Slanted Science

Archive for the ‘Disease Origins’ Category

A large collaborative effort has sequenced the entire genomes of two of the most common cancer types: skin (‘melanoma‘) and lung (‘small-cell lung cancer)’. The scientists involved report tens of thousands of mutations in the tumors’ genomes, and speculate that their work may expedite the development of specific drugs to treat these diseases.

Hoorah!

Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID)  in Frederick, Maryland work with various nasty pathogens. They’re the kinds of bugs which, experts predict, would be likely candidates for biological terrorist attacks – anthrax, that sort of thing. Well, someone apparently didn’t follow the rigorous safe-handling procedures correctly, as one of the boffins has contracted a disease known as tularemia, or rabbit fever.

We do not believe the reports claiming that co-workers’ suspicions were first aroused when the researcher began ordering 50-lb bags of carrots delivered to their lab. Read the rest of this entry »

Bacteria, eh? Nasty little things.

Strutting around, with their tiny little genomes, doing nothing but bringing misery to mankind: food poisoning; meningitis; halitosis and…obesity? That’s the theory being put forward in a new paper published in the journal Science Translational Medicine. Read the rest of this entry »

Hairless, buck-toothed, visually repulsive to most humans, and living their lives in darkened burrows away from the rest of the world, these creatures are advancing scientific knowledge.

But enough about computer programmers, let’s introduce the star of this story: the naked mole rat. These creatures appear to be completely resistant to spontaneous cancers, of the kinds which all other animals succumb to (including, despite the urban myth, sharks). Scientists now believe they have discovered the reason for this immunity to tumorigenesis: a second layer of molecular protection against abnormal cell cycle progression. Read the rest of this entry »

Work just published in the journal Science – a member of the world’s top tier of scientific publications – suggests that a virus associated with aggressive prostate cancer may also be involved in the disease known as ME. Read the rest of this entry »