2,000/year increase.

18-24 =  ($200,000) college loan plus 6 years of lost wages ($144,000) or ($344,000)

24-34 =  $500,000 first 10 years

34-44 =  $600,000 second 10 years

44-54 =  $750,000 third 10 years

54-64 =  $990,000 fourth 10 years (you retire at 64)

              $2, 840,000  Sub-Total lifetime earnings (+/-)

                   ($300,000) Tuition Loan plus interest

                   ($144,000)  Lost wages while in college

                   ($444,000)  Opportunity cost

              $2, 396,000

A college graduate with a Masters's Degree will earn (on average) $600,000 more than someone who decided not to go to college.  However, this amount is cut in half if a college graduate stops after receiving just their Bachelor's degree.  This means there is another opportunity cost of not going to college for 2 more years.

The difference between going to college and not going to college can be offset again by finding different ways to invest one's excess monies whether it be in the Stock Market or in Real Estate.  Many people who do not go to college end up receiving trade skills either by investing their own money or by finding employers who will give them the money or train them on the job.  Many of these people end up investing in real estate because they can provide the labor themselves.

Excited Fans

Mind Wandering

Research shows that one of the most effective ways to spur creativity is to allow your mind to wander and to follow it without judgment. But science also shows why that is tougher than it sounds.

In 2010, two researchers working at Harvard University began exploring how people feel about and experience mind wandering. They did so by interrupting people at random times of the day by sending texts to cellphone numbers they'd gathered, along with the consent to interrupt. They got responses from 2,250 adults.

The text messages they sent asked a handful of questions. One was, "What are you doing right now?" and that question could be answered with a number from 1 to 22 that corresponded to various common, everyday activities—taking a walk, working, grooming/self-care, doing housework, taking care of children, making love. 

(First off, let's dispense with the joke that for many people sex is not nearly as everyday an activity as they might like.) What's of note about making love is that it was by far the least likely time for a study subject's mind to wander. People were, as they say, on task.

That was not the case, though, for so many other activities.

On average, people's minds wandered 47% of the time.

To read more about mind wandering, CLICK HERE...

The Power of Prayer

 

Cost of Electric Cars

At a time when it costs up to $100 to fill a gas tank, but as little as $10 to charge an electric car, buying an EV may seem like an obvious choice. But EV economics are complicated and you need to be savvy about a lot of unfamiliar factors before you can stick it to the oil companies.

Buying a new car
To drive an EV you have to buy an EV, an often pricey proposition. Even after you sell or trade your current, conventional car you could easily be in the hole $10,000 or more. 

It'll take you several years to just break even, as my CNET Cars colleague Craig Cole calculates here, even assuming a scenario where you buy a very cheap EV, live in a place with cheap electricity and always charge at home. That's a lot of "ifs" to make the purchase of a new EV an economic slam dunk.

This is not a new concern: I can't count the number of people I know who bought a hybrid or other fuel-efficient car at a net cost far higher than they could ever save on fuel with it. 

One friend insisted on trading in their Porsche Cayenne for a Cayenne Hybrid, even after I penciled out that it would take them 111 years to break even.  READ MORE...

Ice Skating

 

Following the Yellow Brick Road in the Pacific Ocean

An expedition to a deep-sea ridge, just north of the Hawaiian Islands, has revealed an ancient dried-out lake bed paved with what looks like a yellow brick road.

The eerie scene was chanced upon by the exploration vessel Nautilus, which is currently surveying the Liliʻuokalani ridge within Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM).

PMNM is one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world, larger than all the national parks in the United States combined, and we've only explored about 3 percent of its seafloor.

Researchers at the Ocean Exploration Trust are pushing the frontiers of this wilderness, which lies more than 3,000 meters below the waves, and the best part is, anyone can watch the exploration.

All day every day, researchers provide live footage, and a recently published highlight reel on YouTube captures the moment researchers operating the deep-sea vehicle stumbled upon the road to Oz.

"It's the road to Atlantis," a researcher on the radio can be heard exclaiming.

"The yellow brick road?" another voice countered.

"This is bizarre," added another member of the team.

"Are you kidding me? This is crazy."  READ MORE...

Over the Fence

A Little Something About Economics

There are two basic concepts of economics:  SUPPLY and DEMAND...

Supply refers to what is being produced or manufactured and delivered to the marketplace for purchase.

Demand refers to what the general public wants to buy and do they have the money to buy an item.

This does not really refer to the wealthy people but to 80-90% of the people who have an average amount of income...  so, the wealthy and the poor are for the most part excluded when we are talking about economics and supply and demand.

If we stimulate the supply side (produce more products) but we do not increase the demand or increase the money for people to buy, the products will go unsold and prices will drop...  (Theoretically)

If we stimulate the demand side (increase people's money) but do not increase the supply, then prices will increase and quite possibly will cause inflation.  (Theoretically)

So, based upon this basic description then one should stimulate both the supply side as well as the demand side simultaneously so that economic growth takes place as both sides grow together.

However, if both sides grow together, the worker will never really get ahead financially as their pay could increase 3% while at the same time prices increase 3%...

When this happens, the public must find different ways to increase their revenue greater than price increases.  This can be done by:

• increasing one's education
• find other sources of income
• changing jobs
• relocating to another state
• cut one's expenses

Republicans believe in stimulating supply

Democrats believe in stimulating demand

One other concern to this issue is immigration....  By allowing more people into this country, the government is essentially increasing the demand without increasing the supply...  this causes prices to increase...

The general public needs to understand and appreciate the basics of economics so that they can intelligently make decisions that will dramatically influence their lives and their future.