2007

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).

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.

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.”

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.”

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.