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Monday, March 25, 2013

Scientists unravel genetic code of esophageal cancer | The Raw Story

By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, March 24, 2013 14:52 EDT

Scientists said Sunday they had found mutations in 26 genes that may cause oesophageal cancer, a breakthrough they hope will lead to new drugs for the deadly and increasingly frequent disease.

A team of experts in the United States unravelled the genetic code of tumour cells from 149 patients, which they compared to healthy cells to identify a mutation signature for oesophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC).

This type of cancer of the oesophagus or gullet, the muscular tube that moves food from the mouth to the stomach, has a five-year survival rate of only about 15-20 percent.

EAC often originates from a disease called Barrett?s oesophagus, which in turn is caused by chronic acid reflux.

Incidence of the cancer has increased by 600 percent over the last 30 years ? particularly in Western countries, according to the study.

Oesophageal cancer kills about 15,000 people in the United States alone every year ? and a total 400,000 worldwide.

Now, the biggest genetic analysis yet of this type of cancer has revealed common mutations that may be specifically targeted by new drugs.

?Finding the mutations helps us understand what makes the cancer tick,? study co-author Adam Bass of the Harvard Medical School told AFP.

?It can also help us find new therapies.?

Cancer develops when a human cell?s DNA is mutated so that its normal function is disrupted and it starts growing and spreading out of control.

There are different causes, including obesity, smoking, exposure to the sun?s UV rays or environmental pollution.

Mutations of different genes have been implicated in different cancers, but there are also vast differences even among people with the same form of the disease.

?We looked at which genes were mutated more frequently than would be expected by chance,? said Bass.

?Doing so, we found 26 genes that may be contributing to this cancer type.?

Genes are segments of DNA that carry the instruction manuals for cells.

The team found a frequent repetition of one particular type of mutation, suggesting it may be caused by some sort of exposure ? perhaps linked to acid reflux disease.

?Why this is especially interesting is that the rates of oesophageal adenocarcinoma have risen greatly in the last several decades,? said Bass.

?We suspect that there may be some factor in the reflux which is causing this specific type of DNA damage.

?If this is so and we can pin down what type of specific factor is responsible for these mutations, we may be able to develop new approaches to prevent these cancers or at least to diagnose them at an earlier point.?

? ?
[DNA illustration via mathagraphics / Shutterstock]

Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/24/scientists-unravel-genetic-code-of-oesophageal-cancer/

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Monday, March 11, 2013

International Women's Day - Morocco World News

By Sahar Amarir

Morocco World News

Paris, March 10, 2013

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and while trying to make things right we might very often only make them worse without even realizing we do so. Friday was, as we all know, the international women?s day which couldn?t illustrate the saying any better. Everywhere in the media and on social networks one could see the enthusiasm, read the welter of passionate love declaration to women, of praising of women?s greatness, achievements and nature coming both from men and women, happily rejoicing at the idea that this is ?our day?, congratulating each other with nice wishes.

While witnessing this passionate expression of women?s sanctity, I felt like a total stranger to it watching it like a spectator would watch a theater play, knowing this is a comedy, already knowing how the story ends and that after the actors finish turning their life to art, everyone just goes back to their daily and usual lives.

But oddly enough, this feels like it was the right way to see it, because I am a feminist, and I feel nothing but frustration and exasperation on that day. Beyond the fact that I?m upset with the reality of women?s struggle that led to the very existence of that day ? thus showing that if women?s rights were correctly achieved, we wouldn?t even need it- it is its uses and misuses that further irritates me. ?International Women?s Day could be the opportunity to help societies move forward by efficiently deepening actions aiming at helping women in their struggles.

But instead, it has become a day for the society to purge its intentional ignorance of women?s issue the rest of the year by blowing its own trumpet on how aware of women?s struggle it is, since it even dedicates a day to it. But actually, that day is solely used to make statements void of genuine will of progress to hide the obvious deep disdain of the cause showing all year long?

This is the official catharsis day for sexists around the world, when they can finally externalize their ?best? jokes that would sound too harsh the rest of the year, when they can express what they seriously think while trying to brush it off with a humoristic tone, claiming we?ll be legit when speaking about equality the day we?ll be able to do what men do. Of course, those same people would never make jokes on disabled people on their international day, nor on minorities on fight against racism day, nor on the victims of a genocide on holocaust remembrance day for example.

Only women get to be treated this way and witness a display of typical sexist speeches wrapped up with hypocrite humor as a gift on Women?s Day.

Moreover, their argument shows a deep ignorance of the feminist cause and is even more ridiculous once you realize there are even more things women can do and that men can?t. More importantly, we know that we were born with a different physiognomy, we?re not identical and we certainly do not want to be identical to men.

However, we simply believe being born with this physiognomy doesn?t mean we shouldn?t have equal rights and equal opportunities in life. It does not mean we should be used as sexual or plastic objects. Nor does it mean we can be harassed, sexually assaulted because we are women, nor we accept to be paid less than a man because we are women, nor we will accept any gender based discrimination, nor we will accept on this day what we don?t accept the rest of the year: sexism. Apparently, it also seems to be the day women congratulate themselves over how much of an amazing creation of human life we are, that we deserve respect, It is also a day in which medias briefly recall some numbers: domestic violence, rapes, gender discrimination, wage gap.

To further improve progress and ensure the respect of women?s rights, these important numbers deserve to be published, denounced, analyzed, and explained more than just one time in the year. We need to get out of self-congratulations and from some media?s lip service to women?s rights, and make people realize that the fight of women?s rights exists throughout the year. Unfortunately, we were trapped in a day that makes the feminist cause one to be simply reminded for 24 hours, not worked on 365 days. While being half of the population ? and soon even more as we have a population turning older while women tend to live longer than men- we are still treated like a minority.

After all, minorities have their own day, but they are not half of the population. Neither are disabled people. And we were fooled into accepting to have a day dedicated to us, thus clearly showing the everlasting ostracism we are victim of in every society, no matter how many we are and no matter how much we work for the well-being of society. Looking more closely at this tragicomedy and all its actors, I already know the end: I see women?s rights have been in many ways trapped in a gilded cage with this day, people speaking about it on one day to forget about it the day after, and the rest of the year. But lest we forget, we have been imprisoned in certain ways many times, and the past generations worked hard to get us closer to freedom, and so shall we. Society can keep this day for another cause: we don?t want a road leading us to a hell of disinterest and ignorance. We need no day, no praises, no flowers, no sweet words or grandiloquent speeches. We need, we want and we ask for change. Not just a day, but every time, everywhere and for all of us.

Sahar Amarir is a student in Law and Political Sciences currently living in Paris, engaged in activism and interested in gender, minority and human rights issues.

The views expressed in this article are the author?s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News? editorial policy

Source: http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/03/81726/international-womens-day-the-day-after-a-feminist-perspective/

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Source: http://www.hellofour.com/blog/97573/look-at-reasonable-web-hosting/

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Researchers solve riddle of what has been holding two unlikely materials together

Mar. 11, 2013 ? For years, researchers have developed thin films of bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) -- which converts heat into electricity or electricity to cooling -- on top of gallium arsenide (GaAs) to create cooling devices for electronics. But while they knew it could be done, it was not clear how -- because the atomic structures of those unlikely pair of materials do not appear to be compatible. Now researchers from North Carolina State University and RTI International have solved the mystery, opening the door to new research in the field.

"We've used state-of-the-art technology to solve a mystery that has been around for years," says Dr. James LeBeau, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research. "And now that we know what is going on, we can pursue research to fine-tune the interface of these materials to develop more efficient mechanisms for converting electricity to cooling or heat into electricity. Ultimately, this could have applications in a wide range of electronic devices."

To study the phenomenon, the researchers had to create the nanometer-scale thin films on a GaAs substrate, or foundation. The GaAs is first placed in a vapor deposition chamber. Molecules containing bismuth and tellurium are then introduced into the chamber, where they react with each other and "grow" into a crystalline Bi2Te3 structure on the surface of the GaAs.

Using advanced "Super-X" X-ray spectroscopy technology in conjunction with an aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope, the researchers were able to determine what was binding the Bi2Te3 to the GaAs -- and it was not what they were expecting.

They found that when the tellurium molecules were introduced to the vapor deposition chamber, the tellurium reacted with the GaAs substrate to create a new surface layer of gallium telluride, which was only one molecule thick. The Bi2Te3 then formed a thin film on top of that new surface layer.

Because gallium telluride does not react with Bi2Te3, the research team knew chemical bonding could not be holding them together. Instead, the two layers are held together by the weaker force of van der Waals bonds -- meaning the materials are held together by weak electrical forces.

"While these materials have been investigated previously by RTI and NC State, the state-of-the-art techniques applied by LeBeau and his team have revealed significant new insights into how the film grows," notes Dr. Rama Venkatasubramanian of RTI International, who is also a co-author of the paper.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by North Carolina State University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

J. Houston Dycus, Ryan M. White, Jonathan M. Pierce, Rama Venkatasubramanian, James M. LeBeau. Atomic scale structure and chemistry of Bi2Te3/GaAs interfaces grown by metallorganic van der Waals epitaxy. Applied Physics Letters, 2013; 102 (8): 081601 DOI: 10.1063/1.4793518

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/electronics/~3/-baivAsSwsA/130311091535.htm

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Cardinals say Mass, seek prayers ahead of conclave

U.S. Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley arrives to his titular church of Santa Maria alla Vittoria in Rome to celebrate Mass, Sunday, March 10, 2013. Cardinals from around the world gather this week in a conclave to elect a new pope following the stunning resignation of Benedict XVI. In the secretive world of the Vatican, there is no way to know who is in the running, and history has yielded plenty of surprises. Yet several names have come up time repeatedly as strong contenders for the job. O'Malley, the archbishop of Boston, is among those considered to have a credible shot at the papacy. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)

Cardinal Angelo Scola, of Italy, celebrates a mass in Rome's Santi Apostoli church, Sunday March 10, 2013. Cardinals from around the world gather this week in a conclave to elect a new pope following the stunning resignation of Benedict XVI. In the secretive world of the Vatican, there is no way to know who is in the running, and history has yielded plenty of surprises. Yet several names have come up time repeatedly as strong contenders for the job. Scola, the Archbishop of Milan, is among those considered to have a credible shot at the papacy. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer arrives to celebrate mass in the Sant' Andrea al Quirinale church, in Rome, Sunday March 10, 2013. Cardinals from around the world gather this week in a conclave to elect a new pope following the stunning resignation of Benedict XVI. In the secretive world of the Vatican, there is no way to know who is in the running, and history has yielded plenty of surprises. Yet several names have come up time repeatedly as strong contenders for the job. Scherer, the Archbishop of Sao Paulo, is among those considered to have a credible shot at the papacy. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Cardinal Peter Erdo, of Hungary, celebrates a mass in St. Balbina basilica in Rome, Sunday March 10, 2013. Cardinals from around the world gather this week in a conclave to elect a new pope following the stunning resignation of Benedict XVI. In the secretive world of the Vatican, there is no way to know who is in the running, and history has yielded plenty of surprises. Yet several names have come up time repeatedly as strong contenders for the job. Erdo, the Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, is among those considered to have a credible shot at the papacy. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

VATICAN CITY (AP) ? Cardinals took a break from maneuvering ahead of this week's papal conclave to fan out across Rome and celebrate Sunday Mass at local parishes.

The worship services provided a chance to see the cardinals up close and hear them preach two days before they enter the conclave. Roman Catholics and others packed the churches, holding up cell phones to take photos and video.

The cardinals said Mass in their titular churches, the parishes that according to church tradition are assigned to them as clergy of Rome, creating a symbolic bond with the pope. The conclave, with 115 cardinal-electors, is scheduled to start Tuesday.

The cardinals have been holding meetings and informal gatherings ahead of electing a successor to Benedict XVI. Several church leaders acknowledged the historic moment at Mass.

"This Sunday is also special because today we prepare for the conclave," said Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, in his sermon at Holy Mary of Victory church. "Let us pray that the Holy Spirit illumines the church to choose a new pope who will confirm us in our faith and make more visible the love of the good shepherd."

The parish priest who introduced the cardinal was more direct, describing O'Malley as "humble, but decisive," and saying he hoped his next visit to the church would be as pontiff. The leading Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, has cited the Boston archbishop as a favorite, despite past resistance to the idea of a superpower pope.

Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan, considered a top papal contender, distributed communion at Church of the Twelve Holy Apostles, and spoke on the mission of the church.

"It is to announce over and over again, even to the modern man who is so sophisticated but sometimes lost in the new millennium, to announce always and repeatedly that the Lord's mercy is a source of hope even in these difficult times," he said. Scola waved to well-wishers as he was driven away from the church.

At Church of St. Andrew at the Quirinal, a crowd greeted Brazilian Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer, considered Brazil's best hope of filling the papacy. Scherer, who lived in Rome as a young priest, shook hands and hugged the faithful before celebrating Mass. He asked for prayers for the church, calling this period "certainly a difficult time, but also a joyful one and full of hope."

At the relatively young age of 63, Scherer embraces new approaches for reaching nonbelievers, while upholding Catholic orthodoxy, including rejecting same-sex marriage. Scherer joined Twitter in 2011 and in his second tweet said: "If Jesus preached the gospel today, he would also use print media, radio, TV, the Internet and Twitter. Give Him a chance!"

Cardinal Peter Erdo, the archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, said Mass at Basilica of Santa Balbina on the Aventine hill, where the first known Hungarian cardinal, Istvan Vancsa, was buried in the 13th century. Erdo, a canon lawyer and theologian, is considered a possible compromise candidate. He would be the second pontiff to come from eastern Europe, following Pope John Paul II.

"Let us all pray for the Conclave that will gather the day after tomorrow," Erdo said. "Let's call the Holy Spirit to descend upon the Holy Church."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-10-Vatican-Pope/id-dd7045d9ccac4140bcf8449c6b4f3965

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Saturday, March 9, 2013

Sistine Chapel chimney installed, Vatican prepares for new pope

On Saturday the chimney that signals the election of a new pope was installed on the top of the Sistine Chapel. Pope Benedict XVI's personal seal and fisherman's ring were also destroyed as the cardinals prepare for the start of the conclave Tuesday.

By Nicole Winfield,?Associated Press / March 9, 2013

Media films inside the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican March 9. The conclave begins on Tuesday, with the sequestered cardinals using the chimney to tell the outside world whether or not they have chosen a new leader - black smoke signifying no decision and white smoke announcing a new pontiff.

Stefano Rellandini/Reuters

Enlarge

Firefighters on Saturday installed the top of the Sistine Chapel chimney that will signal to the world that a new?pope?has been elected, as the Vatican took measures to definitively end Benedict XVI's pontificate.

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While construction workers prepared the interior of the frescoed Sistine Chapel for Tuesday's start of the conclave, officials elsewhere in the Apostolic Palace destroyed Benedict's fisherman's ring and the personal seals and stamps for official papers.

The act, coupled with Benedict's public resignation and pledge of obedience to the future?pope, is designed to signal a definitive end of his papacy so there is no doubt in the church that a new?pope?is in charge.

The developments all point toward the momentous decision soon to confront the Catholic Church: Tuesday's start of the conclave to elect a new?pope?to lead the world's 1.2 billion Catholics and try to solve the numerous problems facing the church.

The Vatican outlined the timeline for the balloting and confirmed that the bells of St. Peter's Basilica will ring once a?pope?has been elected. But Vatican officials also acknowledged that there is some uncertainty about the whole endeavor, given the difficulties in discerning the color of smoke that will snake out of the Sistine chimney ? black if no?pope?has been elected, white if a victor has emerged.

Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, laughed off concerns, saying that some "suspense" was all part of the beauty of the process.

"We're not going to send out text messages or SMS messages, you'll have to come and see," another Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Thomas Rosica, said.

For the sixth day, cardinals met behind closed doors to discuss the problems of the church and once again they discussed the work of the Holy See's offices "and how to improve it," according to Lombardi.

The Holy See's internal governance has been the major constant in these days of discussion, an indication that the revelations of corruption, political infighting and turf battles exposed by the leaks of papal documents last year are casting a very big shadow over this conclave.

While the cardinals ponder their choices, preparations for the vote continue.

On Saturday, a handful of firefighters climbed onto the Sistine Chapel's roof and installed the top of the chimney. Inside Michelangelo's frescoed masterpiece, construction workers staple-gunned the felt carpeting to the false floor that has been erected over the chapel's stone floor.

The false floor both evens out the steps of the chapel and hides the jamming equipment that has been installed to prevent any cellphone or eavesdropping devices from working. And in fact, on Saturday, cell phones had no reception in the chapel.

For such an important decision, the Sistine chimney is an awfully simple affair: a century-old cast iron stove where the voting ballot papers are burned, with a copper pipe out the top that snakes up the Sistine's frescoed walls, out the window and onto the chapel roof.

After years of confusion about whether the smoke was black or white, the Vatican in 2005 installed an auxiliary stove where fumigating cases are lit. The smoke from those cases ? black or white ? joins the burned ballot smoke out the chimney.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/vrqk8UgVXTQ/Sistine-Chapel-chimney-installed-Vatican-prepares-for-new-pope

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Global Average Temperatures Are Close to 11,000-Year Peak

global temperature GETTING WARMER: Earth's temperatures (here seen by an infrared sensor on the NASA satellite Aqua) are on course to be as hot as at any time since the last ice age. Image: Image courtesy AIRS Science Team, NASA/JPL

Global average temperatures are now higher than they have been for about 75% of the past 11,300 years, a study suggests. And if climate models are any indication, by the end of this century they will be the highest ever since the end of the most recent ice age.

Instrumental records of climate extend back to only the late nineteenth century. Beyond that, scientists depend on analyses of natural chronicles such as tree rings and isotope ratios in cave formations.

But even these archives have their limits: many detailed reconstructions of climate, particularly of temperature, apply to only limited regions or extend back at most a couple of millennia, says Shaun Marcott, a climate scientist at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

Marcott and his colleagues set about reconstructing global climate trends all the way back to 11,300 years ago, when the Northern Hemisphere was emerging from the most recent ice age. To do so, they collected and analyzed data gathered by other teams. The 73 overlapping climate records that they considered included sediment cores drilled from lake bottoms and sea floors around the world, along with a handful of ice cores collected in Antarctica and Greenland.

Each of these chronicles spanned at least 6,500 years, and each included a millennium-long baseline period beginning in the middle of the post-ice-age period at 3550 BC.

For some records, the researchers inferred past temperatures from the ratio of magnesium and calcium ions in the shells of microscopic creatures that had died and dropped to the ocean floor; for others, they measured the lengths of long-chain organic molecules called alkenones that were trapped in the sediments.

After the ice age, they found, global average temperatures rose until they reached a plateau between 7550 and 3550 BC. Then a long-term cooling trend set in, reaching its lowest temperature extreme between ad 1450 and 1850.

Since then, temperatures have been increasing at a dramatic clip: from the first decade of the twentieth century to now, global average temperatures rose from near their coldest point since the ice age to nearly their warmest, Marcott and his team report today in Science.

Climate context
The temperature trends that the team identified for the past 2,000 years are statistically indistinguishable from results obtained by other researchers in a previous study, says Marcott. ?That gives us confidence that the rest of our record is right too,? he adds.

Marcott and his colleagues ?have put together a pretty impressive set of climate proxies?, says Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. ?The overall climate picture has been clear for a long time, mostly from the Northern Hemisphere, but this compilation really puts the rest of the world in context,? he adds.

?Prior to this study, researchers could only guess whether global temperatures had exceeded the warmest part of the present interglacial period,? says Darrell Kaufman, a geologist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. The latest findings show that the recent high temperatures are not necessarily the warmest, but they are unusually high, he notes.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=86ed3cfe656ca023da6b6892536abddb

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