Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have developed a blood test that can detect cancer earlier with an accuracy of 70%. The tests can spot eight different types of cancer.

Scientists hope the blood test will be used annually to detect the disease and help save more patients’ lives. British experts hailed the findings for being “enormously exciting”.

The research team explained that cancer leaves small traces of mutated proteins and DNA in the patient’s blood. The new detection tool called the Cancer Seek can spot eight mutated proteins and dozens of mutations in 16 genes tied to cancer.

The research team tested Cancer Seek on more than 1,000 cancer patients. The test was able to spot pancreas, liver, colon, breast, ovary, oesophagus, lung, and stomach cancer in 70% of patients.

Dr Cristian Tomasetti, who was involved in the research, expressed hope that the new diagnosis tool could have an “enormous impact” on cancer death rates as the chances of successfully treating cancer grow as the disease is spotted earlier.

A Powerful Screening Tool

The blood test can detect five cancers for which there are no early detection tools. For instance, pancreatic cancer is very deadly because it has no symptoms. It is usually detected too late and this is why 80% of patients die shortly after the diagnosis.

Also, detecting tumors early will enable doctors to intervene quickly and surgically remove them. The research team is now testing the new tool on people that have never had cancer.

Cancer Seek could be used in combos with colonoscopies and mammograms for higher accuracy. Dr. Tomasetti wants the new blood test to be done annually.

A research paper detailing Cancer Seek’s effectiveness was published in the journal Science.

Researchers are confident that the test can be improved to detect more cancers.
Image Source: Wikimedia

 

Boeing has announced a hypersonic model better and faster than the iconic Blackbird SR-71 spy jet, which will be able to break the sound barrier and be 5 times faster than sound.

A concept model of the revamped plane, which is called “Son of Blackbird,” was showcased at a showroom in Orlando, Florida. However, the plane has not been built yet and the company couldn’t provide a timeline for the project. The new spy jet will be a rival to Lockheed Martin’s spy plane, the SR-72.

The two models are capable of carrying out spy missions and even attacks. Boeing told the Aviation Week Aerospace Daily that the new model will take two steps to develop.

During the first stage, the company will conduct flight tests of an engine that is just a “proof of concept” for the time being. The next stage involves developing a twin-engine and incorporate it into a full-scale operational plane. The dimensions of the new plane will match those of the SR-71, i.e. it will be 107-foot-long.

Boeing Has Ambitious Plans

Boeing plans to build a plane that is faster even than the Mach 5 hypersonic jet which is five times faster than the speed of sound. Mach 1 flies at the speed of sound which is 767 mph or 1,235 km per hour.

So, Son of Bird will fly at a mind-blowing speed of 3,835 mph (or 6,174 km per hour). By contrast, a 700-passenger commercial plane travels at a maximum speed of 550 mph (885km per hour).

However, the SR-71’s successor will have to take off and land without the help of a human pilot, jutst like the initial model built in 1964.

Boeing engineers plan to first test a conventional engine to hit the speeds of Mach 3 and to use a different configuration to match the Mach 5. The company couldn’t unveil a date for a sky-ready plane.
Image Source: Maxpixel

According to a recent article in Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics, a publication of the American Heart Association, one’s height can put them at higher risk for blood clots.

Bad News for Tall People

According to Swedish associate professor, Dr. Bengt Zöller, of Lund University, the taller a person is, quite simply, the higher the risk of venous blood clot. The population in general, says, Dr. Zöller, is getting taller. With increase in height, the risks of a blood clot become higher. There isn’t much we can do about height, we can be more aware of the symptoms and overall risks.

Blood clots can occur in veins when patients are immobilized for long periods of time,for example,after surgery. They can occur when travelling long distances in a car or on a plane trip. They can cause pain and swelling in the leg and even fainting. If not treated, the clots can break away and make their way through the veins and in the lungs causing a potentially fatal pulmonary embolism.

Venous blood clots are diagnosed with sonograms of the legs and some blood tests that can determine an excessive amount of clotting in the blood vessels.

The studies did not examine specific other factors such as diet, smoking, estrogen use in women or other genetic factors.

Essentially, while not confirmed medically, blood has to flow against gravity in veins in the legs. Since being tall may be more of a challenge to that physiological activity, that fact may be significant. An increase in surface area of the vein tissue in taller individuals may also play a part in the increase in blood clots in taller people.

Patients should be aware of the symptoms and not delay seeing a physician immediately if they suspect a blood clot in the leg or lung.

Image Source: Wikipedia

Data storage is gradually becoming a real problem, as users continue to generate massive quantities that may even outstrip the capabilities of hard drives to capture it. Data centers holding data collected by Facebook and Amazon are already extremely large, but even those are only a short-term solution to a problem getting bigger each day.

However, scientists are trying to discover more innovative ways to store data. One such method involves DNA data storage, which can provide safe long-term storage, or at least as long as humanity is still around. As scientists became increasingly proficient at decoding DNA, they found a way to store data inside it.

Now, two researchers working at the New York Genome Center found a way to expand the capacities of DNA data storage to its theoretical maximum. They used a previous coding scheme meant for noisy communication channels to actually store an entire operating system and several movies into DNA, at an unprecedented density of 215 petabytes per each gram of DNA. This means that the world’s entire data can be stored in one room using this method.

However, the synthesizing and decoding of DNA is not entirely 100 percent accurate, as it eventually leads to some data loss and errors. Therefore, the researchers used Fountain codes, to compensate for the loss of data. The researchers first converted the data into a string of binary information, which was then compressed into a master file and split into shorter strings of binary code.

The code was then packaged into droplets using the Fountain code, which ended up as a digital list of 72,000 DNA strands, each one being 200 bases long. The strands were then sent to Twist Bioscience, the company responsible for synthesizing the data into actual DNA. They were also able to successfully decode the information stored within by using modern technology used in DNA sequencing. The new DNA data storage method worked so well that the decoded information did have any errors.

However, the current problem with DNA storage data is that it costs $7000 to store 2 megabytes of data and $2000 to decode it. While the cost is gradually going to decrease, the synthesizing and decoding processes are quite slow. Nonetheless, DNA data storage may be used for large long-term archives.

Image source: Public Domain Pictures

Most parents of young children are aware of the need to store the various household cleaners and medicines out of the reach of their kids. However, a new study has found that pet medications can also pose a danger to small children.

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, revealed that around 88 percent of all situations of poisoning with pet medications involves children at the age of five years old or under. The study also found that around one if four cases of poisoning with pet medications happened while a member of the household tried to give the corresponding medicine to the family pet.

According to Kristin Roberts, the co-author of the study, the poisoning in these situations happen mostly due to the fact that the pet spit the medicine and the children ate it, or if the drugs were mixed in other foods like hot dogs or cheese and the kids ate it by accident.

Roberts and her colleagues from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital from Columbus Ohio, recommend to parents that the best safety measure is to store the pet medications out of the reach of children and making sure that the kids are not in the same room as when you administer the drugs to the pet.

For their study, the researchers analyzed the data of more than 1,431 pet medication poisoning cases in Ohio between 1999 and 2013. They found that the vast majority of the calls, 88 percent, were related to medications for dogs, while in the 93 percent of all cases, the children either ate or drank the pet medications. Other 2.3 percent of cases involved children who had eye contact with the medication and 1.1 percent involved skin exposure.

Most of the poisoning cases happened at home and could be treated without a visit to the family’s health care provider. Just 6 percent of cases were treated at a health facility. Among those cases, 60 percent of them were evaluated, treated and the kids released.

The study was limited, as it was performed with data from only one poison center and poison specialist did not always consistently record the source of the poisoning.

Image source: Max Pixel

Managers of the Isle Royale National Park started to consider introducing thirty gray wolves because this predator species is threatened. The officials have three other options, and one of them involves relocating maximum 15 wolves to the park and many other over two decades.

Another option is to do nothing at the moment. Last but not least, the managers might do nothing to facilitate the recovery of the gray wolves. In this case, this species will disappear from the Isle Royale National Park because their numbers dropped down to just two inbred specimens over the past few years.

The four options are included in a report developed by researchers from the National Park Service, outside consultants, and other staff members. The officials will publicly announce their final decision after the three-month comment period which ends on the 15^th of March.

Unfortunately, gray wolves are not endemic to the Isle Royale National Park. Furthermore, other species, including the lynx and caribou spent a longer period in this area before they were wiped out.

Wildlife biologists believe that the first gray wolves arrived at the Isle Royale area in the 1940s, after crossing the 15-mile surface of the frozen lake. Also, they might have come from Ontario or Minnesota too.

Most campers and visitors underline that this mysterious species must be preserved. Although this animal is widely popular, the managers said that they wouldn’t take this fact into consideration. They explained that they need to assess the advantages and disadvantages of introducing several gray wolves into the Isle Royale National Park.

Regardless of their decision, wolves have always had a major role in any given ecosystem. Starting from the 1920s, the experts believe that wolves have occasionally roamed in the park, especially during cold winters where the food was scarce.

As such, their presence in the park might have refreshed the gene pool. Still, the scientists underline that inbreeding had some long-term consequences as well. It is worth mentioning that the moose population has increased over the past few years as there are over 1,200 specimens in the park.

In other words, the wildlife biologists point to the fact that the gray wolves would keep the moose numbers in check and prevent them from damaging the trees of the Isle Royale National Park.

Image Source:Wikipedia

The 19 years old member of the Kardashian family has recently posted a video on one of her social media accounts urging fans to stay away from counterfeit beauty products. It seems that somebody created a clone of her cosmetics website selling fake Kylie Jenner lip kits that contain dangerous ingredients such as gasoline and glue.

Kylie Cosmetics are a popular brand of beauty products in the United States. As the popularity of the Kardashian clan grew, so did their business opportunities. In consequence, Kylie is the owner of a successful cosmetics line at only 19.

The publicity that comes with a show like Keeping Up With the Kardashians has its perks. Kylie Jenner, known for her curvaceous figure and sensual lips, managed to win the hearts of millions of viewers and promote her line of beauty products.

Among the most recent releases, the Kylie Jenner lip kits have rapidly become a fan favorite. Featuring a matte liquid lipstick and a lip liner, the kits are a fast and easy way to sensual, volume-filled lips. However, whenever a product becomes popular, copies are bound to appear.

It seems that somebody cloned Jenner’s website by adding the word “outlet” to it. Those who enter the fake website are greeted by the same design and products. Moreover, the fake products cost as much as the real ones.

Jenner declared in her social media video post that some fans have complained of the fake Kylie Jenner lip kits, their health being affected by the products. While some just got a quick sniff of gasoline and decided to discard of the $30 lipstick, others had to apply it to discover that it contained glue or other cheap ingredients.

Some buyers even experienced mild to intense adverse reactions as their lips started to sting, swell, and in some cases, they even got infected.

The celebrity is urging fans to stay away from any third parties as her products can only be found on her website. Furthermore, she declared that her team managed to take a look at the ingredients and discovered that they are extremely harmful to the health of the users.

Jenner is advising her fans to double check the URL when ordering one of her beauty products.

Have you ever had a negative experience with a fake cosmetic?

Image source: Flickr 

This Thursday, a St. Louis jury found Johnson and Johnson’s guilty for negligent conducts in the marketing and fabrication processes. The baby powder lawsuit brought the Californian woman, who claimed that the product caused her to develop ovarian cancer, over $70 million in damages.

The trial started on the 26^th of September when Deborah Giannecchini filed a motion claiming that her 2012 ovarian cancer diagnosis was due to her regular use of Johnson and Johnson’s baby powder. This is the third instance when the company is found guilty in a baby powder lawsuit.

Another St. Louis jury awarded $55 million in damage to a South Dakotan ovarian cancer survivor on Monday. In February, the relatives of an Alabama victim received $72 million.

There were other cases when the company won the trials. In these cases, the jury considered that the evidence was not reliable enough. There is no 100% accurate proof to determine that the talc used by Johnson and Johnson’s in their products leads to the development of ovarian cancer.

The Baby Powder Trial Is Based On Inconclusive Evidence

According to the statistics, from the approximately 1.7 million yearly cancer diagnoses, only 22,000 prove to be ovarian cancer. The disorder is rather rare, but it is deadlier than other types because it is usually diagnosed during its later stages. When discovered late, surgery and chemotherapy are not enough to beat the disease.

The link between baby powder and ovarian cancer was thoroughly researched throughout the years. Most studies did not find anything. The majority of health institutions declared talc as being a safe ingredient for both beauty and hygiene products. That is one of the reasons why Johnson and Johnson’s continue to fight to clear their name.

However, Jim Onder, the attorney for all three winning plaintiffs, used a study from the 1970’s as evidence in his cases. It seems that the paper found that adult women who use talc powder regularly have up to 40 percent more chances of developing the disorder.

Onder accused the company of deliberately marketing its products toward Hispanic, black, and overweight women. Incidentally, the same groups have been found to be more at-risk of developing the disease.

Talc is labeled as possibly carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The substance is the powder form of the softest mineral on Earth, a key ingredient in most beauty products.

Image source: Flickr 

Movidius has recently announced that they will bring their artificial intelligence and computer vision technology to a new generation of security cameras. The company will only contribute the AI software to the cameras produced by Hikvision, one of the largest sellers of online security cameras.

Movidius is a well-known AI technology firm which has developed the Myriad chip which is used to power the spatial awareness of Google’s VR headset among other Project Tango devices, as well as in the DJI’s Phantom 4 Drone, in which it provides the sense and avoid features. The company has recently been bought by Intel and they promise to bring the AI-enhanced technology to the Hikvision security cameras.

What makes Movidius’ Myriad chip so amazing is the fact that it can perform deep learning techniques to avoid overwhelming the small batteries and processors found on mobile devices. This is quite an improvement in bringing deep learning to mobile devices despite the technology requiring a lot of onboard or cloud processing power.

The company is focused on computer vision, so much so that they’ve dubbed the Myriad chip a vision processing unit (VPU). This means that a lot of image analysis and processing can be done by the device without a lot of useless information being transmitted back. A Myriad-equipped smart security camera can transmit only short clips of the video when it detects a problem or a threat.

Hikivision security cameras claim to have achieved a 99 percent accuracy in identifying car models, spotting suspicious baggage, detecting intruders, spot drivers who are texting, and more. The new Myriad VPU chip will include all these functions in the camera itself while managing to reduce the number of false alarms.  Movidius also claims that their technology uses 10,000 times less internet bandwidth and even decreases the latency by 1,000 times.

Although this new technology for security cameras can prove to be extremely beneficial to law enforcement, it can also be an intrusive instrument in people’s life. It can also be used for an accurate and autonomous mass surveillance of a population by a government. It remains to be seen how will this technology actually be used.

What do you think about these new smart security cameras?

Image source: Hikvision