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Public Health The History of Cancer Therapy, an Interactive Timeline A look at major advancements in cancer treatments throughout the years, from the first radical mastectomy in 1882 to the immune checkpoint inhibitors and DNA-sequencing tests of the 21st century… Faster, clearer PET images offer new views on disease A new deep learning method for generating PET images could significantly improve the way doctors understand cancers and other diseases July 9, 2019 — Julie Grisham...

A bedrock tenet of paleontology holds that fossils of dinosaurs and other long-gone beasts consist strictly of inorganic remains. Organic substances such as blood are simply too fragile to persist across millions of years. Or so scientists thought. A growing body of evidence indicates that organic material such as blood vessels and cells can in fact survive in fossils, as this article in the December 2010 issue explains. Below is a list of online resources about discoveries of putative dinosaur soft tissues and the controversy they have engendered....

LOS ANGELES—It would seem that measures promoting renewable energy and alternative fuels would be shoo-ins here where gas prices are among the nation’s highest. Two thirds of Californians polled say they want their state to be a leader in advancing technologies that reduce pollution and combat climate change. But a pair of ambitious ballot initiatives—Proposition 7 (aka “Big Solar”) and Proposition 10 (“Big Natural Gas”)—designed to do just that appear to be in trouble because of growing fiscal concerns....

The statewide average temperature for the period was 58°F, or 4.8°F above the 20th century average. That bests the previous warmest January-June in 1934 by 1.1°F — a substantial difference, said Jake Crouch, a climate scientist with NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. The record exemplifies a temperature pattern that has held across the country for much of the year, with above-average temperatures in the West and below average in the East....

The latest chapter in the legal battle over gene patenting unfolded this week during oral arguments (MP3) made in a Washington, D.C., courtroom. A year after a somewhat surprising victory in a New York federal district court, a group of plaintiffs led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) now hopes the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (pdf) will uphold the earlier ruling that invalidated patents on BRCA1 and BRCA2—two genes commonly tested to determine risk for breast and ovarian cancers....

Approximately one in 68 children is identified with some form of autism, from extremely mild to severe, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. On average, diagnosis does not occur until after age four, yet all evidence indicates that early intervention is the best way to maximize the treatment impact. Various tests that look for signs of autism in infants have not been conclusive but a new exercise could improve early diagnosis, and also help reduce worry among parents that they did not intervene as soon as possible....

Over the past few hundred years, as scientists have grappled with understanding the source of the amazing processing power in our skulls, they have employed a number of metaphors based on familiar technologies of their given era. The brain has been thought of as a hydraulic machine (18th century), a mechanical calculator (19th century) and an electronic computer (20th century). Today, early in the 21st century, we have another metaphor driven by the capabilities of the current technology—this time colorful images from modern brain scans....

Just beyond the defunct Koloa Sugar Mill on the Hawaiian island of Kauai’s south shore are acres of cornfields that have sprouted over the past decade in a state made famous by its pineapples, bananas and sugarcane crops. Slightly out of place in the Aloha State, they otherwise look quite conventional, although in fact they are not: The crop is among a bounty of others in the state that are grown from seeds that have been genetically engineered or modified (GM) to produce sturdier plants able to withstand weather and disease as well as thrive in the face of insects and chemicals sprayed on them to kill destructive weeds....

Early on the morning of May 18, 1980, Arlene Edwards, a freelance photographer from Portland, Ore., and her 19-year-old daughter, Jolene, drove across the Columbia River to a high outcropping of rock in southwestern Washington State. There they set up Arlene’s camera and began to watch the Mount St. Helens volcano 10 miles to their southeast. For the previous two months the volcano had been spitting out ash and steam, and the Edwardses were among dozens of observers on surrounding ridges who thought they were a safe distance away....

Strolling along on a crisp fall day last weekend, I found myself completely engaged in the moment: the arresting beauty of the azure sky, the pops of ruddy and lemon hues from the turning leaves, my body’s pleasant feeling of mild exertion. I have always liked to call this feeling “being where you are” and had long noticed that being aware of the “present now” made me feel content. I didn’t know until much later that this notion is part of what we now call cultivating “mindfulness....

By Scott Malone BOSTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Millions in the U.S. Northeast on Wednesday started digging out from a powerful blizzard that dumped up to 3 feet of snow and led to coastal flooding around parts the region, while largely bypassing New York City. Snow was forecast to continue falling in the area throughout the morning, although the National Weather Service had lifted blizzard and winter storm warnings across New England....

Recent research has revealed that brains continue to produce new neurons throughout life, helping create new neural networks. This neurogenesis only takes place in a few specific areas, such as the area in which the brain and spinal column meet. The new cells, however, can migrate throughout the brain and turn up as far away as the olfactory bulb–a cluster of nerve cells at the front surface of the brain responsible for the sense of smell....

Spider silk proteins and methods for producing spider silk proteins Dragline silk is the toughest kind of spider silk. By weight, it is tougher than Kevlar, which is used in bulletproof vests. But researchers have trouble spinning silk proteins into usable material. Patent no. 8,278,416 details two modified spider silk proteins and describes how they can be coaxed to self-assemble. The resulting material is nontoxic, biodegradable, as well as “strong and elastic like natural silk,” says My Hedhammar of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and director of R&D at Spiber Technologies in Uppsala....

Local and state health departments across the U.S. monitor communities for infectious disease outbreaks, ensure that restaurant food is safe, and provide walk-in immunization and clinics for sexually transmitted diseases. Yet since the financial crisis began in 2007, 40 percent of the nation’s health departments have suffered serious budget cuts that have forced them to shed a quarter of their workforce. Many experts fear that these cutbacks are putting the country at risk for epidemics....

By Andrew M. Seaman (Reuters Health) - More than half of U.S. parents say their babies sleep with pillows, blankets and other loose bedding despite recommendations against their use from doctors and health officials, according to a new government study. Removing loose bedding from a baby’s sleeping environment is one way to reduce their risk of suffocation and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), write the researchers, who are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)....

Adapted from Brain Storms: The Race to Unlock the Mysteries of Parkinson’s Disease, by Jon Palfreman, by arrangement with Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC (US), HarperCollins (Canada), Rider (UK), Uitgeverij Balans (Netherlands) and Beltz Verlagsgruppe (Germany). Copyright © 2015 by Jon Palfreman. It all began with a routine office visit. In the spring of 1986 neurologist Larry Golbe conducted a clinical examination of a 48-year-old New Jersey fire chief named David....

When a 10-kilometer-wide hunk of burning space rock slammed into what is now the Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago, it touched off widespread destruction, wiping out more than 75 percent of life on Earth. The Chicxulub asteroid, as it is called, is best known as the dinosaur killer. But although it doomed Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops, the sauropods and the hadrosaurs, the asteroid actually set one lineage of dinosaurs on a path to glory: that of modern birds....

When one thinks of those trying to spread the word about the risks of global warming to society, one of the most reputedly staid industries probably does not leap to mind. Global reinsurer Swiss Re is looking to change that. Having long had its eye on climate change, the company cosponsored a major report, released in late 2005, high lighting the potentially disastrous economic consequences of global warming. The report notes: “Insurers and reinsurers find themselves on the front lines of this challenge since the very viability of their industry rests on the proper appreciation of risk....

In an effort to improve cancer care, researchers today announced plans to create a giant database designed to allow oncologists and scientists to share vital information. The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) and Rutgers University, both in New Brunswick, along with IBM are developing a computer system that allows physicians and researchers worldwide to tap into the latest developments in cancer research and treatment; they envision it as a tool that will help doctors tailor the best possible therapies for their patients and let scientists track the success—or failure—of previous research....

Last fall the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force dropped a bombshell, arguing that healthy men should stop undergoing a routine blood test as a screen for prostate cancer. An analysis of the best available evidence, it argued, had shown little or no long-term benefit from the measure—called the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test—for most men with no symptoms of the disease. Use of the screening was not saving lives. In fact, it was needlessly exposing hundreds of thousands of men who were tested and found to have prostate cancer to such common complications as impotence and urinary incontinence (from surgical removal of the prostate) and rectal bleeding (from radiation treatment)....