If you want to cure cancer, try paying more taxes

Cancer is the great unspoken truth running through our civilisation. Everyone knows someone who has it. Most people know someone who has died of it. The statistics suggest one in two of us will develop it in one form or another. When strangers discover that we run a science blog it isn’t long before cancer cures edge into the conversation. Everyone deep down wonders “will it happen to me?” You do, don’t you?

Which is why it gets a lot of coverage, and fresh discoveries always make the news. Following Ellyn Lapointe for the Mail [1] and the Korean owned Medical Life Sciences News,[2] we showcase the work of the brilliant Professor Kwang-Hyun Cho of the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. Instead of painful drawn-out chemical treatments it looks to cure cancer by manipulating the biochemical mechanisms of the cell. Admirable, and you can read more by following the links. But for us, for today, that is not the point.

Look again. The Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. Turns out it’s state owned. Paid for by taxes, Its at the centre of an ecosystem of research institutes, university departments, private companies and assorted government and non-government organisations whose collective wisdom and output is far more than the sum of its parts. It’s not so much arriving at another cure for cancer that is important for us today. It is because this cure is part of a rolling programme of research and discovery that throws up such discoveries as it goes along. Creating a thriving centre of excellence and high value jobs.

The view taken by most people in the UK is that taxes are evil things. The State is an evil parasite holding back economic growth and thereby progress. But isn’t our story today prime evidence that the opposite is the case?

[1]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14369821/breakthrough-switch-reverses-cancer-human-body.html

[2]https://www.news-medical.net/news/20241223/Groundbreaking-technology-converts-cancer-cells-into-normal-cells.aspx?form=MG0AV3
#cancer #medical sciences #economics #research

Rookwood Operations: Clearing phosphates AND capturing carbon

Today we have a good news story, brought to us by the ineffable Robin McKie of the Guardian, which brings genuine hope, Because it solves two problems for the price of one.[1]

To begin at the beginning. In the last fifteen years or so, England’s rivers have started to fill with huge, choking blooms of algae, which seize all the oxygen from the water, thus killing everything else before, dying back themselves . To leave a poisonous foul-smelling sewer , like the ones you used to find in old towns in the Industrial revolution. The cause? High levels of phosphates on agricultural lands, which runs off into the waterways, producing sudden spurts in the aforementioned algae-and down we go to death, for the ecosystem that is. Now, it could be argued that without high phosphate levels we could not feed our population ( feed or fatten?-ed) So how to square the circle?

The answer is to trap the run-off phosphates and return them to the land. And a small company called Rookwood Operations[2] is doing just that, down in the leafy county of Somerset. Their new Phosphate Removal Material just sits in the water, soaking up the phosphates until it’s full. Whereupon it is returned to the land ready for the farmers to exploit again. And get this:

For every metric ton of PRM produced, carbon is sequestered, locking CO2 for up to 1000 years.
PRM is made from completely natural circular sourced sustainable components

How’s that for two in one? There’s so much to like here for LSS readers. There’s even a feminist angle, as one of the company founders was up for the prestigious UK Women in Innovation Award.

Thinking new. Thinking differently. Using existing technologies to squeeze progress in a new way. Surely that trumps going round smashing your friends over the head because it makes you feel better?

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/feb/02/uk-scientist-wins-prize-for-invention-that-could-help-avert-phosphogeddon

[2]https://rookwoodoperations.co.uk

#Rookwood operations #phosphates #river pollution #capture technologies #agriculture #technology

Human Genome Editing: A Frankenstein Future?

Technology always advances faster than ethics. Leaving society and individuals floundering in it wake. The printing press transformed European society in the sixteenth century. The cotton gin transformed the economy of the US South, arguably deepening Slavery, and instituting a pattern of violence and cultural wars which have lasted to this day. In the last century, the development of nuclear fission and computing have effected changes as profound as any known in History. It is with these examples in mind that we approach the subject of Human Genome Editing, which may make everything before look silly.

This has been a decade in which the effective manipulation of nucleic acids in living systems has become routine. We have covered such exciting techniques as CRISPR Cas-9 and Base Pair Editing. While all educated people stand in awe of the rapid advance of mRNA vaccine technology, which did so much to stem the COVID-19 pandemic and now offers real hope of new cancer treatments. But, without disparaging the intellectual brilliance or immense hard work of their creators, these technologies are relatively small scale in the size of the biological interventions which they entail. So now read this from Nature Briefings:

Brace for the arrival of Gene editing Modifying multiple DNA variants in human embryos at the same time, a process called polygenic genome editing, could substantially reduce the likelihood of certain diseases occurring. But it also raises concerns, say the authors of a Nature analysis — not least the renewed threat of eugenics. “This is not a hypothetical issue,” argues an accompanying Nature editorial. While such genome editing might be decades off, societies need to consider its possible benefits and risks now to avoid having to play regulatory catch-up when the technology becomes available.Nature | 4 min read
Reference: Nature paper

Imagine a society where the very richest may edit the DNA of themselves and their offspring so that they, and they alone form a race of superbeings. The future for the rest of human kind, the untermenschen if you will, looks grim, and may be very brief. Such evolutionary bottlenecks have occurred in the past; and those on the wrong side(always the majority) “fly forgotten as a dream, flies at the end of day” as the old hymn puts it. Time to consider this very seriously indeed we think. Nature thinks you may have 30 years: we suspect it to be much shorter than that.

#gene editing #dna #biology #biochemistry #CRISPR #Base pair editing #genetics

Materials Science Meets medicine-with a bonus for our Spanish amigos

There’s whole areas of learning and technology which we don’t cover much here. Because frankly, we are just too ignorant. So with the guidance of Dr José Manuel Torralba we present some truly startling advances in the field of Materials Science. What we found was so unexpected that you’ll have to forgive the slightly gushing Tomorrows World 1970- style vibe with which we serve it up. (One link is in English [1] but as we found the the Spanish one first, we present that, too [2])

Implants and artificial tissues Ever heard of nitinol? Neither had we. It’s a sort of alloy of titanium and nickel. already well tested by dentists and others. According to José, it should now be possible to create corneal implants which are capable of shape-memory. Yes, that was a new one on us too. But it looks as if this is going to be an exciting, but very practical area.

Batteries have memory too Our next surprise was batteries with anodes made from something called silicon nanofibres which apparently will be much better at storing energy than the current graphite ones. If nothing else, a real boost for renewable energies

and finally:

Metamaterials We thought this was like something out of a Terminator style movie. But it may be possible to to design materials which, in the words of José

We can modify a material’s surface by creating structures that cause waves to move, bend, or reflect in specific ways. This allows us to create invisible materials (manipulating light), radar-undetectable materials, or materials that completely isolate sound. By altering a material’s internal architecture, we can achieve unprecedented mechanical properties.

It’s so refreshing to dive into a little-visited area and find out what the clever people who work in it have been up to. Especially when it informs one of the main tropes of this blog, which is medical research. We hope you found this slight diversion useful, and will leave you with this thought:
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy- Hamlet Act 1 Scene 5

[1]https://materials.imdea.org/the-supermaterials-that-will-transform-our-lives-in-2025/

[2]https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/ckg9v74kvr2o

#metamaterials #nanotubes #medicine #implants #materials science

Weekly Round Up: Eternal Life, China takes over, Russian Problems and a dialogue of the deaf. What a lot to think about!

We couldn’t help noticing these thought provoking tropes!

The Brain that Lived for Ever According to The Guardian, eternal life may be just around the corner. Dr Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnson is hoping to extract our brains and preserve them, in order that future generations will revive them and help us to live forever. Assuming that is, that they can bothered-who needs a clapped-out 21st century brain when you have quantum computing wired into your own? Perhaps John Agar and the Brain from Planet Arous were on to something after all. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/dec/01/with-brain-preservation-nobody-has-to-die-meet-the-neuroscientist-who-believes-life-could-be-eternal

If America Stumbles, will China take over? If America really does pull out of the Climate change agreements, any claim to moral leadership and soft power will have been vitiated. Forever. It will give the Peoples Republic of China the right to step up to the plate and lead the world to safety. Who can blame the rest of us if we follow? Here’s Justin Rowlatt for the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3rx2drd8x8o

Russia’s best week turns sour Election of Donald Trump, more advances on the battlefield, free nations losing heart: what’s not to like for Russia’s Vladimir Putin? Except that his Syrian outpost is cracking and his economy is slowly going down the tubes, as this article from The Conversation makes clear. Like Britain in the 1940s he has sold out hope of future growth for the sake of victory here and now. In effect, his empire is really just a satellite of China. But maybe that’s a good thing for the rest of us-see above . https://theconversation.com/russian-rouble-collapse-exposes-deep-problems-in-the-countrys-economy-244869?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversati

Why don’t they listen to scientists? A running theme of this blog is that the world never seems to notice the work and methods of science(except when it needs vaccines in a hurry) There’s no easy answer, if the popular mind deals in emotion and stories, and the scientific one in reason and evidence. Nature Briefings offers this thoughtful discourse Why we’re not solving more with Science

A Nature global survey finds that most specialists are unhappy with systems that provide science advice to policymakers. Eighty per cent said their country’s science-advice system was either poor or patchy, and 70% said that governments are not routinely using such advice. Nature’s survey — which took place before the US election in November — together with more than 20 interviews, reveals where some of the biggest obstacles to science advice lie. Eighty per cent of respondents thought policymakers lack sufficient understanding of science — but 73% said that researchers don’t understand how policy works. “It’s a constant tension between the scientifically illiterate and the politically clueless,” says policy specialist Paul Dufour.Nature | 15 min read

Well that’s it for this week. We don’t profess any religion here, but we are fans of 17th century English, brought up on the resonances of Shakespeare and Milton and the King James Bible. Which is why we have chosen this cadent little homily from their version of Proverbs 12 3 to send you away

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and the man that getteth understanding/ for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof than fine gold/she is more precious than rubies and the the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her

(it applies to women, too)

#china #america #climate change #neurology #the brain from planet arous #russia #vladimir putin #reason #emotion #evidence

Fake news and misinformation: two hopeful suggestions

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Hayek once observed that, as the amount of information in the world grows exponentially, each one of us becomes proportionally more ignorant. And into this vast hollow of ignorance flows a torrent of malevolencies, lies, falsehoods, facts, opinions, theories, half-truths and wholly well meaning attempts. How to sort out the good from the bad,? The wheat from the chaff? The (that’s enough bucolic metaphors-ed) It’s a question of vital importance, especially on a day when a democracy as mighty as the United States of America goes to the polls. Well, we have two possible ways forward for you today, both of which we think lie on the well-meaning attempts part of the spectrum

First up is Professor Clodagh Harrington of the Conversation. [1]She expands upon on the work of a film maker called Friedrich Moser. In a film called How to Build a Truth Engine, he discourses broadly on an eclectic range of psychology, neurology, journalism and history, asking and re-asking the question “how do we know what we know?” We haven’t seen the film, we confess, but the article is erudite, honest and provocative. Above all, we valued this killer quote, which just about sums up the deadly danger we are all in

……truth is often diluted, polluted or drowned out completely in our daily communication torrents. This, combined with the nefarious agendas of bad actors means that individuals, communities and our way of life are under significant threat.

Nature Briefings treats the whole thing as a medical problem. No surprise there. In a piece called Can we Inoculate against Fake News?, they report:

Psychologist Sander van der Linden believes that there’s a dangerous infection spreading globally — misinformation. He also has a way to combat it: ‘inoculating’ people against misinformation to stop them from believing and spreading it, in an approach analogous to vaccinating against viral infections. The concept of ‘prebunking’ involves first warning people that they might be intentionally misled, then showing them a mild form of misinformation. There is evidence that the approach can lessen the persuasiveness of falsities, but critics argue that the method places the onus on the individual and absolves social media companies that might profit from spreading lies.Science | 10 min read

Well-how do we know what we know? It’s a question at least as old as Descartes. His generation had the luxury of knowing they wouldn’t blow up the world if they couldn’t answer this question. We are not so fortunate. Right now the lies seem to have an enormous cabal of dictators, tycoons and hucksters behind them. A few lonely academics and one hit journalists are pitifully small in comparison. But unless we keep trying, as these brave people do, this time we are surely lost.

[1]https://theconversation.com/how-to-build-a-truth-engine-documentary-makes-for-sober-but-crucial-viewing-in-our-age-of-disinformation-242554?utm_medi

#fake news #misinformation #internet #algorithm #lies #descartes #democracy

Two stories from Nature show AI is moving very fast indeed

Is AI going to be a game-changer in science? We mean really, really, the way X-ray crystallography transformed our understanding of matter, or Carbon-14 techniques kickstarted a revolution in dating? Never get too carried away: but two stories from Nature Briefings suggest that it will soon be telling us things which we never guessed before. And so we present them unadorned, so you can judge for yourselves, gentle readers. There are a couple of good hyperlinks, which could be worth a quick delve in to if you have more time than a single cup of coffee.

Alpha Fold reveals how Viruses evolved Protein structures predicted by AI models have revealed some twists in the evolution of flaviviruses — a group that includes hepatitis C, dengue and Zika viruses. Researchers used DeepMind’s AlphaFold2 and Meta’s ESMFold to generate more than 33,000 predicted structures for proteins from 458 flavivirus species. They already uncovered some surprises. For example, the hepatitis C virus infects cells using an entry system similar to one seen in the pestiviruses — a group that includes animal pathogens like swine fever. Another big surprise was the discovery that some flaviviruses have an enzyme that seems to have been stolen from bacteria.Nature | 5 min read
Reference: Nature paper

Zeta class computer six years out Work to develop a supercomputer that could out-pace the world’s current fastest by 1,000 times is officially underway. Expected to cost the Japanese government around US$775 million, the Fugaku Next machine should be online by 2030. The world’s fastest current supercomputer functions in the realm of one quintillion (1017) calculations per second, or exaFLOPS. Fugaku Next is expected to operate in the realm of zetaFLOPS, 1,000 times that speed.Popular Mechanics | 3 min read

We await your responses with anticipation.

#AI #supercomputer #biochemistry #alphafold #virus #protein #nucleic acid

A Round-up of Hope: Cancer,antibiotics, green energy and life on the red planet

Photo by Duu0161an Cvetanoviu0107 on Pexels.com

A few science and health stories which prove there are still few intelligent people out there working for the common good

Mouth Bacteria may protect against cancer To beat cancer we need to think laterally at times, and take bits of luck when they come from unexpected discoveries. According to Xantha Leatham of the Mail, Scientists at London’s prestigious St Thomas Hospital may have done just that. It looks like the organism Fusobacterium may protect against certain types of neck cancer. We love these serendipitous discoveries by lab scientists-real shades of Alexander Fleming!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13676291/Common-mouth-bacteria-melts-cancer-scientists-explain-patients-better-survival-odds.html

Antibiotics for sepsis We scraped this straight from Nature Briefings, that most worthy source of scientific information Definitely a sign of progress, we think:

A method to quickly identify the bacteria involved in life-threatening sepsis — and which antibiotics will kill them— could save patient lives. Key to saving precious time are magnetic nanoparticles with bacteria-capturing molecules. They fish out the usually tiny number of microbes from a blood sample, so testers don’t need to wait for the bacteria to grow and multiply. “I think that this technology can be in one box within three years, and… within four years, it can be in the clinic,” says bioengineer and study co-author Sunghoon Kwon.Nature Podcast | 35 min listen
Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube Music, or use the RSS feed.

EU powers ahead on renewables Like other big power blocks such as India and China, the EU is rapidly achieving crossover on renewable energy generation, as this article by Ajit Naranjan for the Guardian makes clear. Smaller countries like the UK are doing well too. That’s the way the whole world is moving. And therein lies our real problem with Mr Donald Trump. “Drill, baby drill!” is a policy based on the psychology of nostalgia, not science. One day it will have to be reversed. At what cost?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/30/renewables-overtake-fossil-fuels-to-provide-30-of-eu-electricity

Life on Mars? Well David Bowie’s eponymous song was a long time ago. But not so long as these billions-of-year-old spots discovered by the Perseverance rover at Mars’ Neretva Vallis formation. Were they alive? Scientists are being very cautious, as Ian Sample explains for the Guardian. But when Bowie released his ditty back in 1971, it was almost heresy to suggest life anywhere in our star system. Now Mars, Europa, and Enceladus head a list of real hopefuls. Wahttps://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/26/nasa-rover-discovery-hints-at-ancient-microbial-life-on-marstch this space, as they say.

Well, we won’t be rounding up every week. But every so often we hope to bring you these little clutches of news which show our side is still out there-and keeping busy.

#cancer #fusobacterium #sepsis #antibiotics #reneables #global warming #donald trump #mars #astrobiology #david bowie

The Hidden Dangers #1:tetraethyl lead

Here’s what lead can do to you:

_{6 mL of tetraethyllead is enough to induce severe lead poisoning.^[89] The hazards of TEL content are heightened due to the compound’s volatility and high lipophilicity, enabling it to easily cross the blood–brain barrier.}

_{Early symptoms of acute exposure to tetraethyllead can manifest as irritation of the eyes and skin, sneezing, fever, vomiting, and a metallic taste in the mouth. Later symptoms of acute TEL poisoning include pulmonary edema, anemia, ataxia, convulsions, severe weight loss, delirium, irritability, hallucinations, nightmares, fever, muscle and joint pain, swelling of the brain, coma, and damage to cardiovascular and renal organs.^[90] Chronic exposure to TEL can cause long-term negative effects such as memory loss, delayed reflexes, neurological problems, insomnia, tremors, psychosis, loss of attention, and an overall decrease in IQ and cognitive functio}n.^[91]

_{The carcinogenity of tetraethyllead is debatable. It is believed to harm the male reproductive system and cause birth defects.} (Wikipedia: Tetraethyl lead [1])

Like it? That’s just tetraethyl lead, Pb (C₂H₅)₄ The brute metal itself has been in use for millennia, and even the Romans knew that it was toxic. For a broader view, try the main Wikipedia article here [2]

Glad you clicked, because now you will know why strenuous efforts have been made to phase out lead from human technology for the last few decades. Admirable; but it leaves two big problems. It’s bad enough that all that lead is still out there in the soil, in the water, in the air, still poisoning us all. But it gets worse when you realise someone is still adding to the pile. Allow us to explain.

Some readers will recall the bright wheeze they had back in the 1920s of adding tetraethyl lead to petrol, as an anti-knocking agent for engines. It worked! The trouble was that the resulting cloud of lead covering the earth was so dangerous that eventually even a cynical world had to introduce measures which have reduced it. Except in one area: aviation. To quote Wikipedia once more

_{TEL remains an ingredient of 100 octane avgas for piston-engine aircraft. The current formulation of 100LL (low lead, blue) aviation gasoline contains 2.12 grams per US gallon (0.56 g/L) of TEL, half the amount of the previous 100/130 (green) octane avgas (at 4.24 grams per gallon),^[84] and twice as much as the 1 gram per gallon permitted in regular automotive leaded gasoline prior to 1988 and substantially greater than the allowed 0.001 grams per gallon in automotive unleaded gasoline sold in the United States today.^[85] The United States Environmental Protection Agency, FAA, and others are working on economically feasible replacements for leaded avgas, which still releases 100 tons of lead every year.^[86] Children living near airports servicing small (piston-engine) aircraft have measurably higher concentrations of lead in their blood.}^[87][1]

Now to us, there can be few pleasures more innocent or admirable than the sport of leisure flying. Exponents of it are personally known to us. But isn’t it time that they, and everyone else, urged their Governments to look for alternatives? And is it unfair to add the phrase “as early as possible”?

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead

#lead #soil #toxin #neurological disorder #pollution

Electric Cars: A vault to the future, or just a current fad?

Photo by Chris LeBoutillier on Pexels.com

“Just because something appears in the Daily Mail,” observed George Orwell,”does not automatically mean it’s a lie.” Astute readers will know how, having lost the argument on carbon emissions, climate deniers spend their time sniping and snarking at every new technological advance. Remember all those hecatombs of pigeons supposedly murdered by marine wind farms? Which is not to say that we at LSS dismiss every criticism, every reasoned argument, about how we get to a sustainable world safely, with the minimum possible collateral damage. There’s a debate to be had, especially when it is mooted in the august pages of the New Scientist [1].

One of the troubles with electric vehicles (EVs) is the kind of unpleasant things like lithium (and cobalt) you need to mine to make the batteries, And, as this piece by New Scientist photographer Tom Hagen shows, the local consequences of doing so can be frightful. This is Chile; but you’d find something like it similar production sites across the world. And some pretty dire working conditions, especially in places like Africa. At which point despair seems a very understandable reaction. Surely the cost of making these new EVs, and powering up the grids to run them, makes the whole enterprise futile?

The despair trap is a product of oversimplification; “if a thing is not 100% good, it must be bad. Gotcha!” runs the thinking. In the real world, lasting solutions are a mosaic set of compromises and trade offs, as every engineer knows. On balance, the environmental benefits of using electric vehicles are already in excess of the costs.[2] And this is before the dreadful health impacts of nitrate and particle emissions from our archaic old fleet of combustion vehicles[3] is taken into account (LSS passim).[3] Compared to the world we lived in 10 or 20 years ago, we’re actually rather cheered to live in a world where someone is actually doing something. However imperfect, it’s better than sliding blindly down the ramp to destruction, which is what they did in the Good Old Days.

^{With thanks to Gary Herbert}

[1]https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25333710-200-lithium-fields-beautiful-from-the-air-trouble-on-the-ground/

[2]https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-definitely-better-climate-gas-powered-cars

[3]https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/air-pollution

#pollution #electric vehicles #new scientist #lithium #cobalt #particulates #nitrates #batteries