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4. februar 2007
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Researcher Katherine Schaefer may have stumbled on a treatment for cancer when she made a math mistake and her lab culture died on her.
Normal human cells are difficult to grow and study in the lab, because they tend to die. But cancer cells live much longer and are harder to kill, so scientists often use them.
Schaefer was looking for drugs to treat the inflammation seen in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, both of which cause pain and diarrhea.
She was testing a compound called a PPAR-gamma modulator. It would never normally have been thought of as a cancer drug, or in fact a drug of any kind.
"I made a calculation error and used a lot more than I should have. And my cells died," Schaefer said.
A colleague overheard her complaining. "The co-author on my paper said,' Did I hear you say you killed some cancer?' I said 'Oh', and took a closer look."
Obviously, a lot of research remains before we know if this is a promising lead.
10:53:32 PM 
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An Iranian nuclear scientist died from 'gas poisoning':
A prize-winning Iranian nuclear scientist has died in mysterious circumstances, according to Radio Farda, which is funded by the U.S. State Department and broadcasts to Iran.
An intelligence source suggested that Ardeshire Hassanpour, 44, a nuclear physicist, had been assassinated by Mossad, the Israeli security service.
I'm not so sure if it's true, but if it were, it would be a viable attack on the Iranian programme, which is potentially life-threatening for Israel. The facilities may be spread across the country in armed bunkers, but such a programme relies on a handful of key individuals.
PS: Hot Air headline: 'Mossad wipes Iranian nuclear scientist off the map'.
The article is mostly about further signs that the Iranian programme is really in shambles.
There is also an article about this in the Sunday Times today, but right now the site only reports that the Times Online "has gone to the pub."
We've finished building our new-look website, and we're having a drink while
our friendly geeks connect it to the internet.
So the staff downs pints while the geeks have to work all Sunday night. Typical!
8:25:27 PM
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In Britain, security services fear the worst.
The intelligence services fear that Britain could be subject to a Beslan-style siege, with multiple hostages forced to plead for their lives on camera.
Whitehall sources have said that the threat is considered so credible that MI5, the police and the SAS have conducted at least two mock counter-terrorism exercises to work out how to deal with such an eventuality.
The last exercise, shortly before Christmas, took place at an RAF base near Chester. Five police forces were involved in an operation that envisaged an international conference being stormed by terrorists, who then held a group of children hostage in a creche wired with explosives.
Britain has a significant population of disenfranchised and angry young Muslims, a shocking amount of whom sympathise with the goals of the Islamic terrorists, and who knows how many willing to actually carry out atrocities for the cause. Except for July 7, so far the security forces have been ahead of the opposition. Sooner or later, however, it may happen again.
8:09:51 PM
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Glenn Reynolds proposes a ban on private jets as an answer to climate change hysteria.
THE BIG GLOBAL WARMING PUSH IS UNDERWAY: I won't take it seriously until they ban private jets and stretch limos.
No, seriously. A Gulfstream III releases 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide an hour. How can we demand "sacrifice" from ordinary Americans when our leaders -- including those who call for the sacrifice -- are flying in jets like this? If commercial first-class isn't good enough, they should stay home.
Glenn has a point. You know where the next big international UN climate conference is going to be? At Bali! You can't make this stuff up. Bali is known for its... well, for being a great place to drink, sunbathe and party. Incidentally, it is also a place where every interested party will need to get on a jet-plane and travel for hours and hours, burning all that fossil fuel in the process.
Do the climate fear jetset really believe in climate change, or is it just a convenient excuse to throw a party, introduce worldwide big state socialist politics, and hope the sky will not fall in the heads of this generation?
I know for a fact that I, as a climate hysteria skeptic, leave a far smaller footprint than any of the hysterics: I walk an hour to get to and from work every day, I don't have a car, and I live in a flat that uses a minimal amount of energy, almost all of it hydro-power, despite living in a near-arctic climate.
So, climate fanatics, if the world goes to hell in the next decades, I might look like an idiot for doubting the doomsday prophecies, but you are a bunch of bloody hypocrites!
PS: Glenn elaborates.
3:24:10 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.03.2007; 06:09:38.
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