A slightly belated Sunday Science, due to term hitting with unusual force three weeks back. More on coronavirus, CRISPR against cancer, using albatrosses to police illegal fishing, giant fossil beasties, and why it’s never too late to give up smoking.
In this week’e Sunday Science…DNA and disease risks, how orca females make super grannies, another cancer immunotherapy success, bees, the world’s oldest hunting scene, and terrifying galloping crocodiles… Continue reading
In this week’s Sunday Science: apes might have evolved upright far earlier than thought; a new drug against the most common cancer mutation; cooperative flesh-eating bacteria and a test for antibiotic resistance. Also: 3D Star Wars style displays, bad psychology, and a celebration of 150 years of publication of Nature magazine…. Continue reading
Welcome to this week’s Sunday Science, featuring a successful immunotherapy trial for advanced melanoma, sensitive prosthetic limbs, Bronze age baby bottles, an intriguing study of genetic adaptation in whales and dolphins, dreaming octopuses and one incredibly tough little worm… Continue reading
In this week’s Sunday Science some nice medical advances: a promising new HIV vaccine trial, approval of a drug for ovarian cancer and a potential game-changer with gene edited blood cells to treat blood disorders that affect millions of people. Also: spooky green fluorescent sharks, our twisted galaxy, green energy, and embryo development. Continue reading
Welcome to this week’s Sunday Science, featuring a “game-changing” test for leukaemia, curing HIV and type 2 diabetes, how children help women live longer, and why you need sleep to repair your DNA… Continue reading
In this edition of Sunday science, wearable tech to monitor babies, giant bats, peregrine falcons, new blood tests for cancer, and working out how Alzheimer’s disease progresses.
The terminal attack trajectories of peregrine falcons are described by the same feedback law used by visually guided missiles. Or perhaps more accurately, since the birds were here first, the missiles use the same law. Open access, but there’s a less technical Science Daily version here.
Sussex University physicists have designed a new form of wearable tech which is small and unobtrusive, which would enable you to easily remotely monitor baby’s vital signs etc. They contain the most sensitive liquid-based devices, made from an affordable emulsion of graphene, water and oil.
A giant extinct bat that crawled on the ground has been described from fossils found in New Zealand.
Imaging brains with Alzheimer’s has shed light on the role of a key protein involved, tau, which seems to spread down highly connected neurons. Slowing down this process may help treat or stop the progression of the disease. Featured image: artist’s impression of the spread of tau filaments (red) throughout the brain, by Thomas Cope, via Cambridge university.
You may have seen in the mainstream news about a blood test that can be used to test for eight of the most common cancers. This works by detecting the presence of common cancer-causing mutations in certain genes. It’s exciting, but only really works effectively for very advanced cancers. You may not have seen another blood test that uses DNA methylation (reversible chemical modifications that alter how easy it is to turn a gene on or off) to detect and predict the spread of breast cancer:
And finally, in a first for me citing the journal Construction and Building Materials, how do make concrete that can heal its own cracks as they appear over time? Well, apparently, you might start by mixing fungi with it. A little experimental as yet, but a neat idea. This is paywalled, but you can read the Science Daily version here.
Who would like to hear some really good news? Thought so. One of the promises of the molecular biology and genomics revolutions was that gene therapy – replacing defective, disease-causing genes with functioning ones, or otherwise treating these diseases by genetic means – would become a reality. Even, optimistically, something commonplace. Like so many things, however, it has proved more complicated than hoped, and those longed-for treatments elusive. There has never been a therapy of any kind that alters the disease progress of a neurodegenerative disease – until now. Continue reading
After my somewhat depressing previous post, I decided to comment on something a little more optimistic this time around, namely the success in getting treatments for some of world’s most underfunded diseases afflicting the world’s poorest people. And at a knockdown price, too… Continue reading
Sometimes the science of the future seems very far away, and sometimes it seems to happen almost faster than you would think. Immunotherapy is taking off at a record pace in the search for better cancer treatments.
The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice), the body in the United Kingdom that licences medicines for use, has just approved a combination of two immunotherapy drugs in record time. These two drugs are ipilumab and nivolumab, which I blogged about as a treatment showing promising clinical trial results only a short while ago.
Nivolumab blocks a molecule secreted by cancer cells that prevents the T-cells of the immune system from recognising and destroying them. Ipilumab, which was approved by Nice in 2012, stimulates the T-cells to multiply. This drug combination has been approved for the treatment of metastatic (i.e. spread from its original site) melanoma, a particularly intractable cancer to treat. The life expectancy for this type of cancer is only around two years: the combination treatment has extended this to as much as ten years (and counting, in some cases). Moreover, ipilumab alone is effective in about 20% of cases: the combination raises that to 60%. So these are massively improved odds. I expect to see more successes soon, and, as more experience is gained with these exciting new techniques, hopefully the side-effects will become more manageable as well.
The Unlimiting Factor 