More Hope To Stopping the Spread of Breast Cancer
Science Daily reported back in November that a research team may have discovered a new specific protein that plays a key role in the spread of cancer throughout the body, outside the initial tumor zone.
This new target is called parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP) and they seem to feel that this protein is involved in key stages of both breast cancer initiation and progression.
The team of researchers is based out of Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and headed by Dr. Richard Kremer.
In their studies, they removed the protein in question from a tumor and then observed that there was a 80 to 90 percent reduction of growth.
Discovering this protein will help the fight against breast cancer and the metastasis to other parts of the body.
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Their study was made possible by grants from the
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR),
- Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation and
- U.S. Department of Defense.
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I think bats can be cool but Fruit Bats to me are awesome because they look like small dogs with wings. Fruit Bats are also known by the name of Megabats or Flying Foxes, and for good reason! The largest lineage of this bat species can reach wingspans of up to 5 feet wide.
They’re the classic large bat you usually always see on TV in scenes, but they seem quite harmless, since they feed on fruits and flower nectar!
But of course, at that size, it does wonders on the human psyche when trying to stay calm if you’re presented with seeing these flying beasts in the wild, of that I’m sure.
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I’m reading about a lawsuit where an individual is suing James Cameron because he says Avatar was his idea. He argues that he presented his idea and was told it wouldn’t sell. Then Avatar comes out. Depending on how you look at this issue, some things seem interesting, the least of which is timing and such.
Seriously! He wants credit for the Pocahontas retelling? (And that was no disrespect towards Cameron at all. Almost everything on screen could be called a retelling of something else these days.) But deciding who’s right or wrong is not for this article. But it did spark an interesting perspective on some things I’ve observed over the years.
Idea “thefts” or plagiarism happens everyday, everywhere. Ideas are all out there for the taking.
I remember in my stand-up comedy days, I’d perform at a particular comedy house that had a rep for snagging original material from up and comers and selling them to the “name” comedians. And I have to say, it’s a bit of an honor to watch some big name star spout your material on an HBO special!
I’ve also seen where ideas I’ve started here on Brusimm.com pop up on other sites after I’ve started them. (I’m sure it was just great, comedic timing… and that’s totally possible.)
But it doesn’t really matter who comes up with what, when. What does matter is who acts on them. Or better yet, how one entity can spread or deploy the premise better than someone else!
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Did you know that beagles are one of the desired lab test animals because they’re obedient, adaptable so they are able to live their entire lives in cages and they’re cheap to feed?
Yea… it’s a horrible fact and I’m not sure how researchers can live with themselves in dealing with lab animals to experiment on.
Sure, some people think animals are just animals. I also don’t hold that heinous perspective. Animals have souls and personalities. Whatever goes on in their heads isn’t very different from us. It’s just on a slightly different scale than ours, something we don’t understand.
The article that was pointed out to me from a reader and it has a wonderfully happy ending for these select beagles that were rescued.
The animals were rescued by ARME (Animal Rescue Media Education).
The footage below (after the break) shows some rescued beagles seeing sunlight and stepping on grass for the first time in their lives.
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This week’s image comes from the collection of photos from my friend, Dave Nielsen. The image today is of the Coleman Glacier located on Mount Baker, in WA. The glacier itself is located below the mountain peak, on the left.
The glacier was named after Edmund Thomas Coleman, who was the first man to make the ascent up Mt. Baker. It was his third try that he was successful, in August of 1868. Grant Peak is the main summit of Mt. Baker, and rises to an elevation of just over 10,000 feet.
Image is posted, by permission, from Dave Nielsen. Big Wave Dave on Flickr. Pretty awesome image, isn’t it?
Despite the fact that October is over, breast cancer awareness does not go away. Breast Cancer is still out there affecting 1 in 8 women every day. And Yoplait Yogurt is still leading the charge against this cancer!
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BEFORE YOU LEAVE THIS post… just take a quick glance at this small section… and see just how many people this actually affects:
Once my family was involved in this new battle, it was amazing how many folks either directly or indirectly via a family member have experienced the pure fear of being confronted with cancer. It’s that pervasive in our society.
I may have chatted with 30 people over the last few months and maybe 5 folks were not somehow affected. That’s what “1 in 8″ means. That it’s nearly everywhere.
Breast cancer can affect 1 in 8 women. 200,000 women are diagnosed each year. That’s 547 women a day. Or 22 women an hour. You do the math… how many women are in your life? Whether you know it or not, you know someone… and it’s probably someone how supports the cost.
– OK… if nothing else, thank you for reading that snippet.
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Normally, you don’t go to work and say, “Hey, how about that breast cancer thing!” and strike up conversations. It’s only when you are in the middle of this fight for yours or someone you love, life, that you realize that so many around you seem to have been confronted by this disease. Because now, you have reason to broach this subject. A subject that some folks think, if I don’t talk about it or address it, it won’t come lurking in my doorway.
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This is a recant of a moment this hit me the other day. Whether you take this as a piece of self help or a moment of inspiration motivation, well, that’s up to you. But if it says something to at least one person, then the intent here is done!
There I was, enjoying a quick lunch of ‘Clams and Chips‘ in a small, local seafood place. I don’t get a chance to eat seafood that much so when I do, I fully appreciate and enjoy my time. I mostly savor every bite. I settled into a corner table where I could see out the windows and watch the rain, while reading the final book of my Chaos Walking trilogy on my Kindle.
I took my time, reading my book, eating my lunch. As I was coming to the close of my lunch, I had just a few clams left. Two good sized and one tiny piece. I was so looking forward to these last two pieces. I had a lot of motivation to enjoying the meal and even more so in those last few pieces. Hence, I reached out, picked them up, and as I carried these two savory pieces of clam to their fates, I dropped them. I was holding them in such a way that they were pressed against each other between my fingers. They were very round and they rolled out of my grasp. Those two pieces that I had built up such an anticipation for, were gone. Rolling across the floor, and no, the public restaurant floor does not qualify for that 10-second rule.
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Daphne Koller, a computer science professor at Stanford University, is the senior author on a study that looks at how a computer program can examine the pathology of breast cancer images and predict at a much greater success rate, a patients’ survival chances from breast cancer.
Right now, the method which has been used for over 80 years, is still the main stream focus of pathology for doctors reviewing tumors under a microscope and ranking or scoring what they see from an established scale.
The scores determine the type and diversity of the cancer they’re battling.
This is the information that is used to calculate the patient’s outlook and course of their treatment.
The Stanford study suggests that the computer models they’ve been studying are finding additional factors that could indicate or influence survival rates.
The computer modeling is called Computational Pathologist, or C-Path.
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Below is a beautiful photo taken by my buddy, Dave Nielsen, that I’ve added to my collection of photography. Below is an image is titled Blue Lake, and the photo hails from the Baker Area, North Cascades Highway!
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You can see other photographic works by Dave Nielsen over at ‘Big Wave Dave’s Photostream‘ on Flickr. Dave does amazing things with the amazing photos he takes.
The Peninsula Humane Society is offering a $2,250 award for information leading to the gutless individual or individuals who tied a 5-pound dumbbell to a 12-year old cat and tossed it into a Redwood City lagoon in Northern California to drown.
The dead cat was spotted in the Bay Area lagoon by a public works employee, who discovered that the weight was tied to its neck with zip ties.
The black-and-white cat had front declawed paws. The body was found today, (11/3/11), and is estimated to have been in the water for a few days.
The hopes from the $2,250 reward is of course designed to help people step forward with any information about whoever did this, possibly bringing closure to the owners who lost the cat.
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