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POPS"Super Cells"! Single Celled Organisms that can Make Oil, Cure Cancer, and Build a City Amazing science. We might think Bacteria's mightiest power is confining us to the bathroom after an ill-advised late night snack, but having only one cell to deal with means bacteria can adapt incredibly well - and a single mutation can give rise to powers that make Professor Xavier's wheelchair-accessible mansion look like a home for people who are good at minigolf. Here we look at five organisms that would be called the Super-Cells, if that name wasn't probably already taken by Michael Crichton.
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POPSThe NYT On Avastin The New York Times has a long takeout in the Sunday paper on the conundrum raised by Genentech's Avastin: How much can society afford to pay for a treatment that, while beneficial, only extends median survival by a little bit? An interesting bit of new information comes out in between the analysis and stirring narrative. Genentech and Roche have spent more than $2.25 billion to develop Avastin. That's an interesting figure -- about as much as the drug made in sales last year. It does serve as a reminder that it is drug companies, not the government, that really pay for developing new medicines. What makes the Avastin conundrum difficult is that it is one of the biggest sellers introduced in recent memory. If Avastin's not worth the money, there are some hard questions that need to be asked about the incentives currently at work in drug development.
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POPSA Myth That Kills Unless a person chooses to be in those "well-defined risk-behavior groups" your chances of getting AIDS is almost nil. The exceptions are tainted blood transfusions and unknowingly having sex with an infected person...which is easy to prevent.
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POPSThe Top 15 Chuck Norris Facts 4. Superman owns a pair of Chuck Norris pajamas. 3. Chuck Norris does not “teabag” the ladies. He “Potato-Sacks” them. 2. There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live. 1. Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
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POPSThe Nazi War on Cancer "Proctor reveals then that the war against Jews and the war on cancer were not that far apart, having grown out of the same Nazi ideology. If that is true, he further posits, what are we to make of so much of the "progressive" health reforms put forth by the Nazis, ideas that echo today's push against smoking and alcohol and toward improved diet, exercise, and "clean living"? He sees as the answer not so much the need to refute the ideas themselves but the opportunity to see Nazism in its full complexity, good and evil together. " And, get this: "It is only by acknowledging and examining this "flip side of fascism," Proctor suggests, that we can really understand the appeal of such totalitarianism. "
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POPSBaby to be born free of breast cancer after embryo screening This case of genetic intervention for the elimination of genetic diseases, is a ground breaking first that may change our world and our ethical outlook. Many more will follow. I was quite surprised to read the following: "Some critics say it is wrong to destroy embryos because there is only a chance women with the gene may develop breast cancer in adulthood. They argue that, increasingly, breast cancer can also be successfully treated. " The said "embryos" are 3 days old lumps of undifferentiated cells.
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