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Tumors Shrunk by Engineered Immune Cells, Scientists Say by Stefan Lovgren, on an extermintal treatment with 17 patients so far:
The therapy has so far been applied only to melanoma patients. But the researchers are optimistic that their treatment can be used for many other types of cancer.
The team has already engineered similar immune cells for more common tumors, such as breast, lung, and liver cancers.
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His team focused on T (thymus) cells, a type of specialized immune cell that can learn to recognize and attack specific “foreign” objects, such as the cancer cells that make up tumors.
In the new study, researchers created tumor-fighting cells by harvesting normal T cells from melanoma patients and genetically engineering these cells to carry receptor proteins on their surfaces that recognize cancer markers.
Listen to the podcast from NPR today
Exercise Improves Learning and Memory, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 1999.
Interest in ocean power resurges by Dennis Camire via A new wave of interest in ocean power:
Related: Wind Power - Solar Tower Power Generation - Large-Scale, Cheap Solar Electricity - MIT’s Energy ‘Manhattan Project’ - Wind Power Technology Breakthrough
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Another human like robot from Japan (by Mitsubishi): Wakamaru
Read more about the technology behind the robot.
Related: Toyota Robots - Domestic robot to debut in Japan, BBC News - Tour the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Lab - Robot Learning - posts on robotics
MIT proton treatment could replace x-ray use in radiation therapy:
The fundamental idea is to harness the cell-killing power of protons — the naked nuclei of hydrogen atoms — to knock off cancer cells before the cells kill the patient. Worldwide, the use of radiation treatment now depends mostly on beams of x-rays, which do kill cancer cells but can also harm many normal cells that are in the way.
IBM Ph.D. Fellowships are awarded worldwide. IBM Ph.D. Fellows are awarded tuition, fees, and a stipend of $17,500 (US) for one academic year. IBM Ph.D. Fellowships are awarded annually but may compete annually to be renewed for up to three years, based on the Award Recipient’s continued exceptional academic standing, progress and achievement, and sustained interaction with IBM’s technical community. All Award Recipient’s wishing for an award renewal must be renominated to compete for an award renewal.
Students must be nominated by a faculty member. They must be enrolled full-time in a college or university Ph.D. program, and they should have completed at least one year of study in their doctoral program at the time of their nomination.
Open for nominations approximately September 19 through October 31, 2006.
To get the fastest vertical acceleration, your foot must push against the ground for as long as possible. And that requires the runner to, as Dapena says, run with “the butt scraping the ground.” Still, there’s a tradeoff — if you run too low, your overly flexed knees will create a puny push-off.
Related: Score One for Sports Science - posts related to athletics - Ministry of Silly Walks
25 provosts from top universities jointly released a letter supporting current legislation to require open publication of scientific research. Good.
via: e3 Information Overload, Rallying Behind Open Access:
Related: Britain’s Royal Society Experiments with Open Access by John Hunter:
For public funded research this open access expectation seems obvious. For private foundations in most cases I would think open access publication makes sense also. What business model is used to allow open access is not important, in my opinion. The important factor is open access, how that is accomplished is something that can be experimented with.
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If I were making the decision for a university I would have expectations that we publish openly.
Cancer cell ‘executioner’ found:
The University of Illinois team created a synthetic molecule which caused cancer cells to self-destruct.
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They found the molecule PAC-1 did trigger the transformation, and cancer cells from mice and from human tumours could be prompted to self-destruct - a process called apoptosis.
Sick of Getting Sick? Embrace Your Inner Bacteria!, NPR:
Right this minute, in the moist, warm grottos throughout your body, encounters with friendly bacteria are teaching your immune cells how to recognize dangerous invaders. The ability to distinguish friend from foe is crucial to keeping you healthy. And by acting as a thick ground cover, these benign bacteria crowd out truly noxious germs — salmonella, say, or dangerous versions of E. coli.
The title of NPR’s article is a bit misleading as the focus of the story is really on the potential harm from antibiotics. Bacterial Evolution in Yogurt provides some additional information on the benefits of bacteria. Here are more good bacteria articles:: Friendly bacteria ‘target ulcers’ - Over-sixties advised to boost daily diet with ‘good’ bacteria - USC researcher underscores the benefits bacteria can provide - Bacteria Added to Gum, Toothpaste and Deodorant - How ‘good’ bacteria could counter overuse of antibiotics
via: Take care of those microbes in your gut
Related: articles on the overuse of antibiotics - Antibiotic Resistance and You
The Bell Labs Graduate Research Fellowship Program is designed to increase the number of minorities and women in the fields of science, math, engineering and technology. Fellowships are awarded to women and members of a underrepresented minority groups who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
The program is primarily directed to graduating college seniors, but applications from first-year graduate students will be considered in the following fields: Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Communications Science, Computer Science/Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Information Science, Materials Science, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Operations Research, Physics and Statistics.
History - apply online (deadline 12 Jan 2007) - more information
Related: NSF Graduate Research Fellowship - blog posts on fellowships and scholarships
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In, Working in Industry vs Working in Academia, a computer scientist (software engineering) shares their experience and opinion on research career options. He discusses 4 areas: freedom (to pursue your research), funding, time and scale, products (papers, patents, products).
Related: post on science and engineering careers - Google: engineers given 20% time to pursue their ideas
Experts warn U.S. is coming apart at the seams by Chuck McCutcheon:
“I thought [Hurricane] Katrina was a hell of a wake-up call, but people are missing the alarm,” said Casey Dinges, the society’s managing director of external affairs.
It will take much longer than 5 years: there is no way over $300 billion is available each year to catch up. Infrastructure is not an exciting area to invest in but just like skipping preventative maintenance on equipment will cost organizations more in the long run, failing to invest in maintaining the infrastructure will cost more.
These “grade” evaluations are a bit flaky: what does a D mean for the USA (they define it as “poor” which still doesn’t mean much)? Still, it is clear the ASCE sees a need for improvement. Related: 2005 ASCE report - Concord Coalition
Watch a video of Richard Baraniuk (Rice University professor speaking at TED) discussing Connexions: an open-access education publishing system. The content available through Connexions includes short content modules such as:
and: Protein Folding, as well as full courses, such as: Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering I and Physics for K-12.
Related: Google technical talk webcasts (including a presentation by Richard Baraniuk at Google) - podcasts of Technical Talks at Google - science podcast posts - Berkeley and MIT courses online
Reform, Innovation, and Economic Growth by President Levin, Yale University president, speaking at the University of Tokyo:
The superior education of the labor force and a large and well-trained pool of engineers contributed mightily to Japan’s rapid growth from 1945 to 1990.
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In fostering science-based innovation, the United States has drawn upon two national characteristics that have long been a source of advantage: the ready availability of capital and the relative absence of barriers to the formation of new firms. These institutional features help with the rapid translation of science into industrial practice. But the United States government also recognized, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, that public investment was essential to generate steady progress in basic science. Scientific discoveries are the foundation of industrial technology.
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A recent study prepared for the National Science Foundation found that 73% of the main science papers cited in industrial patents granted in the U.S. were based on research financed by government or nonprofit agencies and carried out in large part in university laboratories.
Related: The World’s Best Research Universities - Science and Engineering in Global Economics - China challenges dominance of USA, Europe and Japan - The Future is Engineering - America’s Technology Advantage Slipping
Discovery Channels’ Extreme Engineering explores audacious engineering possibilities. The Extreme Engineering web site provides a view of some of the exciting projects engineers have worked on like the new subways for New York City and Hong Kong’s airport. And it also shows some possible future projects like a transatlantic tunnel (image above) which would float in the ocean and carry trains, pipelines…. Trains could run in a vacuum and travel at 6-8,000 kph (taking under an hour to travel from New York City to London. Of course there are quite a few engineering and economic factors to deal with to make something like that a reality.
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