Monday, September 19th, 2011
Stephan: This is another example of empirically developed therapies that were the product of generations of careful observation. Long before Big Pharma, there were effective treatments for disease.
Thanks to Anya Kucharev.
Curcumin, the main component in the spice turmeric used in curry, suppresses a cell signaling pathway that drives the growth of head and neck cancer, according to a pilot study using human saliva by researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The inhibition of the cell signaling pathway also correlated with reduced expression of a number of pro-inflammatory cytokines, or signaling molecules, in the saliva that promote cancer growth, said Dr. Marilene Wang, a professor of head and neck surgery, senior author of the study and a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher.
‘This study shows that curcumin can work in the mouths of patients with head and neck malignancies and reduce activities that promote cancer growth,’ Wang said. ‘And it not only affected the cancer by inhibiting a critical cell signaling pathway, it also affected the saliva itself by reducing pro-inflammatory cytokines within the saliva.’
The study appears Sept. 15 in Clinical Cancer Research, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Association of Cancer Research.
Turmeric is a naturally occurring spice widely used in South Asian and Middle Eastern cooking and has long been known to have medicinal properties, attributed to its anti-inflammatory effects. Previous studies have shown it can suppress the growth of certain cancers. […]
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Monday, September 19th, 2011
Susan Searls Giroux, - Stanford University Press/truthout.org
Stephan:
In late October 2008, just days before the U.S. presidential election, George Monbiot of London’s The Guardian, caught perhaps in a mood of deepening anxiety and dread over the impending outcome, leveled an indictment against the American government and at least half of the electorate in the form of a question: ‘How did politics in the U.S. come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance?
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Monday, September 19th, 2011
SIMON BRADLEY, - swissinfo.ch (Switzerland)
Stephan: This awful story has now broken out in Switzerland, and just keeps gathering momentum. However, I sense that it, like a fever, is reaching the crisis point. The statement mentioned here which will be coming from Pope Benedict XVI, almost by definition will be inadequate, and the court cases in several countries are now gathering steam. By this time next year I think we will finally be at the denouement.
As the child sex abuse scandal in Europe widens, doubts have been raised over whether an expected statement from Pope Benedict XVI will help heal the wounds.
After Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Poland, 70 new cases of abuse are reportedly under investigation in Switzerland. In addition, this week a priest in the eastern Chur diocese resigned after admitting to abusing children.
The ‘deeply concerned
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Monday, September 19th, 2011
SIMON KUPER, - Financial Times (U.K.)
Stephan: This is the latest twist in the climate change trend, one which recognizes nothing serious is going to be done about climate change until it is too late and that all subsequent responses involve rich countries working out local solutions while the world as a whole does... well, whatever it can afford which, in the case of much of the world, is nothing at all.
This isn't going to work, of course, because it does not really address the mass migrations that are coming, the utter disruption of the food system, the increasing potential for pandemics as system break down. But when one is as stupid as we are culturally, one is stupid all the way through.
The only 'solution' I can see that has a chance is working at the local level, for local responses that preserve the quality of life for individuals, families and communities locally.
When someone offered me a trip to India, I said, ‘Definitely.
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Monday, September 19th, 2011
, - The Sydney Morning-Herald (Australia)
Stephan: This is an example of an emerging new trend: hive intelligence. Linkage through the internet leading to linkage in the nonlocal consciousness domain, guided by shared intention. This demonstrates the power of such a cohort, linked together in a game that invokes both reasoning and what is called 'intuition' -- which read opening to nonlocal consciousness -- to solve urgent problems. This is excellent news. This is a new innovation process that holds enormous potential, as the report makes clear.
Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.
The exploit is published on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, where – exceptionally in scientific publishing – both gamers and researchers are honoured as co-authors.
Their target was a monomeric protease enzyme, a cutting agent in the complex molecular tailoring of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV.
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Figuring out the structure of proteins is vital for understanding the causes of many diseases and developing drugs to block them.
But a microscope gives only a flat image of what to the outsider looks like a plate of one-dimensional scrunched-up spaghetti. Pharmacologists, though, need a 3D picture that ‘unfolds’ the molecule and rotates it in order to reveal potential targets for drugs.
This is where Foldit comes in.
Developed in 2008 by the University of Washington, it is a fun-for-purpose video game in which gamers, divided into competing groups, compete to unfold chains of amino acids – the building blocks of proteins – using a set of online tools.
To the astonishment of the scientists, the […]
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