Re:Could the title and summary be more exaggerated
on
Cancer Cured By HIV
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· Score: 3, Informative
Actually, if you read the article, it's pretty clear that while this particular experiment was leukemia based the theory should work on nearly any cancer. Basically, they used a modified HIV virus as a carrier to modify the DNA of some of the patients white blood cells (outside of the body). The modified cells are made to specifically target the cancer in question (and replicate, a lot). If trials continue to be successful, there is no reason to think that the "signature" of any cancer couldn't be substituted for the leukemia.
Incorrect. It may work on a significant fraction of some cancers (especially leukemias, cancers of the blood) but it is unlikely to be a generic cure of most or all cancers. (TL;DR of the link which is annoying technical - it's a cool new twist on a general class of cancer fighting strategies that up until now have had limited success. It may well prove to be useful, but it is in the very, very early stages of research and there are some reasons why this general class of treatment would be expected not to work on many different cancers.)
And kudos to MSNBC for actually providing a link to the original literature.
However, more recently, most police bands have gone encrypted. The thinking is that if the info is broadcast in the clear, the perps have a much better chance of avoiding the police and getting away with whatever they were planning. Broadcasting police information in the clear also has privacy implications (did you here that Fred Smith was busted for speeding last night?).
Slightly off topic - I have that exact radio shown in the TFA. It is a complete pile of garbage. It's UI is complex, non intuitive, poorly documented and buggy. The encryption switch is a tiny little ring around the channel switch knob. It's incredibly easy to turn it OFF when changing channels, especially with gloves on. The only visual clue is a tiny little "O" in the upper right hand corner of the crappy little low contrast LCD screen.
It seems like Motorola is really going downhill. They used to make great commercial / public service radios. They used to make great cell phones.
1. It's not been replicated. The work was created in a lab not known for RNA molecular biology. Certainly not a show stopper, but it makes one wonder. 2. It's completely in vitro at this point. The combination of an anti DS RNA antibody hooked onto a bit of the immune system is not something that is liable to hang out benignly in the mammalian organism. It may have to be further sequestered in some sort of targeting / protection vehicle. 3. There are a number of similar concepts in molecular biology that can work well in tissue culture but fail inside an organism because we do not have good mechanisms to package up biologically active molecules and deliver them to a specific target in the body. It is an active area of research, but the clinically available systems are quite crude. 4. Even if everything does go according to plan, it only works on RNA viruses. A significant clinical burden but it's not every virus in the swamp. 5. The tone of the paper is very suspect, sounds more like a prospectus than a research paper. 6. Don't give this guy any money just yet. 7. The lead author is credited with the idea, doing the lab tests and getting the patent. Sounds weird. Maybe I'm just jealous.
The combination of the two fields triggers my "possible crackpot" alert. Plus the fact that googling for "Todd Rider" returns Wikipedia and pop-sci articles, but no "real" scientific publications. Can anyone in the field comment on the credibility/reputation of Dr. Rider? I don't intend to be offensive, maybe he's really a top guy in the field, it's just that both claims are quite bold and I'd be happy to get some external confirmation.
Yeah, I've just skimmed it. It's plausible. There are two problems - the first is getting it into the cells. The system they used:
For delivery into cells in vitro or in vivo, DRACOs can be fused with proven protein transduction tags, including a sequence from the HIV TAT protein [28], the related protein transduction domain 4 (PTD) [29], and polyarginine
really isn't a good drug delivery system. That's the problem with a number of targeted therapies - you have to get to the target in large enough numbers to be useful medically and with an easy enough system to be useful clinically.
Secondly, what they do is to bind large double stranded RNA molecules (which, according TFA exist primarily in RNA viruses, NOT in mammalian cells) and then use part of the immune system to attack that complex.
What they DO NOT DO is show that this hybrid system would be effective in a real organism, as opposed to a petri dish. I am going to bet that once you get this puppy inside the bloodstream, all hell is going to break loose via the immune system and create a bunch of untoward side effects.
An interesting bit of research (if it can be validated), they way it is pitched in the article is way too aggressive for a scientific publication and sounds more like an investment vehicle.
I'm a huge Apple hatter. If I ever bought an Apple product I would burst into hypocritical flames. But this is a really good idea. I have a lot of clients that a have tons of old hardware that they can't get rid of because of the cost involved in doing so. Now Apple will cover that cost, and make a little money by stripping the precious metals off the techo-trash. This is a great example of the free market's Invisible Hand. Bravo Apple, well done.
"hatter"? Didn't realize that Apple sold headgear. Oh, I get it...
Don't you folks have a local electronics recycling drive? Even here in rural Alaska we get a shipping container and on two weekends in the spring, people can stuff it full of old electronic junk. It then gets sent to Seattle to one of the (supposedly) higher quality recyclers that don't send it to China to have 12 year olds burn the circuit boards for metals.
It's basically a break even deal, the few dollars they get from the recycler pays for the shipping container. I would expect that any city or town big enough to have a recycling program would have such a system in place.
Toxic crustaceans are very few and far between (one that hasn't been eating toxic algae, and considering these are eggs, they haven't been eating anything)
Wait about a week and go walk on that beach. You just might change your mind. Or have your nose do it for you.
Yes. We'd like to talk to you about that. We're really upset that you keep flipping the bird at us. We're just doing our job (and we've noticed you aren't doing yours - hanging out on Slashdot all day).
-- your friends from some undisclosed Government Agency
Actually the software that figures stuff out is remarkably complex. I wonder how long until someone makes a game where you wear VR Goggles and carry a nerf sword, and you're out in a field killing orcs by swinging the nerf sword around.
And how long after that until there is an uptick in arrests for bizarre, aggressive behavior in usually introverted males?
I don't think it would be a bad idea for rich sheiks who don't know what to do with their money to invest in something cultural and immortal like a smart scifi show.
Cultural? OK, maybe, for fairly low values of 'culture'. Immortal? Wow. I think it's time for some serious Outside for Dr. Spork. No more TV for a month.
This has been all over Slashdot, all over the rest of the media since it was detected. It's weird. It didn't do very much and it was apparent within 24 hours that it didn't do all that much yet it got impressively hyped. At the same time, London is trying to deal with the worst riots in a couple of decades, Syria is launching tank attacks at it's population, Wall Street is in free fall - so it's not like it is a slow news day.
I haven't seen the movie, but the only way the monkeys could realistically supplant human domination would be to lay low, breed, and wait for humans to weaken themselves sufficiently though the usual means (warfare, economic unsustainability, etc.).
No, all they would have to do is put on a jacket and a tie, get in to law school, graduate and run for elected office.
On second thought, that might actually improve things.
Everyone at Cisco and the DOJ? They seem to be lining him up for a pretty good ass reaming as it is.
By whom? The best you could possibly hope for is a sound written thrashing by a pissed off judge. And if that doesn't work, well, the judge will have to write another letter.
Oh, that and a few people on the Internet will get upset.
What about pharmaceuticals that are excreted in urine or carcinogenic chemicals that are poured down the drain? I imagine that many of those compounds are small enough to pass through an osmotic filter.
Ah, how beautiful it is to observe market space competition, falling prices relative to dollars, (which are also falling BTW.). Just how much would all and any of this cost to the end consumer if there was no inflation caused by government money printing? How much electronics would cost today without any government regulations, taxes, subsidies altogether I wonder? 100 bucks for a fully loaded top quality laptop? One can only dream of a world where there is more competition in everything else, from healthcare, to education, to insurance, to travel, to energy, to food, etc.etc. arrrgh.
The blatantly political thread is ---> that way.
Must be odd to see the world through your libertarian colored glasses. Your field of view must be rather limited given the blinders that are inherent to that philosophy. I'll be it hurts to be walking into reality so much.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, if you read the article, it's pretty clear that while this particular experiment was leukemia based the theory should work on nearly any cancer. Basically, they used a modified HIV virus as a carrier to modify the DNA of some of the patients white blood cells (outside of the body). The modified cells are made to specifically target the cancer in question (and replicate, a lot). If trials continue to be successful, there is no reason to think that the "signature" of any cancer couldn't be substituted for the leukemia.
Incorrect. It may work on a significant fraction of some cancers (especially leukemias, cancers of the blood) but it is unlikely to be a generic cure of most or all cancers. (TL;DR of the link which is annoying technical - it's a cool new twist on a general class of cancer fighting strategies that up until now have had limited success. It may well prove to be useful, but it is in the very, very early stages of research and there are some reasons why this general class of treatment would be expected not to work on many different cancers.)
And kudos to MSNBC for actually providing a link to the original literature.
Sharks, obviously.
No silly, sharks are for the Navy. The army uses badgers
However, more recently, most police bands have gone encrypted. The thinking is that if the info is broadcast in the clear, the perps have a much better chance of avoiding the police and getting away with whatever they were planning. Broadcasting police information in the clear also has privacy implications (did you here that Fred Smith was busted for speeding last night?).
Slightly off topic - I have that exact radio shown in the TFA. It is a complete pile of garbage. It's UI is complex, non intuitive, poorly documented and buggy. The encryption switch is a tiny little ring around the channel switch knob. It's incredibly easy to turn it OFF when changing channels, especially with gloves on. The only visual clue is a tiny little "O" in the upper right hand corner of the crappy little low contrast LCD screen.
It seems like Motorola is really going downhill. They used to make great commercial / public service radios. They used to make great cell phones.
Sigh.
Upheaval? I suspect the drug is going to be inexpensive to produce, but it could probably have global changes on the same order as penicillin.
You would be quite incorrect. It is a very complicated structure and needs a complicated delivery system. It will NOT be cheap.
You're missing a couple of things.
1. It's not been replicated. The work was created in a lab not known for RNA molecular biology. Certainly not a show stopper, but it makes one wonder.
2. It's completely in vitro at this point. The combination of an anti DS RNA antibody hooked onto a bit of the immune system is not something that is liable to hang out benignly in the mammalian organism. It may have to be further sequestered in some sort of targeting / protection vehicle.
3. There are a number of similar concepts in molecular biology that can work well in tissue culture but fail inside an organism because we do not have good mechanisms to package up biologically active molecules and deliver them to a specific target in the body. It is an active area of research, but the clinically available systems are quite crude.
4. Even if everything does go according to plan, it only works on RNA viruses. A significant clinical burden but it's not every virus in the swamp.
5. The tone of the paper is very suspect, sounds more like a prospectus than a research paper.
6. Don't give this guy any money just yet.
7. The lead author is credited with the idea, doing the lab tests and getting the patent. Sounds weird. Maybe I'm just jealous.
The combination of the two fields triggers my "possible crackpot" alert. Plus the fact that googling for "Todd Rider" returns Wikipedia and pop-sci articles, but no "real" scientific publications. Can anyone in the field comment on the credibility/reputation of Dr. Rider? I don't intend to be offensive, maybe he's really a top guy in the field, it's just that both claims are quite bold and I'd be happy to get some external confirmation.
Yeah, I've just skimmed it. It's plausible. There are two problems - the first is getting it into the cells. The system they used:
For delivery into cells in vitro or in vivo, DRACOs can be fused with proven protein transduction tags, including a sequence from the HIV TAT protein [28], the related protein transduction domain 4 (PTD) [29], and polyarginine
really isn't a good drug delivery system. That's the problem with a number of targeted therapies - you have to get to the target in large enough numbers to be useful medically and with an easy enough system to be useful clinically.
Secondly, what they do is to bind large double stranded RNA molecules (which, according TFA exist primarily in RNA viruses, NOT in mammalian cells) and then use part of the immune system to attack that complex.
What they DO NOT DO is show that this hybrid system would be effective in a real organism, as opposed to a petri dish. I am going to bet that once you get this puppy inside the bloodstream, all hell is going to break loose via the immune system and create a bunch of untoward side effects.
An interesting bit of research (if it can be validated), they way it is pitched in the article is way too aggressive for a scientific publication and sounds more like an investment vehicle.
An iPad will get you through times of no oil better than oil will get you through times of no iPad.
I'm a huge Apple hatter. If I ever bought an Apple product I would burst into hypocritical flames. But this is a really good idea. I have a lot of clients that a have tons of old hardware that they can't get rid of because of the cost involved in doing so. Now Apple will cover that cost, and make a little money by stripping the precious metals off the techo-trash. This is a great example of the free market's Invisible Hand. Bravo Apple, well done.
"hatter"? Didn't realize that Apple sold headgear. Oh, I get it...
Don't you folks have a local electronics recycling drive? Even here in rural Alaska we get a shipping container and on two weekends in the spring, people can stuff it full of old electronic junk. It then gets sent to Seattle to one of the (supposedly) higher quality recyclers that don't send it to China to have 12 year olds burn the circuit boards for metals.
It's basically a break even deal, the few dollars they get from the recycler pays for the shipping container. I would expect that any city or town big enough to have a recycling program would have such a system in place.
Toxic crustaceans are very few and far between (one that hasn't been eating toxic algae, and considering these are eggs, they haven't been eating anything)
Wait about a week and go walk on that beach. You just might change your mind. Or have your nose do it for you.
Yes. We'd like to talk to you about that. We're really upset that you keep flipping the bird at us. We're just doing our job (and we've noticed you aren't doing yours - hanging out on Slashdot all day).
-- your friends from some undisclosed Government Agency
Actually the software that figures stuff out is remarkably complex. I wonder how long until someone makes a game where you wear VR Goggles and carry a nerf sword, and you're out in a field killing orcs by swinging the nerf sword around.
And how long after that until there is an uptick in arrests for bizarre, aggressive behavior in usually introverted males?
+5 Informative. Yeah, gotta love Slashdot....
Cheap uniforms, plastic props, and paint will get you 90% there.
Worked for the TV show. Ought to work for the theme park.
I don't think it would be a bad idea for rich sheiks who don't know what to do with their money to invest in something cultural and immortal like a smart scifi show.
Cultural? OK, maybe, for fairly low values of 'culture'.
Immortal? Wow. I think it's time for some serious Outside for Dr. Spork. No more TV for a month.
This has been all over Slashdot, all over the rest of the media since it was detected. It's weird. It didn't do very much and it was apparent within 24 hours that it didn't do all that much yet it got impressively hyped. At the same time, London is trying to deal with the worst riots in a couple of decades, Syria is launching tank attacks at it's population, Wall Street is in free fall - so it's not like it is a slow news day.
What a bunch of Drama Queens.
Armageddon much?
The nuclear arsenal would seem to belie this theory.
And exactly how many times have carrier groups been nuked compared to the number of times they have been sent out for force projection?
Ultimate Doom is not always the appropriate tactical response....
C) God created Man by throwing rocks at the Earth.
Boys are Stupid, Throw Rocks at Them
OK, OK, so you didn't like it already.
How was Cowboys vs. Aliens?
I haven't seen the movie, but the only way the monkeys could realistically supplant human domination would be to lay low, breed, and wait for humans to weaken themselves sufficiently though the usual means (warfare, economic unsustainability, etc.).
No, all they would have to do is put on a jacket and a tie, get in to law school, graduate and run for elected office.
On second thought, that might actually improve things.
Everyone at Cisco and the DOJ? They seem to be lining him up for a pretty good ass reaming as it is.
By whom? The best you could possibly hope for is a sound written thrashing by a pissed off judge. And if that doesn't work, well, the judge will have to write another letter.
Oh, that and a few people on the Internet will get upset.
Shame about the bi-sexual fish though.
Screw the fish. It's the bisexual Londoners that I worry about. I always knew it wasn't just the cooking.
What about pharmaceuticals that are excreted in urine or carcinogenic chemicals that are poured down the drain? I imagine that many of those compounds are small enough to pass through an osmotic filter.
Yep.
A couple of suggestions, grasshopper:
Line breaks are your friend.
Slow down on the Red Bull.
Ah, how beautiful it is to observe market space competition, falling prices relative to dollars, (which are also falling BTW.). Just how much would all and any of this cost to the end consumer if there was no inflation caused by government money printing? How much electronics would cost today without any government regulations, taxes, subsidies altogether I wonder? 100 bucks for a fully loaded top quality laptop? One can only dream of a world where there is more competition in everything else, from healthcare, to education, to insurance, to travel, to energy, to food, etc.etc. arrrgh.
The blatantly political thread is ---> that way.
Must be odd to see the world through your libertarian colored glasses. Your field of view must be rather limited given the blinders that are inherent to that philosophy. I'll be it hurts to be walking into reality so much.
1.2gHz? Luxury.
My first copy of 3D Studio ran on a 33MHz 486 (which was one of the fastest PCs available at the time).
Yeah, and it's still probably trying to render that 480 x 320 8 bit 45 second movie that you had been working on in 1995...