Beyond science!

[eloic]

Hi!

On a daily basis, I like to read the latest news about science. I already created an astronomy thread, as you know, and I think it's ok to have a separated thread, since it's a very specific subject, but... what about a global thread for science?

I'm especially interested in vaccines, regenerative surgery, bio-engineering, cure of weird diseases, nutrition and cancer research.

Welcome!

 

[eloic]

I think a good start would be quickly sharing this piece of news:

A New Cancer 'Vaccine' Wiped Out Tumours in Mice, And Human Trials Are Next
This treatment is incredibly effective.


MICHELLE STARR
2 FEB 2018
An injectable "vaccine" delivered directly to tumours in mice has been found to eliminate all traces of those tumours, cancer researchers have found - and it works on many different kinds of cancers, including untreated metastases in the same animal.

​

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https://www.sciencealert.com/cancer-vaccine-stanford-immunotherapy-t-cell-ox40-mouse-models-lymphoma

 

[Grall]

Russian nuclear weapons research supercomputer staff arrested for attempting to use Russian gov't 1Pflop supercomputer for mining bitcoins:
https://gizmodo.com/russian-engineers-arrested-for-using-nuclear-weapons-fa-1822865348

Lol.

As one of the commenters to the newspost said: this is the most Russian story I've ever read.

 

[eloic]

As one of the commenters to the newspost said: this is the most Russian story I've ever read.

LMFAO!!

 

[Mize]

Cool thread. I'm starting to look into research using gene therapy for chronic severe pain. I've got a horse in that race. Apparently there is a gene that causes an inability to feel pain. It can be only partially expressed in some people so they only have a reduced sensitivity to pain so the idea is to use this phenomenon to treat pain in place of opioids or the gabapentin/lyrica class is drugs.

 

[eloic]

Wine polyphenols could fend off bacteria that cause cavities and gum disease

Evidence suggests that sipping wine may be good for your colon and heart, possibly because of the beverage's abundant and structurally diverse polyphenols. Now researchers report that wine polyphenols might also be good for your oral health.

Red wine.
Credit: © natashaphoto / Fotolia

Evidence suggests that sipping wine may be good for your colon and heart, possibly because of the beverage's abundant and structurally diverse polyphenols. Now researchers report in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that wine polyphenols might also be good for your oral health.​

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180221091326.htm

Let's get drunk for our oral health!!

 

[Grall]

Yeah, drink wine to kill gum disease bacteria, get oral cancer from alcohol consumption instead.

 

[Davros]

 

[eloic]

Kids are starting to picture scientists as women
But gender stereotypes begin to take hold in preteen years​

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/kids-are-starting-picture-scientists-women

I'm not an advocate for /insert obnoxious voice "every career must be 50% female-50% male!!" /stop obnoxious voice, but I do like that women are having a more prominent place in kids' minds regarding this type of socially relevant jobs.

 

[eloic]

Rising CO2 levels might not be as good for plants as we thought
Long-term experiment finds a surprising flip in the rules for plant photosynthesis​

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rising-co2-levels-might-not-be-good-plants-we-thought

So... I think we can't jump into conclusions, whether it's one conclusion or the opposite. :-S We will only know in the long term or if more studies are done.

Or maybe plants will just adapt in the long term and the difference won't be very huge, neither much better nor much worse regarding growth.

 

[eloic]

HIV vaccine developed at UMass Medical School to start clinical trials at four US sites
A vaccine developed at the University of Massachusetts Medical School to prevent infection by HIV, the virus linked to AIDS, is about to undergo Phase I clinical trial testing at four sites around the country.
​

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http://www.telegram.com/news/20180411/hiv-vaccine-developed-at-umass-medical-school-to-start-clinical-trials-at-four-us-sites

It seems that this vaccine addresses the issue of virus mutation, but the articles doesn't explain how.

There're lots of HIV vaccine trials at this moment. I wonder if some of them will have any success... specially those which have a therapeutic effect, rather than just a preventive one.

 

[eloic]

First-of-Its-Kind Footage Shows Cells Moving in Live Animals

A newly developed technique excels at capturing 3-D images of cells in their natural environments.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com...inside-living-animals-first-time-science-spd/

 

[eloic]

Elon Musk Has a Plan to Get You Anywhere on Earth in An Hour
Two heads might be better than one, but what about two futuristic transportation technologies? Elon Musk seems to think so.

This morning, May 16, the tech luminary took to his favorite communication platform (Twitter) to announce plans to combine SpaceX’s BFR (Big F*cking Falcon Rocket) with The Boring Company’s underground hyperloop.

The result? A transportation system that could take you practically anywhere in the world in roughly an hour.

https://futurism.com/elon-musk-bfr-earth/

I've read some things about this hyperloop (in its Wikipedia article, mainly)... One that specially caught my attention was that "Other maglev trains are already in use, which avoid much of the added costs of Hyperloop. The Shinkansen (bullet train) in Japan has demonstrated 603 km/h (375 mph) without using a vacuum tube".

Sure, hyperloop's concept looks cooler and the design may be better for Mars ("According to Musk, Hyperloop would be useful on Mars as no tubes would be needed because Mars' atmosphere is about 1% the density of the Earth's at sea level", from the same Wikipedia article), but now I don't see a high advantage over standard maglev trains which can already reach a similar speed.

What do you guys think?

 

[cheapchips]

Musk is crap at timescales but good at cost. You can pretty much guarantee that The Boring Company version of a hyperloop will be much cheaper than a maglev train.

It's worth noting that Musk only started looking at building an actual hyperloop with TBC. Prior to that, he was leaving it to the other groups to do. Virgin hyperloop and others have their own spin on the design.

 

[Davros]

 

[cheapchips]

Don't know why you're posting that guy again. On p2p rockets he picks lazy criticisms and then gets his facts wrong several times. Same on his original hyperloop busted video. Fair enough if you enjoy sub-Clarkson snark though.

This is the presentation Musk and a couple of others did on the TBC last week. Their approach is pretty pragmatic.

 

[eloic]

New Liquid Biopsy Detects Cancer at Earlier Stages Than Currently Possible
The test can pick up several types of cancer, including pancreatic and ovarian, years before symptoms appear.​

https://www.the-scientist.com/?arti...er-at-Earlier-Stages-Than-Currently-Possible/

I just hope these kinds of tests can be standardized rather than avoided because of health systems trying to avoid "unnecessary alarms".

 

[Davros]

@cheapchips what facts does he get wrong ?

ps: free rides to the public in as little as a few months
we will discuss this in november see if it's happened

 

[cheapchips]

@cheapchips what facts does he get wrong ?

ps: free rides to the public in as little as a few months
we will discuss this in november see if it's happened

It was a while ago to be honest. The thing I remember in particular were wrong assumptions around g force loads on passages for P2P rockets and the really dodgy way he'd got there. I'm not going to watch either video again, I'm sure you can find thorough critique if you want.

The free ride to the public thing is just people scooting up their little test tunnel on something. Unless they run foul of fire exit rules they could do it tomorrow if someone swept the floor. It's far from a completed 'Loop' system, nevermind a hyperloop. Both are years off even if people accept TBC's pooting about under LA.

 

[eloic]

New studies add evidence to a possible link between Alzheimer’s and herpesvirus
A-beta plaque buildup could be the brain’s way of protecting itself from the virus

Joel Dudley and his colleagues were searching through datasets for Alzheimer’s disease vulnerabilities to exploit in creating a treatment when they stumbled across a surprising correlation: Many of the brains they looked at had signs of herpesvirus infection. But those from people with Alzheimer’s disease had much higher levels of viral DNA than those from healthy people.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/alzheimers-herpesvirus-possible-link

Superinteresting! Once we finally have an herpes vaccine, we could see a huge decrease in Alzheimer cases! Let's hope for the best.