There's interesting cancer news today–how about nanoparticles that travel to a tumor, get inside cancer cells and basically tear them up? Seems like a flanking maneuver with a lot of promise.
It does, however, raise an interesting question in light of the current health care debate. Who will fund the most promising treatments that don't generate profits? It seems like a rather glaring shortcoming of a purely profit-based system.
Remember the unpatentable DCA, which showed a lot of promise as a treatement a couple of years ago? It might or might not prove effective, of course, and it needs study–expensive study. From the New York Times:
Early this year, another readily available industrial chemical, dichloroacetate, was found by researchers at the University of Alberta to shrink tumors in laboratory animals by up to 75 percent. However, as a university news release explained, dichloroacetate is not patentable, and the lead researcher is concerned that it may be difficult to find funding from private investors to test the chemical. So the university is soliciting public donations to finance a clinical trial.
It does seem like rather a good use of public funds to advance research that generates well-being but not profit. Of course, such a radical notion gets you called all sorts of names these days. Which is entertaining, at least.
On the other hand, plasma deodorant is probably going to get full funding. As well it should.
In other news–the new Senate report on the missed opportunity to capture bin Laden in Afghanistan in 2001 ought to start a bit of a partisan free-for-all. On the other hand, when you ignore the finger-pointing aspect, the basic facts raise a lot of questions:
[The report] states categorically that bin Laden was hiding in Tora Bora when the US had the means to mount a rapid assault with several thousand troops. A review of existing literature, unclassified Government records and interviews with central participants "removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora" it adds. …
But the expected final attack never came. "Requests were turned down for US troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan," it says. "The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army was kept on the sidelines."
Instead of a massive attack, fewer than 100 US commandos, working with Afghan militias, tried to capitalise on air strikes and track down their prey it says.
Last up: Forget all that UFO business–a Flint, Michigan construction worker may have solved, very simply, the mystery of how one moves massive stones to create things like Stonehenge (not to mention the remarkable Coral Castle in Florida, created by a lovesick Latvian). What can be done with a few two-by-fours and some small rocks is rather impressive, to say the least.
