The annals of “I’m not antivaccine,” part 17: More Nazis versus freedom! [Respectful Insolence]

Every so often, real life intrudes on blogging. So it was last night when I had to go to a work-related meeting and didn’t get back until late. Still, that means today’s a perfect opportunity to do what I’m usually not very good at: A brief post. I’ve related time and time again how when antivaccinationists claim to be “pro-vaccine safety” or “pro-freedom” (the latter of which is the newest favorite meme used by antivaccine advocates to argue that they aren’t antivaccine, or, as I call it, an antivaccine dog whistle), they’re either deluding themselves or lying. I’ve pointed out how sometimes, in a perverse way, I almost respect antivaccinationists who actually come right out and say they’re antivaccine, because at least they’re being honest with themselves and the world. None of that stops me from deconstructing their nonsense, but you do have to sort of respect the honesty about that point, at least, even as you’re ripping apart the intellectual dishonesty of their arguments against vaccine.

In the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak earlier this year, several states are considering measures to tighten up the process for getting nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. The largest of these is, of course, California, with its SB 277, which would eliminate nonmedical vaccine exemptions. Not surprisingly, there’s been a backlash among the antivaccine movement and its fellow travellers, such as conservatives who mistakenly conflate freedom with the freedom not to vaccinate their children.

Apparently, this backlash is leading to attempts at legislation:

Rep. David Sawicki, R-Auburn, is asking Maine lawmakers to approve a bill that would make it illegal to discriminate against any person who decides to forgo certain vaccinations.

Sawicki is the sponsor of LD 950, An Act to Prohibit Discrimination against a Person Who Is Not Vaccinated.

Sawicki said Monday that his bill is simple, in that if a person or the parent of a child decided against vaccinations for any reason, he or she could not be discriminated against by a school, employer or any other entity.

While Maine already allows for a “philosophical exemption,” Sawicki said his measure strengthens that and would make it difficult for the state to ever rollback that exemption.

“We are naturally born with a genius immune system, endowed by our creator, that has enabled the human race to grow and thrive over the eons,” Sawicki told the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee on Monday. “The immune system we are born with today has evolved and improved over the centuries as our environment and way of life has changed, and we have adapted. On the other hand, the existence of the vaccine business, relative to the existence of human beings, is but a tiny blip, 50 or so years.”

Sawicki said Mainers concerned that unvaccinated children might spread illness and disease in public schools shouldn’t worry if their children are vaccinated against the diseases they are worried about and they believe in vaccines.

The stupid, it burns.

I mean, seriously. Our immune system was so great that our children died like flies due to epidemics of infectious diseases and, as recently as 100 years ago, the deaths of children from diseases that are now preventable with vaccines were not uncommon and as recently as 60 years ago people lived in fear of polio. As for unvaccinated children being a threat to the vaccinated, once again, Mr. Sawicki apparently needs to be educated that no vaccine is 100% effective. Vaccinated children have less to worry about than unvaccinated children when coming in contact with the unvaccinated, but less is not “nothing.” That’s leaving aside the concept of herd immunity, which acts as a brake on the spread of disease.

Meanwhile, another legislator speaking in favor of the bill, Robert Foley, made the same argument, asking ““I know there are those who will argue that my choice not to vaccinate or to vaccinate under a different protocol somehow impacts their child’s health. But I ask you, how does my not vaccinating my child impose any risk to your child that you’ve chosen to vaccinate, if the vaccinations prevent the disease in the first place?”

See above for the answer.

Of course, Sawicki can’t resist the usual analogy made by antivaccine activists:

He also said the idea that people could be forced to take a vaccine they don’t want conjured visions of “the horrors of Nazi Germany, forced sterilization, interment, execution and involuntary medical experimentation.”

Yes, because requiring children to be protected against vaccine-preventable diseases is just like forced sterilization, interment, execution, and involuntary medical experimentation. Does Sawicki realize just how offensive his analogy is, particularly to Jews?

Then, of course, there’s the “informed consent” trope, which, as I have argued many times before, is really misinformed consent, in which the benefits of vaccination are vastly understated while the risks are massively overstated, to the point where nonexistent “risks” of vaccines, such as autism, are stated as though they are facts.

Same as it ever was…

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1zwkXYn

Every so often, real life intrudes on blogging. So it was last night when I had to go to a work-related meeting and didn’t get back until late. Still, that means today’s a perfect opportunity to do what I’m usually not very good at: A brief post. I’ve related time and time again how when antivaccinationists claim to be “pro-vaccine safety” or “pro-freedom” (the latter of which is the newest favorite meme used by antivaccine advocates to argue that they aren’t antivaccine, or, as I call it, an antivaccine dog whistle), they’re either deluding themselves or lying. I’ve pointed out how sometimes, in a perverse way, I almost respect antivaccinationists who actually come right out and say they’re antivaccine, because at least they’re being honest with themselves and the world. None of that stops me from deconstructing their nonsense, but you do have to sort of respect the honesty about that point, at least, even as you’re ripping apart the intellectual dishonesty of their arguments against vaccine.

In the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak earlier this year, several states are considering measures to tighten up the process for getting nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. The largest of these is, of course, California, with its SB 277, which would eliminate nonmedical vaccine exemptions. Not surprisingly, there’s been a backlash among the antivaccine movement and its fellow travellers, such as conservatives who mistakenly conflate freedom with the freedom not to vaccinate their children.

Apparently, this backlash is leading to attempts at legislation:

Rep. David Sawicki, R-Auburn, is asking Maine lawmakers to approve a bill that would make it illegal to discriminate against any person who decides to forgo certain vaccinations.

Sawicki is the sponsor of LD 950, An Act to Prohibit Discrimination against a Person Who Is Not Vaccinated.

Sawicki said Monday that his bill is simple, in that if a person or the parent of a child decided against vaccinations for any reason, he or she could not be discriminated against by a school, employer or any other entity.

While Maine already allows for a “philosophical exemption,” Sawicki said his measure strengthens that and would make it difficult for the state to ever rollback that exemption.

“We are naturally born with a genius immune system, endowed by our creator, that has enabled the human race to grow and thrive over the eons,” Sawicki told the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee on Monday. “The immune system we are born with today has evolved and improved over the centuries as our environment and way of life has changed, and we have adapted. On the other hand, the existence of the vaccine business, relative to the existence of human beings, is but a tiny blip, 50 or so years.”

Sawicki said Mainers concerned that unvaccinated children might spread illness and disease in public schools shouldn’t worry if their children are vaccinated against the diseases they are worried about and they believe in vaccines.

The stupid, it burns.

I mean, seriously. Our immune system was so great that our children died like flies due to epidemics of infectious diseases and, as recently as 100 years ago, the deaths of children from diseases that are now preventable with vaccines were not uncommon and as recently as 60 years ago people lived in fear of polio. As for unvaccinated children being a threat to the vaccinated, once again, Mr. Sawicki apparently needs to be educated that no vaccine is 100% effective. Vaccinated children have less to worry about than unvaccinated children when coming in contact with the unvaccinated, but less is not “nothing.” That’s leaving aside the concept of herd immunity, which acts as a brake on the spread of disease.

Meanwhile, another legislator speaking in favor of the bill, Robert Foley, made the same argument, asking ““I know there are those who will argue that my choice not to vaccinate or to vaccinate under a different protocol somehow impacts their child’s health. But I ask you, how does my not vaccinating my child impose any risk to your child that you’ve chosen to vaccinate, if the vaccinations prevent the disease in the first place?”

See above for the answer.

Of course, Sawicki can’t resist the usual analogy made by antivaccine activists:

He also said the idea that people could be forced to take a vaccine they don’t want conjured visions of “the horrors of Nazi Germany, forced sterilization, interment, execution and involuntary medical experimentation.”

Yes, because requiring children to be protected against vaccine-preventable diseases is just like forced sterilization, interment, execution, and involuntary medical experimentation. Does Sawicki realize just how offensive his analogy is, particularly to Jews?

Then, of course, there’s the “informed consent” trope, which, as I have argued many times before, is really misinformed consent, in which the benefits of vaccination are vastly understated while the risks are massively overstated, to the point where nonexistent “risks” of vaccines, such as autism, are stated as though they are facts.

Same as it ever was…

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1zwkXYn

Ozone: Earth’s Natural Sunscreen

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are widely accepted as the bad guys in the chemical world. Once used in products like hairspray, foams and air conditioners, CFCs were proven to be damaging to the ozone layer in the mid-70s, thanks to chemists Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina. The scientists published their Molina-Rowland paper which explained how CFCs damaged the layer that protects Earth from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. That Molina-Rowland paper on the ozone layer led to nearly 200 countries signing the Montreal Protocol, a treaty that regulates the use of CFCs.

That means the ozone layer is fixed, right? Not so fast. There’s a new class of compounds that act as damaging greenhouse gases.

The Antarctic ozone hole is the second largest ever observed, in this file photo from 2003. The Antarctic ozone ”hole” is defined as thinning of the ozone layer over the continent to levels significantly below pre-1979 levels. Loss of stratospheric ozone has been linked to skin cancer in humans and other adverse biological effects on plants and animals. Blue represents the lowest ozone levels, while orange and red represent the highest. (Photo: NASA GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio, based on data provided by the TOMS science team.)

Dr. Paul Newman, chief scientist for atmospheric sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, explains the ozone layer in this video. He details how lawmakers and scientists worked in tandem to secure the ozone layer, what threatens to undo all of that work today and how we can move forward.

Yolanda R. Arrington is the content manager for Armed with Science. She is a journalist and social media-ista with a flair for moving pictures and writing.
Information provided by NASA
Follow Armed with Science on Facebook and Twitter!
———-

Disclaimer: The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense. For other than authorized activities, such as, military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DoD website.

from Armed with Science http://ift.tt/1Pl4NmD

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are widely accepted as the bad guys in the chemical world. Once used in products like hairspray, foams and air conditioners, CFCs were proven to be damaging to the ozone layer in the mid-70s, thanks to chemists Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina. The scientists published their Molina-Rowland paper which explained how CFCs damaged the layer that protects Earth from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. That Molina-Rowland paper on the ozone layer led to nearly 200 countries signing the Montreal Protocol, a treaty that regulates the use of CFCs.

That means the ozone layer is fixed, right? Not so fast. There’s a new class of compounds that act as damaging greenhouse gases.

The Antarctic ozone hole is the second largest ever observed, in this file photo from 2003. The Antarctic ozone ”hole” is defined as thinning of the ozone layer over the continent to levels significantly below pre-1979 levels. Loss of stratospheric ozone has been linked to skin cancer in humans and other adverse biological effects on plants and animals. Blue represents the lowest ozone levels, while orange and red represent the highest. (Photo: NASA GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio, based on data provided by the TOMS science team.)

Dr. Paul Newman, chief scientist for atmospheric sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, explains the ozone layer in this video. He details how lawmakers and scientists worked in tandem to secure the ozone layer, what threatens to undo all of that work today and how we can move forward.

Yolanda R. Arrington is the content manager for Armed with Science. She is a journalist and social media-ista with a flair for moving pictures and writing.
Information provided by NASA
Follow Armed with Science on Facebook and Twitter!
———-

Disclaimer: The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense. For other than authorized activities, such as, military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DoD website.

from Armed with Science http://ift.tt/1Pl4NmD

What is the sun’s proper name?

You’ve no doubt heard some star names such as Polaris the North Star – or Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion. But, although it’s also a star, our sun doesn’t have a generally accepted and unique proper name in the English language. We English speakers always call it the sun.

If Sun were the sun’s name in English, we’d always see it capitalized. It would be a proper noun, which is defined as “the name of a person, place or thing.” Although astronomers themselves do tend to capitalize the word sun (also moon, solar system, galaxy and universe; more about this below), most dictionaries don’t.

On the other hand, some experts say you would capitalize the word sun according to the context in which you were using it. For exmaple, you might use this sentence: “Are all suns as hot as The Sun?” Notice that, in this usage, the word “the” is capitalized, too.

Our sun. By any other name, it’d still be awesome. Image via NASA.

You sometimes hear people use the name Sol for our sun. If you ask in a public forum like this one (see the comments below), you’ll find many who swear the sun’s proper name is Sol.

Sol is the Roman equivalent of the Greek sun god Helios. And maybe in earlier times people did actually use these names. According to straightdope.com, the first cited use of Sol as a proper name for the sun is the 1450 Ashmole Manuscript Treatise on Astrology, which stated:

Sol is hote & dry but not as mars is.

But neither Sol nor Helios is an official name for the sun, according to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the international body of astronomers which since 1922 has charged itself with the responsibility for naming celestial bodies. Just to confuse things, the IAU does suggest we all use Sun and Moon, rather than the lowercase sun and moon. As a result, most astronomers do capitalize these words (frequently along with other non-standard capitalizations such as Galaxy, Solar System and Universe), but most media organizations (which tend to use media stylebooks such as the AP Stylebook) don’t.

Astronomers use this symbol for the sun.

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So people don’t agree on whether the sun has its own name, or what that name might be. Meanwhile, the sun does have a symbol that’s exclusively its own. The sun’s symbol is a circle with a dot in the center – used in mathematical formulas.

If it is nameless, our sun has company. There are several thousand stars visible to the eye, and only a few hundred of them have actual names, as opposed to designations. Astronomers use the Greek alphabet to order visible stars in each constellation, according to their brightness. To identify stars invisible to the eye, astronomers turn to star catalogs, which assign a number to each star according to its position in the sky.

Nowadays, we know there are planets orbiting many if not most stars. Most extrasolar planets haven’t yet been given proper names either, and the IAU has gone back and forth on its decision to name or not to name extrasolar planets. In recent year, though, the IAU has acknowledged the public’s desire to name exoplanets and is even, currently, running its own competition for names in 20 distant solar systems, called the NameExoWorlds contest, deadline June 15, 2015.

When all is said and done, whether you believe our sun has a name comes down to the language you speak, to whom you believe has the authority to give names to objects in space, and to your personal preference.

Bottom line: The International Astronomical Union hasn’t sanctioned an official name for our sun, but in history and in other languages the sun does have proper names.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/16dWo5h

You’ve no doubt heard some star names such as Polaris the North Star – or Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion. But, although it’s also a star, our sun doesn’t have a generally accepted and unique proper name in the English language. We English speakers always call it the sun.

If Sun were the sun’s name in English, we’d always see it capitalized. It would be a proper noun, which is defined as “the name of a person, place or thing.” Although astronomers themselves do tend to capitalize the word sun (also moon, solar system, galaxy and universe; more about this below), most dictionaries don’t.

On the other hand, some experts say you would capitalize the word sun according to the context in which you were using it. For exmaple, you might use this sentence: “Are all suns as hot as The Sun?” Notice that, in this usage, the word “the” is capitalized, too.

Our sun. By any other name, it’d still be awesome. Image via NASA.

You sometimes hear people use the name Sol for our sun. If you ask in a public forum like this one (see the comments below), you’ll find many who swear the sun’s proper name is Sol.

Sol is the Roman equivalent of the Greek sun god Helios. And maybe in earlier times people did actually use these names. According to straightdope.com, the first cited use of Sol as a proper name for the sun is the 1450 Ashmole Manuscript Treatise on Astrology, which stated:

Sol is hote & dry but not as mars is.

But neither Sol nor Helios is an official name for the sun, according to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the international body of astronomers which since 1922 has charged itself with the responsibility for naming celestial bodies. Just to confuse things, the IAU does suggest we all use Sun and Moon, rather than the lowercase sun and moon. As a result, most astronomers do capitalize these words (frequently along with other non-standard capitalizations such as Galaxy, Solar System and Universe), but most media organizations (which tend to use media stylebooks such as the AP Stylebook) don’t.

Astronomers use this symbol for the sun.

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

So people don’t agree on whether the sun has its own name, or what that name might be. Meanwhile, the sun does have a symbol that’s exclusively its own. The sun’s symbol is a circle with a dot in the center – used in mathematical formulas.

If it is nameless, our sun has company. There are several thousand stars visible to the eye, and only a few hundred of them have actual names, as opposed to designations. Astronomers use the Greek alphabet to order visible stars in each constellation, according to their brightness. To identify stars invisible to the eye, astronomers turn to star catalogs, which assign a number to each star according to its position in the sky.

Nowadays, we know there are planets orbiting many if not most stars. Most extrasolar planets haven’t yet been given proper names either, and the IAU has gone back and forth on its decision to name or not to name extrasolar planets. In recent year, though, the IAU has acknowledged the public’s desire to name exoplanets and is even, currently, running its own competition for names in 20 distant solar systems, called the NameExoWorlds contest, deadline June 15, 2015.

When all is said and done, whether you believe our sun has a name comes down to the language you speak, to whom you believe has the authority to give names to objects in space, and to your personal preference.

Bottom line: The International Astronomical Union hasn’t sanctioned an official name for our sun, but in history and in other languages the sun does have proper names.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/16dWo5h

One (really tiny) step closer to nano-sized cancer drug delivery

When you take a drug, it travels through your bloodstream, dissolving and dispersing, and eventually reaching its designated target area.

But because the blood containing the drug travels all round your body only a small percentage of the initial dose actually reaches the desired location.

For over-the-counter drugs like paracetamol or ibuprofen, with very few side-effects, this doesn’t matter too much.

But when it comes to cancer drugs, which can affect healthy cells just as much as cancer cells, this process can cause big problems.

Partly because drugs are diluted in their blood, cancer patients need to take these drugs in particularly high doses – and this can cause seriously unpleasant side effects.

Comparison of nanomaterials sizes

But Professor Sonia Trigueros, co-director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Nanotechnology, is inching closer to developing a nano-scale drug delivery system with the aim of specifically targeting cancer cells.

Working with a team of chemists, engineers and physicists, Trigueros has embarked on an ambitious mission to tackle cancer at the ‘nano’ level – less than 100 nanometers wide. For context, this is super-tiny: a nanometre is a thousandth of a thousandth of a millimetre.

There’s still a long way to go, but Trigueros is making decent headway, and has recently tackled a major problem of working at a nano level. And at this year’s Wired Health conference – which looked at the future of health care, wellbeing and genomics – she told us about her recent progress, and her visions for the future.

At the nano level

Some of us will remember the periodic table displayed in our science classrooms which told us about the properties of each element. But working on a nano level everything changes, and elements behave completely differently.

Elements have different properties at the nano level than they do at the micro level, explained Prof Trigueros to the Wired Health 2015 audience.

This poses big problems for researchers trying to make nano-scale devices, which can be made out of a number of different materials, including gold, silver and carbon. All these materials are highly unstable at the nano level.

“After you make the nanostructures you only have minutes to a couple of days to work,” she said. They are really unstable, especially when you put them in water.”

This isn’t ideal, considering our bodies are made up mostly of water.

Nanoparticles become unstable in water

Trigueros’ recent work has focused on trying to stabilise tiny tubes made of carbon, called carbon nanotubes, which hold drugs inside the tube so they can be delivered into cancer cells.

She has now found a way of keeping them stable for more than two years and in temperatures up to 42ºC.

To do this, she wraps DNA around the structures, like a tortilla wraps around the fillings of a burrito.

While this accomplishes the goal of keeping the nanostructures stable inside the body this doesn’t do much good if the DNA can’t unwrap to deliver the drugs. But, according to Trigueros, she has shown that, once inside a cell, the DNA easily unwinds and releases its payload.

Truly targeted drug delivery

So how does it all work? How do the drugs get into the cancer cells? Trigueros’s nanotubes exploit the differences between cancer cells and healthy cells – in this case, differences in the membranes that hold them together.

“Cancer cells are more permeable than normal cells so the nanotubes can get through the cell membrane. And once they are in, they unwrap and deliver drug,” explained Trigueros.

Exploiting differences in their permeability is one way to target the cancer cells, but Trigueros explains that there is more than one way to create a truly targeted drug delivery system.

“We can attach whatever we want on DNA,” she said. “So you can attach a protein that recognises cancer cells”.

Attaching proteins to DNA could create a truly targeted drug delivery system.

From theory to reality

While this all sounds great in theory, will it actually work in reality?

Trigueros has now started preliminary tests on laboratory grown lung cancer cells, she told us during an interview. And this has shown tentative promise, she says, citing unpublished data on their effectiveness at killing these cells in the lab.

Others are cautiously optimistic. “This is a really exciting prospect,” says Professor Duncan Graham, nanotechnology expert and advisor to Cancer Research UK.

“A common concern with carbon nanotubes is toxicity, but when coated with DNA this concern could be removed,” he explains, “and it also addresses a fundamental issue, which is that they collect into clusters that become a solid mass and so are unable to leave the body.”

In theory, once Trigueros’s nanotubes have finished their job they are tiny enough (50 nanometres) to be excreted through urine.

This isn’t the first time carbon nanotubes have been used in cancer research: a US research team has used them, for example, to target and collect images of tumours in mice. But the combination of drug delivery and cancer-specific targeting is what interests Professor Graham.

“Unlike previous work using carbon nanotubes, this approach is set to target the tumour specifically, potentially meaning fewer side effects and a lower dosage. I look forward to seeing this in animal models which is where the real proof of activity lies,” he said.

But he’s cautious, stressing that Trigueros’s work has not yet been peer-reviewed and published.

Next steps

Next Trigueros is aiming towards starting animal trials and, eventually, she wants to begin clinical trials in patients – that is if everything goes well.

She hopes to focus on how nanostructures could be used to cross the blood-brain barrier – the brain’s highly selective ‘bouncer’ that only lets certain molecules across. This has been notoriously difficult to get past, making targeting cancers in the brain more difficult.

But there is a still a long way to go and a lot of problems to tackle. In the shorter term, we’ll be keeping an eager eye on her drug delivery research, as her ideas continue to develop.

Misha

Images

• Nanomaterials comparison scale via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0 license
• All other images courtesy of Professor Sonia Trigueros

from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/1ABG46J

When you take a drug, it travels through your bloodstream, dissolving and dispersing, and eventually reaching its designated target area.

But because the blood containing the drug travels all round your body only a small percentage of the initial dose actually reaches the desired location.

For over-the-counter drugs like paracetamol or ibuprofen, with very few side-effects, this doesn’t matter too much.

But when it comes to cancer drugs, which can affect healthy cells just as much as cancer cells, this process can cause big problems.

Partly because drugs are diluted in their blood, cancer patients need to take these drugs in particularly high doses – and this can cause seriously unpleasant side effects.

Comparison of nanomaterials sizes

But Professor Sonia Trigueros, co-director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Nanotechnology, is inching closer to developing a nano-scale drug delivery system with the aim of specifically targeting cancer cells.

Working with a team of chemists, engineers and physicists, Trigueros has embarked on an ambitious mission to tackle cancer at the ‘nano’ level – less than 100 nanometers wide. For context, this is super-tiny: a nanometre is a thousandth of a thousandth of a millimetre.

There’s still a long way to go, but Trigueros is making decent headway, and has recently tackled a major problem of working at a nano level. And at this year’s Wired Health conference – which looked at the future of health care, wellbeing and genomics – she told us about her recent progress, and her visions for the future.

At the nano level

Some of us will remember the periodic table displayed in our science classrooms which told us about the properties of each element. But working on a nano level everything changes, and elements behave completely differently.

Elements have different properties at the nano level than they do at the micro level, explained Prof Trigueros to the Wired Health 2015 audience.

This poses big problems for researchers trying to make nano-scale devices, which can be made out of a number of different materials, including gold, silver and carbon. All these materials are highly unstable at the nano level.

“After you make the nanostructures you only have minutes to a couple of days to work,” she said. They are really unstable, especially when you put them in water.”

This isn’t ideal, considering our bodies are made up mostly of water.

Nanoparticles become unstable in water

Trigueros’ recent work has focused on trying to stabilise tiny tubes made of carbon, called carbon nanotubes, which hold drugs inside the tube so they can be delivered into cancer cells.

She has now found a way of keeping them stable for more than two years and in temperatures up to 42ºC.

To do this, she wraps DNA around the structures, like a tortilla wraps around the fillings of a burrito.

While this accomplishes the goal of keeping the nanostructures stable inside the body this doesn’t do much good if the DNA can’t unwrap to deliver the drugs. But, according to Trigueros, she has shown that, once inside a cell, the DNA easily unwinds and releases its payload.

Truly targeted drug delivery

So how does it all work? How do the drugs get into the cancer cells? Trigueros’s nanotubes exploit the differences between cancer cells and healthy cells – in this case, differences in the membranes that hold them together.

“Cancer cells are more permeable than normal cells so the nanotubes can get through the cell membrane. And once they are in, they unwrap and deliver drug,” explained Trigueros.

Exploiting differences in their permeability is one way to target the cancer cells, but Trigueros explains that there is more than one way to create a truly targeted drug delivery system.

“We can attach whatever we want on DNA,” she said. “So you can attach a protein that recognises cancer cells”.

Attaching proteins to DNA could create a truly targeted drug delivery system.

From theory to reality

While this all sounds great in theory, will it actually work in reality?

Trigueros has now started preliminary tests on laboratory grown lung cancer cells, she told us during an interview. And this has shown tentative promise, she says, citing unpublished data on their effectiveness at killing these cells in the lab.

Others are cautiously optimistic. “This is a really exciting prospect,” says Professor Duncan Graham, nanotechnology expert and advisor to Cancer Research UK.

“A common concern with carbon nanotubes is toxicity, but when coated with DNA this concern could be removed,” he explains, “and it also addresses a fundamental issue, which is that they collect into clusters that become a solid mass and so are unable to leave the body.”

In theory, once Trigueros’s nanotubes have finished their job they are tiny enough (50 nanometres) to be excreted through urine.

This isn’t the first time carbon nanotubes have been used in cancer research: a US research team has used them, for example, to target and collect images of tumours in mice. But the combination of drug delivery and cancer-specific targeting is what interests Professor Graham.

“Unlike previous work using carbon nanotubes, this approach is set to target the tumour specifically, potentially meaning fewer side effects and a lower dosage. I look forward to seeing this in animal models which is where the real proof of activity lies,” he said.

But he’s cautious, stressing that Trigueros’s work has not yet been peer-reviewed and published.

Next steps

Next Trigueros is aiming towards starting animal trials and, eventually, she wants to begin clinical trials in patients – that is if everything goes well.

She hopes to focus on how nanostructures could be used to cross the blood-brain barrier – the brain’s highly selective ‘bouncer’ that only lets certain molecules across. This has been notoriously difficult to get past, making targeting cancers in the brain more difficult.

But there is a still a long way to go and a lot of problems to tackle. In the shorter term, we’ll be keeping an eager eye on her drug delivery research, as her ideas continue to develop.

Misha

Images

• Nanomaterials comparison scale via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0 license
• All other images courtesy of Professor Sonia Trigueros

from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/1ABG46J

What bird song looks like at dawn

View larger. | Photo by John Ashley. Visit his website: JohnAshleyFineArt.com

John Ashley took this photo of a song bird at dawn on April 28, 2015. He wrote:

This is what bird song looks like at dawn. A male Western meadowlark sings a steamy little number just after the sun rises over the Mission Mountains at the Ninepipes Natl. Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Montana. White lines are back-lit spider webs.

Beautiful, John, thank you!

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from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1GLYXG1

View larger. | Photo by John Ashley. Visit his website: JohnAshleyFineArt.com

John Ashley took this photo of a song bird at dawn on April 28, 2015. He wrote:

This is what bird song looks like at dawn. A male Western meadowlark sings a steamy little number just after the sun rises over the Mission Mountains at the Ninepipes Natl. Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Montana. White lines are back-lit spider webs.

Beautiful, John, thank you!

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Eta Aquarid meteors peak in moonlight, before dawn May 6

Tonight’s large, bright waning gibbous moon is sure to obscure the 2015 Eta Aquarid meteor shower, which will probably produce the most meteors on Wednesday morning – May 6, 2015 – from about 3 a.m. until dawn. Want to watch in moonlight? Do it. You’ll likely see some bright meteors that shine through the moon’s glare.

Our sky chart below shows the sky scene from mid-northern latitudes just before the onset of morning twilight. The Y-shaped “Water Jar” is the most prominent feature in the otherwise inconspicuous constellation Aquarius. Incidentally, this distinctive Y-shaped pattern of stars closely aligns with the radiant point of the Eta Aquarid shower. For more on the Eta Aquarid radiant and why more Eta Aquarids are visible from more southerly latitudes, click here.

In a dark sky, especially at more southerly latitudes, the Eta Aquarids can produce up to 20 to 40 meteors per hour.

This year, 2015 is not a particularly favorable year, as a bright moon will be shining during the prime time hours of this meteor shower, in the dark hours before dawn. Meteor buffs will be on the lookout, despite the moonlit glare, knowing these swift-moving meteors frequently leave persistent trains.

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If you’re familiar with the Square of Pegasus, you can star-hop to the radiant of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. But you don’t have to find a shower’s radiant point to see the meteors.

This meteor shower favors the Southern Hemisphere, and the tropical and subtropical latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Appreciably north of 40 degrees north latitude (the latitude of Denver, Colorado), streaking meteors are few and far between. The early morning twilight at far northern latitudes washes these Eta Aquarid meteors from the sky. At this time of the year, morning twilight comes at a later hour to southerly latitudes.

Once again, the best viewing time is roughly from about two hours to one hour before sunrise. Unsure of your sunrise time? Or when nautical twilight begins? Check our almamac page. No matter where you live, the last hour of darkness just before dawn tends to feature the greatest number of meteors.

While you’re out watching the Eta Aquarids streaking the night, check out the planet Saturn and the star Antares near the moon.

The bright moon may wipe out a number of Eta Aquarid meteors in 2015, but it can help you find the planet Saturn and the star Antares.

Data gathered by the International Meteor Organization seems to suggest a possible connection between Jupiter’s 12-year orbit and the intensity of the Eta Aquarid meteors. Jupiter causes the Eta Aquarid meteor shower to put out a maximum number of meteors in 12-year periods, but to the best of our knowledge, astronomers aren’t expecting increased numbers of Eta Aquarid meteors in 2015.

Every year, as Earth passes through the orbital path of Comet Halley, bit and pieces shed by this comet burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere as Eta Aquarid meteors.

Jason Gunders in central Queensland, Australia combined three photos to create this composite of an Eta Aquarid meteor in 2013.

View larger. | Eta Aquarid meteor seen by EarthSky Facebook friend Ann Dinsmore during the 2013 shower.

EarthSky’s meteor guide for 2015

EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. Order today from the EarthSky store

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from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1kq1Dzf

Tonight’s large, bright waning gibbous moon is sure to obscure the 2015 Eta Aquarid meteor shower, which will probably produce the most meteors on Wednesday morning – May 6, 2015 – from about 3 a.m. until dawn. Want to watch in moonlight? Do it. You’ll likely see some bright meteors that shine through the moon’s glare.

Our sky chart below shows the sky scene from mid-northern latitudes just before the onset of morning twilight. The Y-shaped “Water Jar” is the most prominent feature in the otherwise inconspicuous constellation Aquarius. Incidentally, this distinctive Y-shaped pattern of stars closely aligns with the radiant point of the Eta Aquarid shower. For more on the Eta Aquarid radiant and why more Eta Aquarids are visible from more southerly latitudes, click here.

In a dark sky, especially at more southerly latitudes, the Eta Aquarids can produce up to 20 to 40 meteors per hour.

This year, 2015 is not a particularly favorable year, as a bright moon will be shining during the prime time hours of this meteor shower, in the dark hours before dawn. Meteor buffs will be on the lookout, despite the moonlit glare, knowing these swift-moving meteors frequently leave persistent trains.

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

If you’re familiar with the Square of Pegasus, you can star-hop to the radiant of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. But you don’t have to find a shower’s radiant point to see the meteors.

This meteor shower favors the Southern Hemisphere, and the tropical and subtropical latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Appreciably north of 40 degrees north latitude (the latitude of Denver, Colorado), streaking meteors are few and far between. The early morning twilight at far northern latitudes washes these Eta Aquarid meteors from the sky. At this time of the year, morning twilight comes at a later hour to southerly latitudes.

Once again, the best viewing time is roughly from about two hours to one hour before sunrise. Unsure of your sunrise time? Or when nautical twilight begins? Check our almamac page. No matter where you live, the last hour of darkness just before dawn tends to feature the greatest number of meteors.

While you’re out watching the Eta Aquarids streaking the night, check out the planet Saturn and the star Antares near the moon.

The bright moon may wipe out a number of Eta Aquarid meteors in 2015, but it can help you find the planet Saturn and the star Antares.

Data gathered by the International Meteor Organization seems to suggest a possible connection between Jupiter’s 12-year orbit and the intensity of the Eta Aquarid meteors. Jupiter causes the Eta Aquarid meteor shower to put out a maximum number of meteors in 12-year periods, but to the best of our knowledge, astronomers aren’t expecting increased numbers of Eta Aquarid meteors in 2015.

Every year, as Earth passes through the orbital path of Comet Halley, bit and pieces shed by this comet burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere as Eta Aquarid meteors.

Jason Gunders in central Queensland, Australia combined three photos to create this composite of an Eta Aquarid meteor in 2013.

View larger. | Eta Aquarid meteor seen by EarthSky Facebook friend Ann Dinsmore during the 2013 shower.

EarthSky’s meteor guide for 2015

EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. Order today from the EarthSky store

Donate: Your support means the world to us

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1kq1Dzf

Dinosaur-killing asteroid caused India’s Deccan Traps?

An area in the Deccan Traps, via Gerta Keller.

The Deccan Traps are in India – between 17°–24° North and 73°–74° East – a place where you can find multiple layers of solidified rock originating from extremely powerful volcanic activity, tens of millions of years ago. This ancient lava is thought to have been a mile deep over an area as large as the state of California. Last week (April 30, 2015) geophysicists at UC Berkeley announced their evidence that this vast region is related to the asteroid thought to have slammed into the ocean half a world away. The impact near Chicxulub, Mexico – 66 million years ago – is believed by many researchers to have killed the dinosaurs and ushered in the age of mammals. The Berkeley researchers say the impact probably “rang the Earth like a bell,” triggering powerful earthquakes and volcanos around the globe, including those that created the Deccan Traps.

The Berkeley researchers – who published their work online April 30 in the The Geological Society of America Bulletin – cited the “uncomfortably close” coincidence between the Deccan Traps eruptions and the asteroid impact 66 million years ago. Team leader Mark Richards of UC Berkeley said in a statement:

If you try to explain why the largest impact we know of in the last billion years happened within 100,000 years of these massive lava flows at Deccan … the chances of that occurring at random are minuscule.

Illustration of a hot mantle plume “head” pancaked beneath the Indian Plate. The theory by Richards and his colleagues suggests that existing magma within this plume head was mobilized by strong seismic shaking from the Chicxulub asteroid impact, resulting in the largest of the Deccan Traps flood basalt eruptions. Image via UC Berkeley

Richards had proposed in 1989 that plumes of hot rock, called “plume heads,” rise through Earth’s mantle every 20-30 million years and generate huge lava flows, called flood basalts, like the Deccan Traps. It struck him as more than coincidence that the last four of the six known mass extinctions of life occurred at the same time as one of these massive eruptions.

Richards teamed up with other experts at UC Berkeley to try to discover faults with his radical idea that the impact triggered the Deccan eruptions. Instead, the team came up with supporting evidence.

Paul Renne of the Berkeley Geochronology Center re-dated the asteroid impact and mass extinction two years ago and found them essentially simultaneous, but also within approximately 100,000 years of the largest Deccan eruptions.

A third co-author on the study, UC Cal Berkeley’s Michael Manga, demonstrated that seismic events like large earthquakes could trigger volcanic eruptions. By Richards’ estimate, the asteroid impact must have generated the equivalent of a magnitude 9 or larger earthquake everywhere on Earth, sufficient to ignite the Deccan flood basalts as well as other places around the globe, including at mid-ocean ridges. Manga said:

It’s inconceivable that the impact could have melted a whole lot of rock away from the impact site itself, but if you had a system that already had magma and you gave it a little extra kick, it could produce a big eruption.

Richards and his team visited India in April 2014 to obtain lava samples for dating, and noticed pronounced weathering surfaces, or terraces, in one area. Geological evidence suggests that these terraces may signal a period of quiescence in Deccan volcanism prior to the Chicxulub impact. Richards concluded:

This was an existing massive volcanic system that had been there probably several million years, and the impact gave this thing a shake and it mobilized a huge amount of magma over a short amount of time.

Read more from UC Berkeley

Bottom line: Vast lava flows in India – known as the Deccan Traps – might have been mobilized into activity by the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1Jmaf6P

An area in the Deccan Traps, via Gerta Keller.

The Deccan Traps are in India – between 17°–24° North and 73°–74° East – a place where you can find multiple layers of solidified rock originating from extremely powerful volcanic activity, tens of millions of years ago. This ancient lava is thought to have been a mile deep over an area as large as the state of California. Last week (April 30, 2015) geophysicists at UC Berkeley announced their evidence that this vast region is related to the asteroid thought to have slammed into the ocean half a world away. The impact near Chicxulub, Mexico – 66 million years ago – is believed by many researchers to have killed the dinosaurs and ushered in the age of mammals. The Berkeley researchers say the impact probably “rang the Earth like a bell,” triggering powerful earthquakes and volcanos around the globe, including those that created the Deccan Traps.

The Berkeley researchers – who published their work online April 30 in the The Geological Society of America Bulletin – cited the “uncomfortably close” coincidence between the Deccan Traps eruptions and the asteroid impact 66 million years ago. Team leader Mark Richards of UC Berkeley said in a statement:

If you try to explain why the largest impact we know of in the last billion years happened within 100,000 years of these massive lava flows at Deccan … the chances of that occurring at random are minuscule.

Illustration of a hot mantle plume “head” pancaked beneath the Indian Plate. The theory by Richards and his colleagues suggests that existing magma within this plume head was mobilized by strong seismic shaking from the Chicxulub asteroid impact, resulting in the largest of the Deccan Traps flood basalt eruptions. Image via UC Berkeley

Richards had proposed in 1989 that plumes of hot rock, called “plume heads,” rise through Earth’s mantle every 20-30 million years and generate huge lava flows, called flood basalts, like the Deccan Traps. It struck him as more than coincidence that the last four of the six known mass extinctions of life occurred at the same time as one of these massive eruptions.

Richards teamed up with other experts at UC Berkeley to try to discover faults with his radical idea that the impact triggered the Deccan eruptions. Instead, the team came up with supporting evidence.

Paul Renne of the Berkeley Geochronology Center re-dated the asteroid impact and mass extinction two years ago and found them essentially simultaneous, but also within approximately 100,000 years of the largest Deccan eruptions.

A third co-author on the study, UC Cal Berkeley’s Michael Manga, demonstrated that seismic events like large earthquakes could trigger volcanic eruptions. By Richards’ estimate, the asteroid impact must have generated the equivalent of a magnitude 9 or larger earthquake everywhere on Earth, sufficient to ignite the Deccan flood basalts as well as other places around the globe, including at mid-ocean ridges. Manga said:

It’s inconceivable that the impact could have melted a whole lot of rock away from the impact site itself, but if you had a system that already had magma and you gave it a little extra kick, it could produce a big eruption.

Richards and his team visited India in April 2014 to obtain lava samples for dating, and noticed pronounced weathering surfaces, or terraces, in one area. Geological evidence suggests that these terraces may signal a period of quiescence in Deccan volcanism prior to the Chicxulub impact. Richards concluded:

This was an existing massive volcanic system that had been there probably several million years, and the impact gave this thing a shake and it mobilized a huge amount of magma over a short amount of time.

Read more from UC Berkeley

Bottom line: Vast lava flows in India – known as the Deccan Traps – might have been mobilized into activity by the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1Jmaf6P