Boulder Outdoor Survival School | BOSS Cuba Announces Release of the World's First Lung Cancer Vaccine From the island nation known for the quality of its cigars comes some pretty big news today: Xinhua reports that Cuban medical authorities have released the first therapeutic vaccine for lung cancer. CimaVax-EGF is the result of a 25-year research project at Havana's Center for Molecular Immunology, and it could make a life or death difference for those facing late-stage lung cancers, researchers there say. CimaVax-EGF isn't a vaccine in the preventative sense--that is, it doesn't prevent lung cancer from taking hold in new patients. It's based on a protein related to uncontrolled cell proliferation--that is, it doesn't prevent cancer from existing in the first place but attacks the mechanism by which it does harm. As such it can turn aggressive later-stage lung cancer into a manageable chronic disease by creating antibodies that do battle with the proteins that cause uncontrolled cell proliferation, researchers say. [Xinhua]
South Africa Develops Nanotech ‘Tea Bag’ To Filter Water for Pennies (video South Africa's newest water purification system uses nanotech inside a common tea bag. Provide people cheap access to clean water and you could save billions of lives. South Africa may use tea bags to do just that. Researchers at Stellenbosch University’s Water Institute have developed a new water filtration system that uses activated carbon and nanofibers to quickly filter out pathogens. The carbon and nanofibers are placed in common tea bags and then fitted into a bottle. The ‘tea bag’ filtering system works thanks to the nanofibers contained within. South Africa’s Bureau of Standards is currently reviewing the nanofiber filter and accessing its viability. I should mention that there are many other water purification systems out there, each with their own promises and limitations. A nanofiber filtering tea bag before and after use. [image credits: Hope Project/Stellenbosch University Water Institute] [source: Hope Project, Engineering News (South Africa), SciDev Net]
What is the universal edibility test?" Getting lost or stranded in the wilderness is serious business, and you need to make sound decisions to give yourself the best chance at survival. It also helps to know some basic wilderness survival skills. To make sure you're safe from the elements, you'll need to know how to build a shelter. But just because you can live without food doesn't mean you should. It's dangerous to eat a plant you're unsure of, especially in a survival scenario. If you're in a survival situation and you don't have a book on local edible plants, there is a test you can perform to give yourself a good shot at eating the right thing.
Seeing Things? Hearing Things? Many of Us Do In other cultures, hallucinations have been regarded as gifts from the gods or the Muses, but in modern times they seem to carry an ominous significance in the public (and also the medical) mind, as portents of severe mental or neurological disorders. Having hallucinations is a fearful secret for many people — millions of people — never to be mentioned, hardly to be acknowledged to oneself, and yet far from uncommon. The vast majority are benign — and, indeed, in many circumstances, perfectly normal. Most of us have experienced them from time to time, during a or with the sensory monotony of a desert or empty road, or sometimes, seemingly, out of the blue. Many of us, as we lie in bed with closed eyes, awaiting sleep, have so-called hypnagogic hallucinations — geometric patterns, or faces, sometimes landscapes. At the other end of sleep are hypnopompic hallucinations, seen with open eyes, upon first waking. Misdiagnosis is especially common if people admit to “hearing voices.” Mr.
Science Daily: News & Articles in Science, Health, Environment & Technology Top 40 Blogs for Survivalists » Homeland Security Degree By admin on The Internet has given survivalists a chance to interact and share tips on a self-sustainable lifestyle. Whether you’re stockpiling canned food for a natural disaster or going all the way and attempting to live off the grid, these blogs will give you tips on self-defense, skinning animals, navigating a route and coming out alive after a long duration of time away from standard civilizations. Top Survivalist Blogs These blogs show you how to become a survivalist and also discuss ideas on how to handle questions or inquiries from family or loved ones who see the survivalist lifestyle as extreme. The Suvivalist Tribe At this messageboard you’ll find tips on keeping in shape during the winter months and whether stockpiling guns is true to survivalist form. Self-Sustainable Blogs Most survivalists look to be self-sustainable in everything they need to survive. Survivalist and Self-Sustainable Forums
Boy Who Received Stem-Cell Trachea Implant Doing Well After Two Years Born with a restricted trachea, Ciaran Finn-Lynch may have undergone his last surgery, doing well two years after receiving a stem-cell treated trachea. Just as the Olympic Games are kicking off in London, one boy from the UK is pulling ahead in his race to live a normal, healthy life. Two years after becoming the first child to receive a trachea transplant coated with his own stem cells, 13-year-old Ciaran Finn-Lynch is doing so well that he has finally returned to school. Ciaran was born with congenital tracheal stenosis, a condition in which a portion of the trachea is narrowed and causes breathing difficulties. Stem cell-treated tracheal implants are still at the cutting edge of medicine. But what made Ciaran’s surgery different from the one in 2008 was the fact that the stem cells were added only after the trachea had been implanted. Ciaran, who is from County Down in Northern Ireland, underwent the surgery at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital in 2010.
The Top 50 Survival Blogs! Europe Takes The Lead Toward Approval Of First Gene Therapy Drug It's taken decades of work but the first gene therapy is on the verge of finally getting approval in Europe. A watershed moment in gene therapy has finally come to pass. This month, a committee from the European Medicines Agency recommended the approval of a gene therapy drug, named Glybera (alipogene tiparvovec), for the treatment of a rare inherited genetic disorder. Final approval is now in the hands of the European Commission, which could take up to 3 months to complete, but it is believed that the drug will be approved for sale, the first time ever in the Western world. And with its approval, the floodgates for gene therapy could be opened. Fundamentally, gene therapy supplies the body with healthy genes to compensate for missing, deficient, or defective genes. Without the right digestive enzymes, buildup of fats in the blood (B) can lead to xanthomas (D and E) under the skin. These fats can fill macrophages to form small to large nodules under the skin called xanthomas.
Outdoor Survival Instructables has one of the best collections of survival how-to's on the web. There are enough outdoor survival Instructables to take someone from novice to survivor with nothing more than a laptop and a can do attitude. There are so many good Instructables on this topic and this is just a small sample to get you started. Be sure to check out the Survival channel and the rest of the Outside category! Instructables is the most popular project-sharing community on the Internet. Laura Khalil Editor, Instructables.com Biomimicry: unintended consequences US scientists have devised a new way of storing and delivering vulnerable antibiotics and vaccines, with a little help from the silk moth. Infectious diseases kill millions of children every year, and continue to do so in the developing world more than two decades after the World Health Organisation, Unicef and charities such as Rotary International launched a campaign to eliminate polio and immunise every child against the six biggest killers. Civil war, corruption, ignorance and poverty all created problems, but one of the biggest is simply the fragile nature of vaccines: they tend to deteriorate rapidly unless kept in the refrigerator. This is a problem even for Britain's National Health Service. It is a much bigger problem in hot, humid regions without clinics, electricity or clean water – those regions where children are most at risk from mumps, measles and rubella, from gastric infections and pulmonary diseases, and where the wild polio virus still presents a threat.