Flash drives are so cheap and ubiquitous that you probably have them stashed everywhere, even on your keychain. And to ensure that all the jostling against your keys, coins, and whatever else is in your pockets doesn't kill the drive, SanDisk has equipped its latest Cruzer with a spinning shield.
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Apr. 30, 2013 ? Cancer spread or metastasis can strike unprecedented fear in the minds of cancer patients. The "seed and the soil" hypothesis proposed by Stephen Paget in 1889 is now widely accepted to explain how cancer cells (seeds) are able to generate fertile soil (the microenvironment) in distant organs that promotes cancer's spread. However, this concept does not explain why some tumors do not spread or metastasize.
Scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College have now solved this mystery by showing that metastatic incompetent cancers actually poison the "soil" by generating a microenvironment that blocks cancer cells from settling and growing in distant organs. Researchers also found that two key proteins involved in this process work by dramatically suppressing cancer's spread.
The study, reported in the April 30 issue of Cancer Discovery, offers hope that a drug based on these potentially therapeutic two proteins, Thrombospondin 1 (Tsp-1)- the poison produced by the microenvironment under the influence of tumor secreted protein prosaposin, might help keep human cancer at bay and from metastasizing.
"The majority of cancer-related deaths are due to metastasis, yet there are no approved targeted drugs that have shown significant benefit specifically in treating that spread. We may now finally have a lead on a strategy that could offer us that option for developing and guiding specific anti-metastatic therapeutic strategies in the clinic," says the study's senior investigator, Dr. Vivek Mittal, an associate professor of cell and developmental biology in cardiothoracic surgery and director of the Neuberger Berman Foundation Lung Cancer Laboratory at Weill Cornell Medical College.
"We have work to do on exploiting these novel insights into fruitful clinical translation, but our findings are, so far, very exciting," says Dr. Mittal.
Researchers from Children's Hospital in Boston, Harvard Medical School and the University of Bergen, Norway, contributed to this study.
Exploit What Nature Has Provided
Scientists have known that all primary tumors do not metastasize, but no one knew what prevented cancer's spread in these "metastasis incompetent" tumors. This new study was conducted to uncover that very mechanism.
"The novel idea was that if we can learn why these certain cancers don't spread, and then we could leverage that knowledge to block metastatic tumors," says Dr. Mittal.
Scientists don't understand why some tumors wouldn't "want" to spread. It goes against their "job description," says Dr. Mittal. He theorizes that metastasis occurs when the barriers that the body throws up to protect itself against cancer fail. But there are some tumors in which some of the barriers may still be intact. "So that suggests those primary tumors will continue to grow, but that an innate protective barrier still exists that prevents them from spreading and invading other organs," says Dr. Mittal.
What the researchers found is that, like typical tumors, metastasis incompetent tumors also send out signaling molecules that establish what is known as the "pre-metastatic niche" in distant organs. These niches composed of bone marrow cells and various growth factors have been described previously by others including Dr. Mittal as the fertile "soil" that the disseminated cancer cell "seeds" grow in.
Weill Cornell's Dr. Ra?l Catena, a postdoctoral fellow in Mittal's laboratory and lead author of the Cancer Discovery study, found an important difference between the tumor types. Metastatic-incompetent tumors systemically increased expression of Tsp-1, a molecule known to fight cancer growth. Importantly, increased Tsp-1 production was found specifically in the bone marrow myeloid cells that comprise the metastatic niche. These results were striking, because for the first time the bone marrow-derived myeloid cells were implicated as the main producers of Tsp-1, says Dr. Mittal.
In addition, Weill Cornell and Harvard researchers found that prosaposin secreted predominantly by the metastatic incompetent tumors, via the blood circulation increased expression of Tsp-1 in the premetastatic lungs. Thus, prosaposin works in combination with Tsp-1 to convert pro-metastatic bone marrow myeloid cells in the niche into cells that are not hospitable to cancer cells that spread from a primary tumor. "The very same myeloid cells in the niche that we know can promote metastasis can also be induced under the command of the metastatic incompetent primary tumor to inhibit metastasis," Dr. Mittal says.
The research team found that the Tsp-1-inducing activity of prosaposin was contained in only a 5-amino acid peptide region of the protein. This peptide alone induced Tsp-1 in the bone marrow cells and effectively suppressed metastatic spread in the lungs in mouse models of breast and prostate cancer. This 5-amino acid peptide with Tsp-1-inducing activity has the potential to be directly used as a simple and safe therapeutic agent against metastatic cancer. The scientists have begun to test prosaposin in other tumor types or metastatic sites.
"The study's findings have clinical implications," Dr. Mittal says. "Not only is it theoretically possible to design a psosaposin-based drug or drugs that induce Tsp-1 to block cancer spread, but you could potentially create non-invasive prognostic tests to predict whether a cancer will metastasize."
According to researchers, quantifying prosaposin and Tsp-1 in a cancer patient's blood might provide predictions about their tumor's metastatic potential.
"These findings may represent several unique breakthroughs. The study provides a tangible strategy to prevent cancer spread, and this strategy would also be the first to target the microenvironment of the organs the cancer spreads to," Dr. Mittal says.
"Why a tumor would block its ability to invade and spread is puzzling," says Dr. Mittal. "But it is now up to us to exploit clues nature has provided for us to benefit our cancer patients."
The research team also includes, from Weill Cornell Medical College, Tina El Rayes, Hyejin Choi, Dingcheng Gao, Seongho Ryu, Natasha Joshi and Sharrell B. Lee; Nandita Bhattacharya, Suming Wang, Diane Bielenberg and Randolph S. Watnick from Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School; and Svein Haukaas, Karsten Gravdal, Ole J. Halvorsen and Lars A. Akslen, from the University of Bergen, Norway.
This study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Norwegian Cancer Society, the Norwegian Research Council and the Cornell Center on the Microenvironment and Metastasis.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/s3Unyesyrbo/130430142132.htm
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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) ? With less than a week to general elections, Malaysia's opposition alliance is banking on the promise of bold change to end the governing coalition's 56-year rule. It says a new economic playing field will strip away decades of race-based policies that it believes bred corruption and hampered growth
The three-party opposition alliance led by former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim says it cannot be business as usual in Malaysia, where affirmative action policies that favor majority ethnic Malays in business, jobs and education have polarized the country and suppressed its economic competitiveness.
Despite posting robust economic growth in the past decade, the opposition says the cost of living has surged in Southeast Asia's third largest economy, outpacing rise in wages. The country is lagging behind many of its Asian peers such as Taiwan and South Korea, as its race-based policies fueled a brain drain abroad. Corruption is endemic, and the government ran a budget deficit for the last 15 years, swelling the national debt.
Anwar's People's Alliance promises a more competitive merit-based system and a clean break from what it calls a corrupt past if it wins May 5 national polls.
Its election manifesto says it will end monopolies in sectors such as telecommunications, rice and sugar that kept prices high. It will review suspicious government concessions, abolish highway tolls, cut taxes to lower car prices and free up civil liberties.
"This election offers a possibility of a political transition of power. The campaign will come down to who can deliver more genuine and fundamental reforms and who will give them a better deal," said Bridget Welsh, a political science professor at Singapore Management University.
Anwar's alliance surged into political prominence in 2008 elections when it won more than a third of seats in the federal parliament and gained control of several states. It was the biggest blow for Prime Minister Najib Razak's National Front coalition since independence from Britain in 1957 and was spurred by discontent about corruption and racial and religious discrimination.
The keystone of the opposition policies is reform of preferential treatment started in 1971 to lift Malays, who account for 60 percent of Malaysia's 29 million people, from poverty after race riots. The policies are credited with enlarging the Malay middle class and putting 20 percent of corporate wealth in Malay hands, but the opposition says the system has been abused to enrich the well-connected elite and distorted the economy. Many contracts go to businesses with links to the ruling party, which has created a powerful culture of cronyism and a nexus between politics and business.
Najib, 59, who is seeking his first mandate at the polls since becoming prime minister in 2009, has taken on the reform mantle to counter the opposition.
He has embarked on a series of economic and government transformation efforts to revamp his coalition's image, including abolishing security laws widely considered repressive, wooing investment from abroad and bolstering public welfare including cash handouts for civil servants and the poor.
With his battlecry of "1 Malaysia," Najib also trimmed affirmative action policies but is restrained by hardliners in his ruling Malay party. He has pointed to the National Front's stewardship that turned Malaysia from an agricultural backwater into a modern, stable nation.
Malaysia's focus on heavy industries and manufacturing in the 1980s drew multinational corporations to its shores but it has since lost out to neighboring countries as a low-cost manufacturing base. Government spending in the last decade helped bolster growth as foreign investment ebbed.
A 2011 World Bank report said Malaysia's brain drain was intensifying with more than one million of its citizens, mainly ethnic Chinese, living in Singapore and other countries largely due to higher wages, unhappiness over poor governance and lack of meritocracy. It warned the outflow of skilled people could bog down Malaysia's economy.
Najib insists his government is on a reform path, with Malaysia on track to become a developed nation by 2020. He has warned an opposition win would bring economic ruin and political chaos.
"Certain politicians are talking about change but what is it you want to change? Do you want to change from peace and harmony to a country full of conflict and violence? Do you want to change the economic success that we have achieved?" he said at a mammoth political rally last week.
The concern resonates with some voters, who fear differences among the three parties in the opposition alliance may hinder their ability to govern nationally.
The alliance comprises Anwar's multi-racial People's Justice Party, the Democratic Action Party dominated by ethnic Chinese and the conservative Islamic Party. The three parties first worked together in 2008 by agreeing not to contest the same seats. They have deepened their alliance since then, unveiling a common election manifesto for the first time and setting aside differences over the Islamic Party's ambition to set up an Islamic state.
Unlike the 13-party National Front dominated by Najib's ruling Malay party, the three opposition parties are equals in the alliance.
Anwar, a former deputy premier and finance minister who was sacked in 1998 and subsequently jailed for sodomy and corruption, was credited for bringing the parties together after his release from jail in 2004. Anwar, who says the charges were politically motivated, made a political comeback in a by-election after 2008 polls.
Anwar, 65, says weeding out corruption, fixing economic distortions due to race-based policies and better economic management can save the country billions of dollars a year. His alliance is hoping the momentum in 2008 polls will catapult them into federal power, eyeing support from about a third of new voters among 13.3 million people eligible to vote on Sunday.
The political threat has caused anxiety in Najib's camp, which has embarked on an extensive publicity blitz. Welsh estimated the coalition spent 100 million ringgit ($33 million) on advertisements on websites such as Yahoo, mass media, billboards and sending millions of text messages to voters' mobile phones.
Banners of Najib and his achievements flutter along streets in Malaysia's cities and rural villages. "Who says change is good for you?" declares one of dozens of full-page advertisements in mainstream newspapers, citing turmoil after revolts in Middle East nations.
Most analysts, however, believe Najib's coalition has the upper hand due to deep pockets and support in predominantly rural constituencies that are the key to a large number of Parliament's seats.
Anwar has pointed to his alliance's track record in the last five years in Penang and Selangor, two of the country's most industrialized states. Government contracts have been awarded through open tenders rather than behind closed doors, and state officials have to declare their assets. Fiscal prudence has also reversed state budget deficits while the poor in Penang have received cash handouts and water is subsidized in Selangor.
In northern Penang state, an industrial hub also famed for its beaches and cultural heritage, the opposition has embarked on an ambitious 6.3 billion ringgit ($2.1 billion) project to build Southeast Asia's first seabed tunnel linking Penang island to the mainland part of the state and three highways to alleviate daily traffic snarls.
The record is more mixed in two poorer northern Malay-majority states that are reliant on federal funds, but opposition officials said corruption is minimal in the state government administration. The four opposition states jointly contribute about 36 percent to gross domestic product.
"The last five years, if anything, is an indication of our ability to govern and to do well without corruption, that things will not crumble," said opposition strategist Rafizi Ramli, who helped draw up the election manifesto and is also a candidate.
"Our biggest achievement is to give hope to the people that there can be a credible alternative to the National Front, that there can be a better Malaysia," he said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/malaysias-opposition-banks-economic-deal-065126402.html
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In this April 5, 2013 photo provided by Harvard University, Harvard Stem Cell Institute Co-Director Doug Melton, right, and Peng Yi, a post doctoral fellow in his lab, review data from recent experiments in Melton's lab in Cambridge, Mass. Melton and Yi have identified a hormone that can sharply boost a mouse's supply of cells that make insulin, a discovery that may someday provide a diabetes treatment. People make the hormone naturally, and the new work suggests that giving them more might one day let patients avoid insulin shots. (AP Photo/Harvard University)
In this April 5, 2013 photo provided by Harvard University, Harvard Stem Cell Institute Co-Director Doug Melton, right, and Peng Yi, a post doctoral fellow in his lab, review data from recent experiments in Melton's lab in Cambridge, Mass. Melton and Yi have identified a hormone that can sharply boost a mouse's supply of cells that make insulin, a discovery that may someday provide a diabetes treatment. People make the hormone naturally, and the new work suggests that giving them more might one day let patients avoid insulin shots. (AP Photo/Harvard University)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Scientists have identified a hormone that can sharply boost the number of cells that make insulin in mice, a discovery that may someday lead to a treatment for the most common type of diabetes.
People have their own version of this hormone, and the new work suggests that giving diabetics more might one day help them avoid insulin shots.
That would give them better control of their blood sugar levels, said Harvard University researcher Douglas Melton, senior author of a report published Thursday by the journal Cell.
Experts unconnected with the work cautioned that other substances have shown similar effects on mouse cells but failed to work on human ones. Melton said this hormone stands out because its effect is unusually potent and confined to just the cells that make insulin.
An estimated 371 million people worldwide have diabetes, in which insulin fails to control blood sugar levels. High blood sugar can lead to heart disease, stroke and damage to kidneys, eyes and the nervous system. At least 90 percent of diabetes is "Type 2," and some of those patients have to inject insulin. Melton said the newly identified hormone might someday enable them to stop insulin injections and help other diabetic patients avoid them.
As for its possible use to treat Type 1 diabetes, Melton called that a "long shot" because of differences in the biology of that disease.
Insulin is produced by beta cells in the pancreas.
Melton and co-authors identified a hormone they dubbed betatrophin (BAY-tuh-TROH-fin) in mice. When they made the liver in mice secrete more of it by inserting extra copies of the gene, the size of the beta cell population tripled in comparison to untreated mice. Tests indicated the new cells worked normally.
Melton said it's not known how the hormone works. Now the researchers want to create an injectable form that they can test on diabetic mice, he said. If all goes well, tests in people could follow fairly quickly.
Dr. Peter Butler, a diabetes researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who had no role in the new work, cautioned in an email that no evidence has been presented yet to show that the hormone will make human beta cells proliferate.
But Philip diIorio, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, said he found the work to be "quite promising" because it offers new leads for research, and that it might someday help in building supplies of human beta cells in a lab for transplant into patients.
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Online:
Cell: http://www.cell.com/
International Diabetes Federation: http://www.idf.org
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Malcolm Ritter can be followed at http://www.twitter.com/malcolmritter
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Stocks?stalled Friday after GDP didn't grow as much as hoped and earnings from a handful of big companies failed to rev up investors.?Weaker hiring reports have also held stocks back.
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange, Friday. Three stocks fell for every two that rose on Friday, after a disappointing GDP report.
Brendan McDermid/Reuters
EnlargeThe?stock?market stalled Friday after the U.S. economy didn't grow as much as hoped and earnings from a handful of big companies failed to rev up investors.
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The economy grew at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, the government said. That was below the 3.1 percent forecast by economists.
The shortfall reinforced the perception that the economy is grinding, rather than charging, ahead. Investors have also been troubled by reports in the last month of weaker hiring, slower manufacturing and a drop in factory orders. Many economists see growth slowing to an annual rate of around 2 percent a year for the rest of the year.
U.S. government bonds, where investors seek safety, rose after the report.
"There are some concerns as we head into the summer," said JJ Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist for TD Ameritrade. "In the last three weeks, we've have seen numbers that weren't exactly what you'd love to see."
Corporate earnings this week have also contained worrisome signs. Many companies missed revenue forecasts from financial analysts, even as they reported higher quarterly profits. For example, Goodyear Tire slipped 3.3 percent to $12.51 Friday after revenue fell short of analysts' estimates, hurt by lower global tire sales.
Of the companies that have reported earnings so far, 70 percent have exceeded Wall Street's expectations, compared with a 10-year average of 62 percent, according to S&P Capital IQ. However, 43 percent have missed analysts' revenue estimates. Just over half of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported quarterly results.
The S&P 500 index dropped 2.92 points, or 0.2 percent, to close at 1,582.24.
The Dow rose 11.75 points, or 0.1 percent, at 14,712.55. The index got a big lift from Chevron. Profit for the U.S. oil company beat expectations of financial analysts in the first quarter, pushing shares up 1.3 percent to $120.04.
Three?stocks?fell for every two that rose on the New York?StockExchange.
Both indexes were up for the week and remain slightly below their all-time highs reached April 11. The Dow index rose 1.1 percent this week while the S&P gained 1.7 percent.
The market has been bolstered by the Federal Reserve's easy money policy. The disappointing growth figure for the economy will ensure that the Fed sticks with its stimulus policy, providing a support for?stocks, said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital.
"The economic data that we've been getting points to no early exit for the Fed's stimulus," Cardillo said.
The Nasdaq composite fell 10.72 points to 3,279.26, a decline of 0.3 percent. The index is still 2.3 percent higher this week.
The tech-heavy index has lagged the Dow and the S&P 500 this year, but it led the way higher this week, boosted by Microsoft. The software giant, which makes up 5.3 percent of the Nasdaq, recorded its biggest weekly gain since January last year, 6.8 percent, after reporting earnings April 19 that beat Wall Street's expectations. The company also rolled out an aggressive push into the computer tablet market.
Even Apple, the largest?stock?in the Nasdaq, had a good week. Apple rose 6.8 percent to $417.20, its best weekly gain since November, despite posting a decline in quarterly profit Tuesday. Apple accounts for 7.6 percent of the Nasdaq composite.
Among other big names investors were focusing on, Amazon.com fell 7 percent to $254.81 after the company warned of a possible loss in the current quarter. The online retailer also reported lower income for the first quarter as it continued to spend heavily on rights to digital content. Expedia fell 10 percent to $58.56 after the online travel company reported a quarterly loss.
Homebuilder D.R. Horton surged 8.7 percent to $26.66 after its income nearly tripled thanks to a continuing recovery the housing market. The results handily beat the forecasts of financial analysts who follow the company.
J.C. Penney jumped 12 percent to $17 after the billionaire financier George Soros disclosed that he had taken a 7.9 percent stake in the struggling company.
In government bond trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped to its lowest rate of the year, 1.67 percent, from 1.71 percent the day before. The yield has fallen from 2.06 percent six weeks ago as traders move money into lower-risk investments.
The dollar weakened against the euro.
The European currency bought $1.3029 at the end of day, compared with $1.3002 the day before. The ISE dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency against a group of other world currencies including the Japanese yen and the euro, dropped 0.3 percent, to 82.48.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/tZqIGjJOmWk/Stocks-stall-on-tepid-GDP-growth
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In this April 19, 2013 photo released by Chile's Police Investigative Unit on Thursday, April 25, 2013, investigators search for evidence in a house that was used to perform rites by a sect at a house in Colliguay, near the Chilean port of Valparaiso. Police on Thursday, arrested four people accused of burning a baby alive in a ritual because the leader of the sect believed that the end of the world was near and that the child was the antichrist. (AP Photo/ Chile's Police Investigative Unit)
In this April 19, 2013 photo released by Chile's Police Investigative Unit on Thursday, April 25, 2013, investigators search for evidence in a house that was used to perform rites by a sect at a house in Colliguay, near the Chilean port of Valparaiso. Police on Thursday, arrested four people accused of burning a baby alive in a ritual because the leader of the sect believed that the end of the world was near and that the child was the antichrist. (AP Photo/ Chile's Police Investigative Unit)
In this April 19, 2013 photo released by Chile's Police Investigative Unit on Thursday, April 25, 2013, an investigator collects samples of dirt at a farm used by a sect that is accused of burning a baby alive, in Colliguay, near the Chilean port of Valparaiso. Police on Thursday, arrested four people accused of burning a baby alive in a ritual because the leader of the sect believed that the end of the world was near and that the child was the antichrist. (AP Photo/ Chile's Police Investigative Unit)
This undated photo released by Chile's Police Investigative Unit on Thursday, April 25, 2013, shows Ramon Gustavo Castillo Gaete, 36, who authorities said is the leader of a 12-member sect that is accused of burning a baby alive. Police on Thursday, arrested four people accused of burning a baby alive in a ritual because Castillo Gaete believed that the end of the world was near and that the child was the antichrist. Police said Castillo Gaete, who remains at large, was last seen traveling to Peru to buy ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic brew plant that he used to control the cult members. (AP Photo/ Chile's Police Investigative Unit)
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) ? Chilean police on Thursday arrested four people accused of burning a baby alive in a ritual because the leader of the sect believed that the end of the world was near and that the child was the antichrist.
The 3-day-old baby was taken to a hill in the town of Colliguay near the Chilean port of Valparaiso on Nov. 21 and was thrown into a bonfire. The baby's mother, 25-year-old Natalia Guerra, had allegedly approved the sacrifice and was among those arrested.
"The baby was naked. They strapped tape around her mouth to keep her from screaming. Then they placed her on a board. After calling on the spirits they threw her on the bonfire alive," said Miguel Ampuero, of the Police investigative Unit, Chile's equivalent of the FBI.
Authorities said the 12-member sect was formed in 2005 and was led by Ramon Gustavo Castillo Gaete, 36, who remains at large.
"Everyone in this sect was a professional," Ampuero said. "We have someone who was a veterinarian and who worked as a flight attendant, we have a filmmaker, a draftsman. Everyone has a university degree. "
Police said Castillo Gaete, the ringleader, was last seen traveling to Peru to buy ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic brew plant that he used to control the members of the rite.
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Luis Andres Henao on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LuisAndresHenao
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