2007
- Scientists weigh stem cells’ role as cancer cause [∞]
Within the next few months, researchers at three medical centers expect to start the first test in patients of one of the most promising — and contentious — ideas about the cause and treatment of cancer.
The idea is to take aim at what some scientists say are cancerous stem cells — aberrant cells that maintain and propagate malignant tumors.
“Within the next year, we will see medical centers targeting stem cells in almost every cancer,” said Dr. Max S. Wicha, director of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of the sites for the preliminary study that begins in the next few months (the other participating institutions are Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston).
- Why pregnant women don’t tip over [∞]
Wedge-shaped vertebrae in the lower back might be the key evolutionary adaptation that helps human females maintain a stable posture over the course of pregnancy.
According to anthropologists, the human adaptation is unique among primates and may have arisen shortly after early humans started walking upright.
- Seaweed could stem warming [∞]
BALI, Indonesia - Slimy, green and unsightly, seaweed and algae are among the humblest of plants.
A group of scientists at a climate conference in Bali say they could also be a potent weapon against global warming, capable of sucking damaging carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere at rates comparable to the mightiest rain forests.
“The ocean’s role is neglected because we can’t see the vegetation,” said Chung Ik-kyo, a South Korean environmental scientist. “But under the sea, there is a lot of seaweed and sea grass that can take up carbon dioxide.”
- Dalai Lama to visit Ann Arbor in April [∞]
The Dalai Lama will visit Ann Arbor in April for a series of talks in Crisler Arena.
The spiritual leader will present a two-day program, with two sessions on April 19 and 20 in Crisler Arena. The sessions will focus on “Engaging Wisdom and Compassion.”
- USPS to add 17% surcharge to Netflix DVD mailers [∞]
The USPS is apparently sick of Netflix’s patented DVD mailers clogging its sorting machines and has decided to charge the DVD rental company 17 cents per envelope to cover the estimated $61.5 million extra processing costs over the next two years.
After an audit, the USPS concluded that 70% of the mailers “sustain damage, jam equipment and cause mis-sorts during automated processing”. The extra charge will cut Netflix’s average monthly income from $1.05 to just 35 cents per customer.
Dear Netflix, I really enjoy your service, but if you raise prices to cover costs instead of redesigning your envelopes, I will cancel my service.
- Tigers and Marlins head in opposite directions [∞]
The Florida Marlins won the World Series more recently — in fact, much more recently — than the Detroit Tigers.
But here we are, just four years after Dontrelle Willis, Miguel Cabrera and the Marlins unleashed a champagne waterfall inside the visitors’ clubhouse in Yankee Stadium. And any minute now, there won’t be a single teal-clad human being left who can reminisce about one pitch of that World Series.
They’ll all be gone. Every one of them. At least they will be as soon as the Marlins get around to announcing that they’ve traded Willis and Cabrera to Detroit for a six-player package headed by stud prospects Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller.
Amazing.
The Tigers? They’re now an official baseball superpower.
If I lived a little bit closer to Detroit (than Ann Arbor), I would think about buying season tickets.
- Joe Mathlete explains today’s Marmaduke [∞]
A weblog that offers biting, hilarious descriptions of the daily Marmaduke comic strip. My personal favorite is from October 2nd, 2007. “The moonwalk goes backwards…there’s no hopping involved.”
- New Portishead album due in April [∞]
We knew they were working on it, and then wrapping it up, and now we know they’re actually going to release it this time. We even know approximately when! According to an Island Records rep, the as-yet-untitled new studio album from Portishead will arrive in April in the UK, a mere 10-odd years after the one before it. Patience pays, people!
Dummy is one of my favorite albums, so I’m hoping this new release is just as amazing.
- Booty says UCLA wasn’t in his head [∞]
Last year, UCLA threw USC off its game with a defensive scheme that flummoxed the Trojans and resulted in constant pressure on Booty, who was sacked twice and held without a touchdown pass for the only time in his two seasons as a starter.
After the game, UCLA defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker said, “As far as I was concerned, it was me against Booty. If I could get into his head, we could win.”
Said cornerback Rodney Van: “Late in the game, Booty was shell-shocked, you could see it; when he was supposed to be looking for receivers, he was trying to figure out where the rush was coming from. A quarterback of his stature shouldn’t be so shaken, but he was shaken.”
The Bruins will have Booty on their mind at the Coliseum this Saturday with a trip to the Rose Bowl on the line.
- A new angle on ‘old’ [∞]
The Buck was founded on the premise that ageing and disease are manifestations of the same biological processes, and they can be understood only by working across disciplines. It is a modern take, but it has its supporters, including the US National Instutites of Health (NIH). In 2005, the agency named the Buck as one of five national Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging. And in September, it gave the institute US$25 million to create a new ‘interdiscipline’ called geroscience: defined as the study of connections between ageing and age-related disease.
- Stem cell breakthrough is like ‘turning lead into gold’ [∞]
In an unprecedented feat of biological alchemy, researchers have turned human skin cells into stem cells that hold the same medical promise as the controversial embryonic stem cells.
Scientists believe stem cell research will be able to cure numerous diseases and regenerate failing bodies. The new technique, however, doesn’t require the destruction of embryos, or use human eggs or cloning. Thus, it sweeps aside the ethical objections to stem-cell research.
Even in a field accustomed to breathless proclamations of breakthroughs, the research — published Tuesday in two papers appearing in the journals Cell and Science — has provoked wonder among many scientists. They say the advance is more significant to medical research than last week’s announcement that scientists had cloned the first monkey embryo.
- Carr beloved by fellow coaches [∞]
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — It’s not every day that you hear a football coach quoting an Irish poet. But Lloyd Carr of Michigan, who revealed the worst-kept secret in American sports Monday morning when he announced his retirement, was not an everyday coach.
“Thirteen years ago, when I was named the head coach,” Carr said, “I took as my guide the words of Pakenham Beatty. He said:
By your own soul, learn to live.
If some men thwart you, take no heed.
If some men hate you, have no care.
Sing your song. Dream your dream.
Hope your hope and pray your prayer.“And that’s what I’ve tried to do.”
- The right to read [∞]
For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college—when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do.
- Michigan coach Carr to step down after 13 seasons with Wolverines [∞]
People have been talking about his possible successor for months, if not years.
LSU coach Les Miles seems to be at the top of the list because he played for Schembechler at Michigan, where he met his wife and later became an assistant there under Schembechler.
Even though Miles appears to be in a great situation leading the top-ranked Tigers in a talent-rich area of the country, the school was concerned enough about him bolting for Michigan that it put a specific clause in his contract to make it an expensive move.
In the “termination by coach” section of his deal, Michigan is the only other school mentioned. It states that Miles will not seek or accept employment as Michigan’s coach. If Miles does leave LSU to coach the Wolverines, he must pay LSU $1.25 million.
- Facebook’s Project Beacon [∞]
Beacon is the internal project name at Facebook around an effort to work with third parties and gain access to very specific user data. An example may be a purchase of a book or DVD from Amazon. Under Beacon, the fact of that purchase will be sent to Facebook and automatically included in the user’s News Feed.
At the point of sale on the third party site, the user will see a “toast” popup asking them if they approve the sale information being included in their Facebook News Feed.
If Facebook does roll out this feature, there is absolutely no way I will participate in this. Privacy advocates are going to have a field day.
- Low buzz may give mice better bones and less fat [∞]
Dr. Rubin, director of the Center for Biotechnology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is reporting that in mice, a simple treatment that does not involve drugs appears to be directing cells to turn into bone instead of fat.
All he does is put mice on a platform that buzzes at such a low frequency that some people cannot even feel it. The mice stand there for 15 minutes a day, five days a week. Afterward, they have 27 percent less fat than mice that did not stand on the platform — and correspondingly more bone.
- Greater Los Angeles [∞]
No matter what you do in L.A., your behavior is appropriate for the city. Los Angeles has no assumed correct mode of use. You can have fake breasts and drive a Ford Mustang – or you can grow a beard, weigh 300 pounds, and read Christian science fiction novels. Either way, you’re fine: that’s just how it works.
[...]
L.A. is the apocalypse: it’s you and a bunch of parking lots. No one’s going to save you; no one’s looking out for you. It’s the only city I know where that’s the explicit premise of living there – that’s the deal you make when you move to L.A.
The city, ironically, is emotionally authentic.
It says: no one loves you; you’re the least important person in the room; get over it.
What matters is what you do there.
- Soap up! The 12 germiest places in your life [∞]
- Kitchen sink
- Airplane bathrooms
- A load of wet laundry
- Public drinking fountains
- Shopping cart handles
- ATM buttons
- Purses
- Playgrounds
- Health club workout equipment
- Bath tub
- Office phone
- Hotel room remote control
- Huge pirate music site shut down [∞]
British and Dutch police have shut down a “widely-used” source of illegally-downloaded music. A flat on Teesside and several properties in Amsterdam were raided as part of an Interpol investigation into the members-only website OiNK.
The UK-run site has leaked 60 major pre-release albums this year alone, said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
A 24-year-old man from Middlesbrough was arrested on Tuesday morning.
There are a number of inaccuracies in the BBC report and press release issued by the IFPI. OiNK is not a pay site and does not specialize in distributing pre-release material. It is a free, by invitation only site that specializes in “secure” rips (i.e. with Exact Audio Copy) of hard to find, often out of print material.
- Love reaches out to the Wizard for advice, history [∞]
WESTWOOD, Calif. — Ask John Wooden, UCLA’s living treasure, how he’s doing, and the legendary 97-year-old coach will respond with a still-quick wit and say, “Well, I’m here!”
He is. And, for however long he can continue to offer guidance or a living history of the UCLA program, Bruins freshman Kevin Love is going to listen.