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Cure For Radiation Sickness Found?
Summit writes "A scientist has claimed to have discovered a radioprotectant that all but eliminates acute radiation sickness even in cases of lethal doses of radiation in tests on rats and monkeys, when injected up to 72 hours after exposure. They also claim the drug, a protein, has no observed negative effects in humans. They have not irradiated any people just yet, but if this turns out to be true, it could mean everything from curing cancer to making manned interplanetary space expeditions feasible... not to mention treatment for radiation exposures in nuclear/radiological accidents/attacks. If this drug works, it would mean a true breakthrough as past experiments with radioprotectants were not particularly promising in any respect." The only source for the story at this time is an exclusive in YNet News, a site with the subtitle "Israel At Your Fingertips." Such a radioprotectant would be huge news for Israel. Make of it what you will.
Finally I can get my hands on some sweet, sweet, Radaway!
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
Actually, the BBC has a less slanted article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7341336.stm
There's more information on Medical News today if anyone wants a more medical take on this and a less ... Israeli interpretation (I don't know about you but I'm not too hung up on what nationality the researchers are and am more so interested in the technical details). Their 2008 annual report sheds a lot of insight on this as well. Although this information has been public knowledge since the beginning of the year, it should be interesting to watch their stock fluctuate throughout today.
My work here is dung.
Finally we'll have RadAway! ... Now all we need is a good old nuclear fallout and the world will be perfect.
Now I can throw away my tin foil hat!
No publication in a real scientific or medical journal.
Further, radiation sickness is difficult to fix. You've got alpha, beta & gamma particles bombarding cells, causing damage all over the place. Chemical bonds are broken, energy is added, and new chemical bonds form.
I really doubt a magic bullet can exist for the many types of cellular damage that can occur in different body systems.
Kidding, kidding.
I wonder if this could be used to help cancer patients who are undergoing radiation treatment.
Hell, it's early, so I may not be thinking correctly, but it seems to me like a little dose of this would go a long way to curing the horrible side effects of cancer treatment.
Sent from your iPad.
So this can patch you DNA back together after it's been ripped to shreds?
Pardon me, but I'm a bit sceptical.
Someone get the Toxic Avenger on the phone...
Why bother with miracle drugs when all you need to protect yourself from radiation is to duck underneath a flimsy wooden desk and cover your head with your hands?
Now nuclear war won't be so bad.
This would be great in that it keeps you alive in the immediate future, but there's no way it could fix all the subtle DNA damage that could give you cancer later. Also, women have all the eggs they'll ever have, and any damage to them would be permanent.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
nuking Iran.
Why is Hilary Clinton upset with North Korea having nuclear weapons but is not upset with Israel having nuclear weapons?
Yours In Peace,
Kilgore Trout
"The medication works by suppressing the "suicide mechanism" of cells hit by radiation, while enabling them to recover from the radiation-induced damages that prompted them to activate the suicide mechanism in the first place."
So it turns the cell into a cry for attention?
Seriously though, saving cells damaged by radiation sounds like a shortcut to cancer. Is the claim of 'enabling cells to recover' realistic?
It would be really funny if the only way to get it into your system effectively would be through smoking the drug as in the movie "Screamers". A good sci-fi movie if you haven't seen it.
Is that the stuff Helo kept shooting up while he was stranded on Caprica?
QUOTE : Researchers developed the drug after looking at how some resistant cancer cells are able to withstand radiotherapy.
It works by inhibiting the protein that initiates the cell suicide programme
In other word it does not repair radiation damage (cue the rad away joke), it just stops all the cells where this protein is present to die. Whether there was a good reason for them to die or not. It might be wonderful for radiation treatment, though. The researcher seems conscient of the risk (like new cancer developping).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Chemo is a SOB. But what is not clear is if it helps against sustained radiation exposure. If a 'bomb' did go off, and you were far enough from the gamma radiation effects, the long term radiation that is left over continually emits, how will this med work against that? Furthermore, if you take the med, does it mean you can live in an area where radiation continually emits or that you can survive brief exposures? Apart from the DNA breaking side-effects of radiation, what would this mean for those who are exposed to an area that is contaminated by radiation?
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker
How did this story ever get on to Slashdot?
If I post a blog entry about discovering the cure for fat, will I get slashdotted?
Made from bacon.
Exposures can involve dust, particulate matter, or the radioactive element itself. If you get these solids somehow lodged in you lungs etc. you're screwed. They sit there and decay and irradiate your innards until golden brown. Most of this was from a quantum class I took where the prof explained exposure to alpha/gamma/beta is certainly not good but its survivable - ingesting/breathing radioactive dust is very very bad.
Perhaps that was just speculation on the part of the submitter.
Curing cancer entails the difficult process of getting all the people who have cancer today to not have it later (short of dying). A radioprotectant will not make cancer go away. It also won't prevent new cancers, since radiation is not the only cause.
for many reasons, but a not unimportant reason is to protect the rest of the organism from the cell possibly becoming cancerous (tiny chance, but stacks up with enough radiation exposure to enough cells)
so if cell suicide is prevented, expect an increase in various cancer rates weeks or months after initial radiation exposure
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...this'll be the key to *REAL* zombies.
With Rad-Away ready for store shelves, Stimpacks, BuffOut and Jet are on the way to phase 3 trials.
Now i'll be able to get bitten by as many radioactive spiders with no worries!
They have a homepage with a bio of Dr. Gudkov (look under "Board of Directors" http://www.cbiolabs.com/ and they obviously have been working on this for some time and are now in clinical trials: 2007: http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/811854/cleveland_biolabs_chief_scientist_andrei_gudkov_discusses_recent_stem_cell/index.html
So this potion will allow me to survive long enough to gain super powers?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I would doubt it. This would be far beyond what would be nessesary for statistically significant data and monkeys are expensive. If teh report got one detail wrong, what else is wrong with what was reported. I doubt they would even do 600+ mice or rats. That is just too high a number. I have my doubts about this report.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Sounds a lot like Rad-X.
Anyone remember the disgraced "scientist" that claimed cloned babies, etc?
Maybe this only smells fishy because there's carp all over the damn place..
Yes, it's quite weird that they ynet article feels it necessary to cite the scientist's religion. Does it really matter? I hear of news, a discovery, etc, my first thought is "where is this?" not "gee, what book does this person worship?"
For the procrastinator in all of us. From the makers of Radaway, comes Another 10.
For far to many of us, we are not as organized as we shoud be during our final days, and if we simply had just a few more minutes we could get that last thing done, that last goodbye said, that last trigger pulled.
Now you can with, Another 10. Stopping cell death, Another 10 will get you that one last chance at piece of mind.
Side effects have not been tested for.
Looks like they may have discovered Hyronalin
.
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Hyronalin
.
Wake me up when they have discovered Warp Drive.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Oh, *please* call it RadAway.
It already exists... It's called Rad-X... god.
Now I must return to the vault.
The way the summary reads makes it sound like we are almost prepared for when the cylons take over.
No publication in a real scientific or medical journal.
LMGTFY:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Andrei+Gudkov
gives more than 600 results, including papers in Nature and Science.
As far as I know, radiation damages cells physically. Is it possible with chemical treatment to cure every and each such cell ? Sounds like science fiction.
about this in the Newscientist (I think) about 2 years ago so funny they say it was kept secret. The article I recall was definitely talking about the same technique i.e. using a protein to stop cells from self destructing. However if I recall the article stated that they only had it working in the stomach lining (which tracks slightly with this article) which would be good against the most common forms of radiation poisoning (ingestion). This article seems to be saying that it's not just ingested radiation poisoning it protects against which is a big leap. I can see applications for medicine, space travel and a whole host of other areas. My only concern is it may remove one of the main reasons nuclear weapons haven't been used in anger since the end ow WWII.
Appologies for not being able to find a link to the original paper
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
so what you are telling me is, you're skeptical of medical advice you get in the comment section of slashdot?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Dr Andrei Gudkov from the Lerner Research Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, said they had set out to enable healthy cells to imitate the ability of tumour cells to avoid cell death.
But they had to develop a way of making this effect temporary and reversible.
This was in the BBC version of events, and it looks like there might be further reaching effects than just a cure for radiation sickness.
Well, acid has to "observed" side effects too, if you close your eyes while jumping in. :P
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I don't understand how this could be a cure for cancer.
I do see how it would possible cure some of the side effects from radiation treatment for cancer.
Or would it just nullify the radiation treatment altogether?
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
Fraud? Slashdot has run numerous articles about "scientific advances" by companies that want investments. Is Slashdot paid for those articles?
The article referenced in the Slashdot story, Cure for radiation sickness found? says:
'The medication works by suppressing the "suicide mechanism" of cells hit by radiation, while enabling them to recover from the radiation-induced damages that prompted them to activate the suicide mechanism in the first place.'
My opinion is that makes no sense. If a cell is damaged, and the body would normally eject the cell, a "protein" will not fix the damage. The cell will still be damaged, and will not be able to function normally.
Living cells are extraordinarily complicated. If they experience the widespread grossly applied damage caused by radiation, one protein certainly will not repair them.
The Cleveland BioLabs web site says, as part of their logo, "Controlling Cell Death to Protect Human Life". The stock reached a low of $1.34 on March 9, 2009, and is now at $4.41.
This article gives more information: Report: Jewish Doctor In Ground-Breaking Cure For Radiation Sickness. Quote: "The company's subcontractor in Europe is already prepared to embark on mass production."
I'm guessing that the company needs money to begin mass production. Also, it is interesting that an American company will not manufacture the drug in the United States. One reason for that may be that it takes years to get FDA approval from the U.S. federal government.
This article seems to put an emphasis on the scientists ethnicity. Why is a scientists ethnic background relevant to a scientific discovery? If the scientists in question were Arab-Americans, would this news site have treated the news differently?
This news gives me a happy blue glow.
http://www.frmclass.com/
..that we might finally get a season 3 of Jericho??
If you start aging because of radiation damage, though... remember that this stuff won't work. Take adrenaline instead!
Why, because they (famously) have nuclear weapons and nobody else in the region does?
You're right, after all they might have an accident...
you had me at #!
I remember reading that upon trying to resuscitate someone, it was resupply oxygen to the oxygen deprived cells that triggered the cells' suicide mechanisms and made resuscitation impossible. The article seemed to suggest inducing hypothermia into the person before slowly reapply oxygen allowed them to be resuscitated after longer periods of time than usual. I wonder if this protein would achieve the same effect, if it is indeed the restoration of oxygen that triggers this mechanism, then this protein may block that, keeping the cells intact.
If this was PERCIEVED as a real cure to Radiation Sickness, it would mean nuclear research would become much more prevalent (power in general would be cheaper!), cancer research would become more important, aging would be addressed with this in some way, and this pill would potentially give someone superpowers...from the ungodly number of mutations we would be around to see. Who knows how this would affect war efforts...probably not in a good way.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Not the BioLabs stuff, the wild speculation and false statements spouted here being imaginary. Not a one here so far has attempted to find out if there actually were peer reviewed publications by Andrei Gudkov on the subject of radiation treatment and/or radioprotectants.
Go to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
Put 'Gudkov, Andrei' in as the search term
You'll get 52 results with his name given as 'Gudkov AV'; the abstracts make it clear it's him by giving his associations.
Repeat the search with 'Gudkov, Andrei radiation' as the search term.
You'll get 10 results, all of which pertain to radiation treatment, radioprotectants and specifically the role of p53.
Two of those entries are reviews. Those would be the most instructive to any who actually want to find out if there's actually research on the subject and what it's about. Here's the two abstracts:
(1) Nat Rev Cancer. 2003 Feb;3(2):117-29.
The role of p53 in determining sensitivity to radiotherapy.
Gudkov AV, Komarova EA.
Department of Molecular Biology, NC20, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, 9500 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44195, USA. gudkov@ccf.org
Ionizing radiation (IR) has proven to be a powerful medical treatment in the fight against cancer. Rational and effective use of its killing power depends on understanding IR-mediated responses at the molecular, cellular and tissue levels. Tumour cells frequently acquire defects in the molecular regulatory mechanisms of the response to IR, which sensitizes them to radiation therapy. One of the key molecules involved in a cell's response to IR is p53. Understanding these mechanisms indicates new rational approaches to improving cancer treatment by IR.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2005 Jun 10;331(3):726-36.
Prospective therapeutic applications of p53 inhibitors.
Gudkov AV, Komarova EA.
Department of Molecular Genetics, Lerner Research Institute, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA. gudkov@ccf.org
p53, in addition to being a key cancer preventive factor, is also a determinant of cancer treatment side effects causing excessive apoptotic death in several normal tissues during cancer therapy. p53 inhibitory strategy has been suggested to protect normal tissues from chemo- and radiotherapy, and to treat other pathologies associated with stress-mediated activation of p53. This strategy was validated by isolation and testing of small molecule p53 inhibitor pifithrin-alpha that demonstrated broad tissue protecting capacity. However, in some normal tissues and tumors p53 plays protective role by inducing growth arrest and preventing cells from premature entrance into mitosis and death from mitotic catastrophe. Inhibition of this function of p53 can sensitize tumor cells to chemo- and radiotherapy, thus opening new potential application of p53 inhibitors and justifying the need in pharmacological agents targeting specifically either pro-apoptotic or growth arrest functions of p53.
===
Note: 'Apoptosis' is the tendency for cells to die off based on signals from other nearby cells that are dying off -- a 'suicide signal'. This happens in many situations, radiation exposure being one of them.
As for emphasis on ethnicity, sure, they do mention it. The source noted is an Israeli newspaper. They have right to be proud since one of their citizens is accomplishing something notable to the world. Nobody seems to find it a problem when US newspapers note that a scientist is from the US. That's so common that it's not even noticed, unless you're not from the US. 90% of scientific publications are from the US. In those from other countries it's common for such emphasis to be included so the w
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
No they should have just said American. That's what it presumably says on their passport unless they have dual nationality.... and regardless of this it is utterly irrelevant for the story. Can you imagine the uproar had they said "white, male scientists"?
Not only that but I would imagine that it is somewhat insulting to Americans - are they really that ashamed of being a US citizen that they have to somehow dilute it by mentioning where their family emmigrated from?
Also lectrazine
What we need here is a car analogy.
If a tank fires artillery rounds at an automobile, will sprinkling a chemical on the car fully repair it?
To a cell, radiation from a nuclear bomb is like artillery fire.
So all those times Dr. Crusher treated radiation poisoning with her magic hypospray syringe, she must have been injecting the crew with this stuff.
The body does not repair cells that have been extensively damaged. The body expels damaged cells as waste, and makes new cells.
scams work exceedingly well if they propose solutions to deeply seated fears. everyone wants to believe it is true, even the harshest skeptics.
look sig is kool
>>They have not irradiated any people just yet, but if this turns out to be true, it could mean everything from curing cancer to making manned interplanetary space expeditions feasible... Is it the fact that they not irradiated any people just yet that could mean everything from curing cancer to making manned interplanetary space expeditions feasible...
or
is it irradiating people that could mean everything from curing cancer to making manned interplanetary space expeditions feasible...
First, this isn't new; the company issued a press release on PR Newswire in January 2007.
It has nothing to do with Israel; the work is being done at Cleveland BioLabs in Cleveland, Ohio. The researcher behind this, Andrei Gudkov, is Russian. He was at the National Cancer Research Center in Moscow until 1990, then came to the US and became a professor at the University of Illinois.
This seems to be legitimate; they're in FDA Phase I human testing (safety only, not effectiveness.). That doesn't mean it will work; if it makes it through Phase II, it's real.
This was planned long, long ago... if you ever saw the movie History of the World by Mel Brooks, you'd know. The Part II, "Jews in Space" was planned but never released. Now I know why! They just werent ready, because this part wasnt ready!
(nice touch with the 'rational' qualifier)
look sig is kool
Understand the sociological background. Briefly, the situation is apparently this, in my opinion:
In recent past years, there was extensive TV footage of Israeli-owned U.S.-made Blackhawk helicopters operated by Jews firing at Palestinians on the ground throwing rocks. I saw that numerous times on TV. The footage was apparently taken from Blackhawk gun cameras, apparently by people who disagreed with the violence. Now, however, apparently because of the negative reaction, such footage is no longer shown.
The TV coverage upset 3 groups of people:
1) Arabs and Muslims. There are 1.1 billion of them, and they don't like being killed. Note that, in the entire world, there are an estimated 14 million Jews.
2) U.S. taxpayers. The money to buy the helicopters was apparently available due to U.S. government corruption. The U.S. government gives billions of dollars of taxpayer money to Israel every year, with the understanding that the money will be used to buy U.S.-made weapons. That is very profitable, apparently, since the Israelis are not in a position to negotiate a low price.
3) Jews who don't like the violence. There are Jews who think the violence will eventually be bad for all Jews everywhere. One Jewish leader said that the weapons were like throwing gasoline on a fire.
The first group has often threatened violence in return. Iranians, for example, have threatened Israel. This threat has been exaggerated by people in the U.S. who want to profit from another war.
Some Jews in Israel feel frightened by the threats from Iran. If there is a nuclear attack on Israel, a simple chemical that could repair radiation damage done to the body would be very popular. Any company offering such a chemical could expect plenty of investment by Israelis.
Of course, someone cynical might assume that the Israelis plan to "immunize" their entire population against radiation sickness, and then nuke the fuck out of those damn Muslims. Someone cynical ...
I'm not entirely sure why Israelis in particular would be excited about this, even with the Iran issue. The pill is not exactly going to help if a nuke is dropped on top of your country, especially if the country is the size of my little finger.
However, I guess if anything were to wipe out all the holy sites in the region, irradiating the area, then this sort of pill would allow the religious nutbars to return, to continue their loony worship at their "holy" craters (pun intended), and also continue to fight other religious groups over who has claim to the aforementioned craters. Heck, the way things work now I guess irradiating the area would sort of add to the divinity factor...
Perhaps the Israelis won't be willing to share the pill with other religious groups?
On one hand you will die after being miserably sick from the effects of radiation poisoning, or you could survive that just to endure years of harsh chemo treatments in the very likely chance that you develop cancer somewhere in the body. Even if you live through both events and survive, will it have really been more forgiving to just succumb to the radiation poisoning in the first place?
C(60) isn't that a fulerene/buckyball? So this guy wants you to eat buckyballs?
The BBC article is from 2008.
Can I get it in a spray mister so I can just spray it into my basement and not worry about all that pesky radon?
Step 1: Put lots of the new protein in the Passover Motzah.
Step 2: At the end of the holiday, set off lots of dirty bombs over a wide area
Step 3: Peace in the Middle East.
.. if a person is bombarded with radiation, do they carry it as well? Meaning, If that person is injected with that radioprotectant, can they affect other people that are not injected with the same radioprotectant?
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Cells first developed radiation damage mechanism to repair UV damage. When photsynthesis evolved, cells wanted to get closer to the sun, yet avoid the effects of UV radiation in an Earth lacking an ozone layer. Ozone depends on free oxygen in the atmosphere which was scarce in the first half of Earth history.
The second inducement was the incorporation of mitochrondria into eucharyote cells. This gave cells ten times the energy they had before to eventually power animal locomotion. However, mitochrondria spew out all kinds of nasty poisons like free oxygen, protons, and high electric fields. Cells had to develop mechanisms to neutralize these.
Finally, I can make use of the 20,000km of land that I bought in the Ukraine a few years back!
Cures radiation sickness, but causes sterility ...
Not the first side effect tested, I'd bet.
Dr. Crusher will be happy if this is true.
It will make governments less averse to using nuclear weapons.
Currently hooked on AMP
[describing his own various research interests
Role of p53 in Cancer
Our p53 studies are focused on the mechanism and role of this TSG in how normal tissues respond to genotoxic stresses associated with cancer treatment. Our previous studies have shown tissue specificity of p53-mediated apoptosis and its major role in determining the radiation sensitivity of mammals. We defined p53 as a determinant of cancer treatment side effects; the new therapeutic conceptâ"targeting p53 for therapeutic suppressionâ"was justified by isolating a small molecule p53 inhibitor that rescues mice from lethal doses of gamma irradiation.
Analysis of an animal model of chemotherapy-induced hair loss (alopecia) has indicated that p53 plays a major role in this common side effect, thus opening another area for clinical application of p53 inhibitors.
Mechanisms of tissue specificity of the p53 response are being addressed by cDNA microarray-based analysis of tissue-specific p53 responsive genes. This direction of studies is linked to identification of new tumor markers among the genes that are under the negative control of p53, a mechanism we have shown to be a possible underlying cause of elevated prostate-specific antigen expression.
The role of p53-dependent apoptosis and growth arrest and the interaction of p53 with other signaling pathways (TNF, Fas, heat shock, etc.) in determining its tumor suppressor function is being analyzed in several model systems. The impact of distinct p53 function (i.e., control of growth arrest or apoptosis) in its tumor suppressor activity is under investigation. We showed that control of radiosensitivity of tissues by p53 in vivo does not involve the p21/waf1 p53-responsive CDK inhibitor. Induction of apoptosis was found to be dispensable for p53-mediated control of genomic stability; moreover, suppression of p53-dependent apoptosis by Bcl-2 delays tumor progression by eliminating selective advantages for genetically unstable p53-deficient cells.
Having already defined ING1, Bloom syndrome and SUMO proteins as p53 interactors, we are continuing the search for cellular modulators of p53 expression and function among p53-interacting proteins; several additional candidates are under study.
Drug Discovery Program
Our drug discovery program involves searching for new p53 inhibitors and testing their potential therapeutic applications for reducing cancer treatment side effects and possibly other pathologies involving p53-inducing stresses. It is based on creation of new cell-based readout systems and high-throughput screening of chemicals with the desired biological properties.
We are also isolating a new class of small molecules acting as modulators of multi-drug transporters that can greatly change the pattern of cross-resistance, including the ability to enhance their activity against certain compounds. The molecular mechanisms of activity of newly isolated compounds are being addressed, as are therapeutic fields for their practical applications.
Collaborators:
December 28, 1968, almost 41 years ago: Melittin used as a Protective Agent against X-irradiation
Interesting. So this might be the answer to reviving those people that have had themselves frozen instead of dying naturally? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics
Maybe we need to administer a big dose of this stuff before freezing them?
Maybe saying the work will be done outside the U.S. allows them to avoid legal scrutiny.
Is the company called Umbrella by any chance?
Hot damn, now we can make the trip alive!
We still need to figure out what to do about Cosmic Rays. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray_visual_phenomena and micrometeorites during interstellar flight. Deflector dish needed!
It will make governments less averse to using nuclear weapons.
But it also means dirty bombs are essentially meaningless, nothing more than a nuisance.
Which are we more likely to see hit across the world in the next decade (apart from Iran nuking Israel of course, that's a given)?
I claim net positive.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Consider this - with an effective "cure" for radiation, it ceases to become a bogeyman and people will be a LOT more comfortable with clean, efficient nuclear power stations nearby. It takes out a large leg from the alarmists that try to stop them from being built.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
as terrorism goes. Anyone with resources and capable of obtaining material to build, deploy, and detonate a dirtybomb won't be interested in allowing the news and scientific community to hail the wonders of anti-rad preventative doses. They'll just launch a set of powerful dirty-trick conventional bombs in conjunction with dirty (nuc) weapons to bring down buildings. The fear or actuality of winds, pollution, disrupted infrastructure, and falling structural debris, the fires, and deprivation of clean, safe water will put an end to serious, money-making potential for pre-strike innoculations.
How many conscientious doctors and scientists will chime in (other than those standing to make shitloads of money?) Besides, lacing the dirty bombs with other lethal piggyback chemicals will just enhance the deadly immediate or near-term complications. Some meds might only end up extending the life (and continued misery) of the treated. The treated might be those deemed to have better than 80% survival chance. Expensive doses will probably be used on them, not others.
Just my thoughts...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Give me a shot, and pass the nuclear waste...
If you already have cancer, then developing another type of it one or two decades down the road is the least of your worries.
However, if the cancer is well controlled by current treatments, this could give someone the idea that they can control it even better. For young patients, this could lead to irresponsible treatments as oncologists try to balance out remission and recurrence/radiologically-induced cancers.
Thankfully, medical doctors are notoriously conservative. I worry about radiation workers (e.g. power plant operators) who might be administered this drug to allow more routine high doses; health physicists do not have a thorough understanding of quantitative risks of inducing cancer. Physics and medicine lack robust models for predicting cancer risk for low and moderate radiation doses--political and commercial pressure to throw a "miracle drug" like this one into this poorly-understood mix could well result in a health disaster.
Well there is a difference between radiation and radioactive, so I'll address your points with the goal of clearing any misunderstanding.
It's the entire Nuclear Industry that releases radioactive isotopes into the environment. Mining, enrichment, the reactors themselves and as yet no long term plan to contain spent fuel. ALL radioactive isotopes emit some form of radiation which is a cause for cancers. ALL radioactive isotopes 'Bio-concentrate' in the food chain and can be ingested. The amount of radioactive isotopes released into the environment is proportional to the activity of the Nuclear industry, so the likelihood of exposure increases over time. All radioactive isotopes analogue nutrients in the body so (for example) plutonium 'looks' like iron to the body is a potent cause of leukemia as the isotope decays - which will generally be longer than a human lifetime.
How are Nuclear power plants efficient when PWR's only use 0.3% of the fuel?
This 'potential' medication will only give Nuclear armed states the capability to inoculate their populations against a nuclear strike. So this medication actually *increases* the potential for a nuclear engagement because one side may feel they have the upper hand wrt protecting their population. This changes nothing about Nuclear Industry practices and will not stop you from developing cancer from ingesting radioactive isotopes.
A Nuclear bomb releases a lot of radiation *at the time*. The Nuclear Industry, including reactors, release a lot of radioactive isotopes which emit radiation *over time*.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I've just finished re-reading Walter Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz". Couldn't sleep. "Aw to hell with it. Hmm ... Wonder what's on slashdot?"
Rock me to sleep tonight.
eh, no. It will certainly help humans, but dirty bomb will still radiate soil, and everything that grows there.
Sure, but you can clean up most of that from your garder variety dirty bomb. Expensive, hell yes. But in the grand scheme? Nothing like the terror a nuclear attack would provoke just because it is nuclear... that terror is dramatically reduced if humans can simply take a pill and be OK from exposure.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's the entire Nuclear Industry that releases radioactive isotopes into the environment. Mining, enrichment, the reactors themselves and as yet no long term plan to contain spent fuel.
There are plans and ways to deal with this, and techniques that greatly lessen the amount of waste from a plant - but none of that matters because people overly afraid of "radiation" refuse to allow any progress in the matter. France has many nuclear reactors and really no problems in this regard. They are currently laughing at the rest of the world that has to get by with oil while France handles 60% of internal power needs with nuclear energy.
Or you simply build a totally sealed nuclear reactor and bury it on the spot when it's done. There are plans that make that safe as well, meant for third world nations. But I guess it's easier to literally leave them powerless.
It's not I than am confused about "radiation and radioactive", it's the people against nuclear power that treat them one and the same.
How are Nuclear power plants efficient when PWR's only use 0.3% of the fuel?
That scary-looking number is masking that at that efficiency level it still far ahead of solar or wind when you factor in building and maintaining equipment. And of course nuclear energy is a constant source of power that works in any conditions at any time, further reducing the need for hellishly complex power storage solutions.
This 'potential' medication will only give Nuclear armed states the capability to inoculate their populations against a nuclear strike. So this medication actually *increases* the potential for a nuclear engagement because one side may feel they have the upper hand wrt protecting their population.
Everyone is going to have access to this, sure the major powers will have it first but they are far less likely to use it on anyone than the smaller powers. As I said, in the next ten years a dirty bomb is far more likely than a real nuclear attack (again, outside Israel).
A Nuclear bomb releases a lot of radiation *at the time*. The Nuclear Industry, including reactors, release a lot of radioactive isotopes which emit radiation *over time*.
But people are not worried about that. They are worried about the "bomb" aspect, as in Chernobyl, as in sudden release. That is what really freaks people out about nuclear power plants, as most are rational enough to understand the day to day operations can be handled cleanly.
Go to the far south of Hawaii's Big Island sometime if you want to see how long term wind power can leave mighty ugly lingering effects too.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
> if this turns out to be true, it could mean everything from curing cancer
IANA oncologist, but I do not see how it could mean that. I suppose it could mean preventing certain kinds of cancers that are caused by radiation, but that's not the same thing as curing cancer.
> to making manned interplanetary space expeditions feasible...
And I *definitely* don't see that. When it comes to planning a manned trip to, say, Mars, radiation is one of the smaller worries. The big problems there are more logistical in nature, especially the ones having to do with not being able to send the travellers anything they might suddenly have a need for in anything resembling a reasonable timeframe. This problem is bad enough at the south pole, where during the winter it can take several *weeks* to airdrop emergency supplies in if the weather doesn't cooperate. On an interplanetary mission it would be months at minimum, possibly years, and would cost so much money that there's a real possibility it would not be forthcoming at all. They'd be on their own in much the same way as the Plymouth Colony, only without the tremendous boon of going to a naturally hospitable area capable of supporting life. Protection from radiation doesn't magically solve that kind of thing.
> not to mention treatment for radiation exposures in nuclear/radiological accidents/attacks.
Well, yes, there is that.
> If this drug works, it would mean a true breakthrough as past experiments
> with radioprotectants were not particularly promising in any respect."
Indeed.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Radiation affects cells typically with ionizing radiation, where the beam causes electrons to detach from some part of the cell - usually most destructive in the DNA of the nucleus. The resultant electrically charged particle (free radical) chemically recombines in an unfavorable way to the body, and results in either 1) short term cell death (resultant gut sloughing, hair loss), or 2) long term cancer.
Other effects can be thermal in nature - i.e. burns on the body from the heat produced.
Anyway, ionizing radiation needs a oxygenated environment(cells are metabolically active) to produce its damage -so if some chemical can nullify the free radical before it chemically combines with some other important part of the cell (DNA for example), then the damage is abated.
Knowing how radiation produces its damage, I say it is very possible that something like this can work.
..........FULL STOP.
From what I know, I would assume that this drug _increases_ the risk of developing cancer, since it keeps damaged cells from destroying themselves.
In a case of definitely survivable radiation sickness, I'd stay the hell away from this drug. Better be sick for a while longer than have an increased risk of cancer. In cases of potentially fatal radiation poisoning, this drug might give the victims a better chance to survive, at the cost of developing cancer a few years down the road.
Link, or...
Perhaps a little offtopic, but stopping apoptosis may be useful to prevent systemic self-dectruction of cells during reperfusion of heart attack victims or other victims deprived of oxygen - allowing people to recovery from being deprived of oxygen for an hour.
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To Treat the Dead -- http://www.newsweek.com/id/35045%5D
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Currently they use a hypothermia protocol to reduce the damage done during reperfusion.
http://www.med.upenn.edu/resuscitation/hypothermia/
Yucca is not a geologically stable spent fuel containment facility, and even the NRC labeled it as 'inappropriate to contain Nuclear Waste'. When Dixie Lee Ray was the head of the Atomic Energy Commission he proclaimed that the disposal of nuclear fuel would be "the greatest non-problem in history" and would be accomplished by 1985, yet here we are in 2009, over twenty years past that date and still there is no spent fuel containment facility anywhere. The closest anyone has come is the Swiss and even their project is a multi-decade test project and extremely expensive.
Nevada only got it at Yucca because one of their representatives didn't show up. So why aren't Nuclear supporters motivated enough to lobby for it in their state, have you? And who do you think should pay for it? If the Nuclear Industry can't solve this most basic issue what business do they have building any *new* reactors?
What specific techniques are you referring to that 'greatly lessen the amount of waste from a plant' and how do you define greatly? 10%, 20% 50% less?
I simply don't think you have thought that through. What material should be used to contain the spent fuel in the reactor core for the 25000 years while it decays? What about the activated isotopes from the core like Iron 90 or Cobalt 55 in the triated water, just let them leach into the water table? Should we not plan for that because it's Not In My Generation?
This statement makes no sense. Lethality of radiation is controllable, lethality of a radioactive isotope in the environment is not controllable. The Nuclear Industry releases radioactive isotopes into the environment and this medication won't change that or the fact that people who ingest radioactive isotopes *will* contract cancer.
So I should start to factor in Net energy return into this argument. The amount of energy to extract Uranium from the rock, the energetic cost of enrichment, the energetic cost of decommissioning the reactor safely and the energetic cost of the *as yet to be built* containment facilities? What about the characteristic of Nuclear energy to continues to consume energy *after* it has produced energy? What about energetic cost of mine site remediation, energetic cost of U-238 storage?
The typical Solar Panel today achieves between 10% and 15% conversion. Solar parabolic trough plants have been built with efficiencies of about 20%. Up to 600C, steam turbines, standard technology, have an efficiency up to 41%. One proposal for very high temperatures is to use liquid fluoride salts operating between 700C to 800C, using multi-stage turbine systems to achieve 50% or more thermal efficiencies.
Solar thermal also does base load power.
As opposed to hellishly toxic elements that are leaked into the environment and you have no way of knowing if they have wound up in the human food chain. Should we also compare the 'hellishly complex' enri
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The net result is that, sure, you live through the radiation exposure for the moment, but you've accumulated DNA damage that may or may not ever get repaired. So you set yourself up for a very nasty cancer risk later on.
Possible, but not necessarily. The caveat to this is that power companies might be more comfortable skirting safety regulations, and build nuclear plants that are less safe. This is the usual action of large faceless companies when they are allowed to operate in places where the government or people are more complacent to the dangers of their products (whether by economic necessity or by ignorance, or both).
Anyway, even if true, it might only be a cure for acute radiation sickness as the article doesn't say anything about triggering the human body to produce these so called protective proteins, rather they have to be injected. Almost anything injected eventually gets purged from the body. Which would mean people would have to take the drug over and over and over again if living in a contaminated area. Long term use could cause problems and would at the very least make people who need it hostage to the companies and/or governments who produce it. Even if this drug does indeed prove real, I know I would still not agree that my home being effectively and permanently contaminated by radioactivity is not a non-issue. And per my previous paragraph, I would in fact be more leery of the power company's intentions etc.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Coal releases more radioactive waste than nuclear. Citation here.
Coal releases more radioactive waste than nuclear power stations in normal operation, however just one accident makes up for all plants because of the massive amounts of radioactive isotopes released. If you had read my post and the article properly you would see that I am talking about the entire Nuclear Industry and *it's* externalities.
All radioactive isotope should be controlled no matter where it comes from. Your statement tries to deflect the responsibility the Nuclear industry should be taking for *their* externalities as the coal industry should also do.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
There were two accidents so far. One caused no deaths and little damage and the other was the result of outdated Soviet RBMK reactors. With modern safety technology, such accidents are practically impossible - we'll almost certainly have none until the last fission reactor shuts down and we all switch to fusion power.
What? I don't think so and I haven't even begun to dig. How much research did you do before making that statement? There were two catastrophic events so far. And Chernobyl wasn't *because* of the reactor it was *because* the administrative personnel conducted a test out of engineering spec (at 250Mw instead of 750Mw) *after* they xenon poisoned the reaction.
And you haven't taken into account accidents in the other stages of the Nuclear Industry. So just how many of those accidents do you include?
So in other words, they're unlikely, but still possible. Specifically which 'modern safety technology are you referring to?
But your not certain, your 'almost certain'. It concerns me that your statements seem to be more 'Pro-Nuclear' rather than 'Responsible Nuclear Advocacy'. Your arguments, fixated on the reactors instead of the industry as a whole, suggest you should educate yourself about the *entire* industry before engaging in this debate any further as you have been unable to actually *answer* any of the arguments I have presented to you.
I am 'almost certain' you will find that exposure to radioactive isotopes will not cause immediate death, but will trigger cancer that will take some years to express itself. I am also 'almost certain' that if there is another catastrophic Nuclear event it will be end of the Nuclear power industry. A shame really because I'm 'almost certain' that advancing the Nuclear Industry could help us deal with the stockpiles of pu-239 and du-238 we have.
Do you know what a ASP is in relation to a Nuclear Power plant? What a Basis Design Issue is, how many are acceptable in a nuclear power plant and how they are found? Or how many recommendations were made by which industry bodies for SNUPPs that actually made it into the design for the AP-1000?
Because if you can't I'd suggest that you don't know as much about Nuclear reactors as you think you do.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.