An Interview with Don Prothero [Greg Laden's Blog]

Ikonokast interviews Don Prothero.

Don Prothero is the author of just over 30 books and a gazillion scientific papers covering a wide range of topics in paleontology and skepticism. Mike Haubrich and I spoke with Don about most of these topics, including the recent history of the skeptics movement, the conflict and potentials between DNA and fossil research, extinctions and impacts, evolution in general, and the interesting projects Don is working on now.

The interview is here. Please click through and give this fascinating conversation a listen!



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/293MbfV

Ikonokast interviews Don Prothero.

Don Prothero is the author of just over 30 books and a gazillion scientific papers covering a wide range of topics in paleontology and skepticism. Mike Haubrich and I spoke with Don about most of these topics, including the recent history of the skeptics movement, the conflict and potentials between DNA and fossil research, extinctions and impacts, evolution in general, and the interesting projects Don is working on now.

The interview is here. Please click through and give this fascinating conversation a listen!



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/293MbfV

Join astronomers in tracking asteroids

In partnership with Asteroid Day and Universe Awareness, the global telescope network at Las Cumbres Observatory is inviting you to join professional astronomers in tracking one of two asteroids chosen especially for Asteroid Day on June 30, 2016. Add your email address so that some observations are scheduled in your name. You’ll get updates on the observations made of your asteroid.

Anyone can sign up to help this effort until 00:00 UTC on July 1 (translate to your time zone) at asteroidday.lcogt.net. Las Cumbers Observatory, which has 18 professional robotic telescopes at seven remote astronomical sites across the globe, said in a statement:

With this website, you can join the international campaign to study and raise awareness about asteroids.

By entering your email address, you will trigger observations on the global telescope network. Once your observations have been taken they are automatically combined with all other images of the selected asteroid, into a time-lapse video. You can view all of this on the Las Cumbres Observatory Asteroid Day website.

Las Cumbres Observatory’s Education Director Edward Gomez said:

Taking images of asteroids can be an involved process because they are moving through space. We wanted to simplify this process, making it into a single click that triggers a request for images on Las Cumbres Observatory.

Sarah Greenstreet, post-doctoral fellow on the Las Cumbres Observatory NEO team, added:

We chose two asteroids we wanted to study further, that would be passing close to Earth around Asteroid Day. By combining observations made by the public with some of our own we hope to learn about how fast they are rotating and what their surface is made from.

Asteroid Day is held each year on June 30, the anniversary of the largest impact in recent history, the 1908 Tunguska event in Siberia.

Here are Las Cumbres’ observing sites around the world

Still from a video by the Goldstone Radar Observing team, showing the tracks of Earth and asteroid 2010 NY65, one of the targets in Las Cumbres' Asteroid Day observing program.

Still from a video by the Goldstone Radar Observing team, showing the tracks of Earth and asteroid 2010 NY65, one of the targets in Las Cumbres’ Asteroid Day observing program.

Bottom line: Sign up with Las Cumbres Observatory to track asteroids on Asteroid Day.



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/29ogbBE

In partnership with Asteroid Day and Universe Awareness, the global telescope network at Las Cumbres Observatory is inviting you to join professional astronomers in tracking one of two asteroids chosen especially for Asteroid Day on June 30, 2016. Add your email address so that some observations are scheduled in your name. You’ll get updates on the observations made of your asteroid.

Anyone can sign up to help this effort until 00:00 UTC on July 1 (translate to your time zone) at asteroidday.lcogt.net. Las Cumbers Observatory, which has 18 professional robotic telescopes at seven remote astronomical sites across the globe, said in a statement:

With this website, you can join the international campaign to study and raise awareness about asteroids.

By entering your email address, you will trigger observations on the global telescope network. Once your observations have been taken they are automatically combined with all other images of the selected asteroid, into a time-lapse video. You can view all of this on the Las Cumbres Observatory Asteroid Day website.

Las Cumbres Observatory’s Education Director Edward Gomez said:

Taking images of asteroids can be an involved process because they are moving through space. We wanted to simplify this process, making it into a single click that triggers a request for images on Las Cumbres Observatory.

Sarah Greenstreet, post-doctoral fellow on the Las Cumbres Observatory NEO team, added:

We chose two asteroids we wanted to study further, that would be passing close to Earth around Asteroid Day. By combining observations made by the public with some of our own we hope to learn about how fast they are rotating and what their surface is made from.

Asteroid Day is held each year on June 30, the anniversary of the largest impact in recent history, the 1908 Tunguska event in Siberia.

Here are Las Cumbres’ observing sites around the world

Still from a video by the Goldstone Radar Observing team, showing the tracks of Earth and asteroid 2010 NY65, one of the targets in Las Cumbres' Asteroid Day observing program.

Still from a video by the Goldstone Radar Observing team, showing the tracks of Earth and asteroid 2010 NY65, one of the targets in Las Cumbres’ Asteroid Day observing program.

Bottom line: Sign up with Las Cumbres Observatory to track asteroids on Asteroid Day.



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/29ogbBE

Our Moonshot pledge to accelerate research on detecting early signs of cancer

moons

In January 2016, US President Barack Obama announced a new effort to accelerate progress against cancer. Headed up by Obama’s Vice President Joe Biden, The Cancer Moonshot initiative aims to double the rate of new discovery, achieving “a decade’s worth of progress in five years”.

Today, Cancer Research UK is delighted to announce that we’re now the Cancer Moonshot’s first international partner, focusing on an area of huge importance to patients and the public, and one that’s vital to boosting survival: detect ing early signs of cancer.

To accelerate research on this critical area, we’ll be supporting the UK part of a ground-breaking collaboration between experts at our own Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, and those at the University of South California (USC).

dive

We’re exhilarated by the prospect of this new partnership, and at bringing this exciting new technology to the UK. — Prof Caroline Dive

At our Manchester Institute, Professor Caroline Dive has assembled a world-leading team to study the rare cells that break off from a patient’s tumour and travel through the bloodstream — so-called circulating tumour cells, or CTCs. By collecting and analysing CTCs, researchers can learn more about a patient’s disease — including the faulty genes driving it, whether it’s likely to come back after treatment and if so, how best to subsequently treat it.

But there’s a hitch. CTCs are hard to isolate and study because they are so scarce, and conventional techniques aren’t sensitive enough to use them for clinical decision-making.

On the other side of the Atlantic at USC, Professor Peter Kuhn’s team has developed a game-changing technology, called High-Definition Single Cell Analysis, or HD-SCA, that not only makes studying CTCs vastly more sensitive, it allows them to be analysed in many ways simultaneously.

In essence, rather than trying to isolate and purify these cells from a blood sample, HD-SCA captures the entire contents of a sample onto a specially treated glass slide. This means the sample’s contents can be analysed in exquisite detail, and stored for later analysis.

To bring this technology to the UK for the first time, we’ll be funding Professor Dive’s team to work with Professor Kuhn and his colleagues to set up identical labs in Manchester and USC, with real-time sharing of research data and experimental procedures — principles that we know are central to the Moonshot’s success.

Initially, the two teams plan to focus on blood samples from patients with early-stage lung and bowel cancer who have had their first round of treatment, to identify those who still have traces of cancer and so will relapse. This will give doctors the opportunity to start second-line treatments rapidly. In early-stage lung cancer, as many as 50% of patients relapse after surgery — so identifying them early could boost the chances of successful treatment, while cutting down the anxious wait for scan results.

kuhn

We’re excited to work with Caroline’s team and accelerate HD-SCA’s progression into routine use. — Prof Peter Kuhn

We know this idea, of monitoring what doctors call ‘minimal residual disease’ after treatment, can work as it’s transformed care in blood cancers like leukaemia. But techniques aren’t yet sensitive enough to be able to monitor patients with ‘solid’ tumours found in lung and bowel cancer.

We hope HD-SCA could change that, and that this pioneering international collaboration will accelerate its development and testing, hastening its transition to routine clinical use, and allowing it to reach patients around the world as quickly as possible.

And there’s even more promise on the horizon: as the teams refine and develop the technology, they eventually hope to use it to try to detect early signs of cancer in otherwise healthy people. If successful, this could lead to marked improvements in survival and cure.

At Cancer Research UK, we recognise that cancer knows no borders — and so we’re incredibly proud to be at the forefront of international research collaborations like this, and honoured to take part in Vice President Biden’s initiative to end cancer as we know it.

Find out more



from Cancer Research UK – Science blog http://ift.tt/28ZLZuB
moons

In January 2016, US President Barack Obama announced a new effort to accelerate progress against cancer. Headed up by Obama’s Vice President Joe Biden, The Cancer Moonshot initiative aims to double the rate of new discovery, achieving “a decade’s worth of progress in five years”.

Today, Cancer Research UK is delighted to announce that we’re now the Cancer Moonshot’s first international partner, focusing on an area of huge importance to patients and the public, and one that’s vital to boosting survival: detect ing early signs of cancer.

To accelerate research on this critical area, we’ll be supporting the UK part of a ground-breaking collaboration between experts at our own Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, and those at the University of South California (USC).

dive

We’re exhilarated by the prospect of this new partnership, and at bringing this exciting new technology to the UK. — Prof Caroline Dive

At our Manchester Institute, Professor Caroline Dive has assembled a world-leading team to study the rare cells that break off from a patient’s tumour and travel through the bloodstream — so-called circulating tumour cells, or CTCs. By collecting and analysing CTCs, researchers can learn more about a patient’s disease — including the faulty genes driving it, whether it’s likely to come back after treatment and if so, how best to subsequently treat it.

But there’s a hitch. CTCs are hard to isolate and study because they are so scarce, and conventional techniques aren’t sensitive enough to use them for clinical decision-making.

On the other side of the Atlantic at USC, Professor Peter Kuhn’s team has developed a game-changing technology, called High-Definition Single Cell Analysis, or HD-SCA, that not only makes studying CTCs vastly more sensitive, it allows them to be analysed in many ways simultaneously.

In essence, rather than trying to isolate and purify these cells from a blood sample, HD-SCA captures the entire contents of a sample onto a specially treated glass slide. This means the sample’s contents can be analysed in exquisite detail, and stored for later analysis.

To bring this technology to the UK for the first time, we’ll be funding Professor Dive’s team to work with Professor Kuhn and his colleagues to set up identical labs in Manchester and USC, with real-time sharing of research data and experimental procedures — principles that we know are central to the Moonshot’s success.

Initially, the two teams plan to focus on blood samples from patients with early-stage lung and bowel cancer who have had their first round of treatment, to identify those who still have traces of cancer and so will relapse. This will give doctors the opportunity to start second-line treatments rapidly. In early-stage lung cancer, as many as 50% of patients relapse after surgery — so identifying them early could boost the chances of successful treatment, while cutting down the anxious wait for scan results.

kuhn

We’re excited to work with Caroline’s team and accelerate HD-SCA’s progression into routine use. — Prof Peter Kuhn

We know this idea, of monitoring what doctors call ‘minimal residual disease’ after treatment, can work as it’s transformed care in blood cancers like leukaemia. But techniques aren’t yet sensitive enough to be able to monitor patients with ‘solid’ tumours found in lung and bowel cancer.

We hope HD-SCA could change that, and that this pioneering international collaboration will accelerate its development and testing, hastening its transition to routine clinical use, and allowing it to reach patients around the world as quickly as possible.

And there’s even more promise on the horizon: as the teams refine and develop the technology, they eventually hope to use it to try to detect early signs of cancer in otherwise healthy people. If successful, this could lead to marked improvements in survival and cure.

At Cancer Research UK, we recognise that cancer knows no borders — and so we’re incredibly proud to be at the forefront of international research collaborations like this, and honoured to take part in Vice President Biden’s initiative to end cancer as we know it.

Find out more



from Cancer Research UK – Science blog http://ift.tt/28ZLZuB

Juno on Jupiter’s doorstep

On June 21, 2016, NASA’s Juno spacecraft obtained this color view of Jupiter and the planet’s four largest moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

Juno will arrive at Jupiter on July 4. At this distance, 6.8 million miles (10.9 million kilometers), the alternating light and dark bands of the planet’s clouds are just beginning to come into view.

Juno, an unmanned spacecraft the size of a basketball court, launched on August 5, 2011. On July 4, 2016, the solar-powered spacecraft will enter orbit around Jupiter and fly within 2,900 miles (4,667 km) of the cloud tops of our solar system’s largest planet. It’ll be the first craft to orbit Jupiter since Galileo, which arrived in 1995 and spent eight years in orbit.

Read more: Juno to enter Jupiter orbit July 4

NASA described the spacecrafts approach:

Juno is approaching over Jupiter’s north pole, affording the spacecraft a unique perspective on the Jupiter system. Previous missions that imaged Jupiter on approach saw the system from much lower latitudes, closer to the planet’s equator.

Bottom line: NASA’s Juno spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Juno captured this image – in which the planet’s 4 largest moons are visible – on June 21, 2016.

Read more from NASA



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/295fOOV

On June 21, 2016, NASA’s Juno spacecraft obtained this color view of Jupiter and the planet’s four largest moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

Juno will arrive at Jupiter on July 4. At this distance, 6.8 million miles (10.9 million kilometers), the alternating light and dark bands of the planet’s clouds are just beginning to come into view.

Juno, an unmanned spacecraft the size of a basketball court, launched on August 5, 2011. On July 4, 2016, the solar-powered spacecraft will enter orbit around Jupiter and fly within 2,900 miles (4,667 km) of the cloud tops of our solar system’s largest planet. It’ll be the first craft to orbit Jupiter since Galileo, which arrived in 1995 and spent eight years in orbit.

Read more: Juno to enter Jupiter orbit July 4

NASA described the spacecrafts approach:

Juno is approaching over Jupiter’s north pole, affording the spacecraft a unique perspective on the Jupiter system. Previous missions that imaged Jupiter on approach saw the system from much lower latitudes, closer to the planet’s equator.

Bottom line: NASA’s Juno spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Juno captured this image – in which the planet’s 4 largest moons are visible – on June 21, 2016.

Read more from NASA



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/295fOOV

A huckster is rebuffed by the victims of a cancer fraudster. Hilarity ensues. [Respectful Insolence]

Forgive me, dear readers.

Ever since Mike Adams, the crank who runs and “alternative health” empire and a website with as much traffic as the NIH website, started targeting me two months ago with a series of libelous posts, I haven’t mentioned him much, for the simple reason that I don’t want to drive any traffic his way. Also, after his having posted 25(!) articles targeting me over the last two months, the most recent just this weekend, I realized that addressing him directly is too much like wrestling a pig in mud. You get dirty, and the pig likes it. However, yesterday, Adams outdid himself in a way that I had never seen before and in so doing revealed that families of patients wronged by a different kind of quack than the alternative medicine quacks usually discussed here recognize an opportunist when they see one. Adams’ reaction to these patients’ rejection of his offered “help” provided me with the most deliciously intense sensation of schadenfreude I can recall feeling in a long time.

The “different kind of quack” to whom I refer is Dr. Farid Fata. Dr. Fata, as you might recall, is an oncologist who was caught three years ago scamming Medicare and Medicaid by administering chemotherapy to patients for far longer than they needed it or even by administering chemotherapy to patients who didn’t need chemotherapy at all, many of whom didn’t even have cancer. Incredibly, he pulled in tens of millions of dollars a year with his scam. Fortunately, Dr. Fata was convicted and locked up for a very long time, never to practice medicine again. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of patients harmed by Dr. Fata out there, and the legal proceedings on behalf of these patients seeking compensation continue to grind on.

The most frustrating thing about Adams’ tirades against me have not been his actual tirades. After all, that he saw fit to post 25 attacks against me in a little more than two months is something that a skeptic can only view as a badge of honor, regardless of the problems it caused me. Even Adams’ explicit attempts to drag my cancer center’s name through the mud in his rants against it, his intent obviously to prod my cancer center leadership into pressuring me into shutting up. (It has not done so.) No, what’s been most despicable is that, over and over, Adams has tried to link me with the evil that is Dr. Fata. Never mind that I never met the man, much less worked with him. Never mind that Dr. Fata never had privileges at my cancer center. Never mind that I have nothing but contempt for Dr. Fata for what he has done and have publicly expressed that contempt. Unfortunately, another reason for my contempt is that Fata could not have provided a more useful greedy, chemotherapy-pushing villain for cancer quacks every where to point to if he had tried.

As a result, Adams has been relentless in trying to link my name to Dr. Fata. This, perhaps, will allow you to understand why I found Adams’ latest post, Health Ranger threatened by Dr. Fata chemotherapy victims group after attempting to donate immune-boosting nutritional supplements to its members, so hilarious. To understand why, you need to go back 8 weeks or so, when Adams, perhaps inspired by me, perhaps not (I don’t know, although he was in the middle of his first, most intensive wave of attacks on me), decided that he would offer to Dr. Fata’s patients his Nutrition Rescue Vitamin C from his Natural News Store in powder or capsule form, which he advertises as “100% non-GMO, China-free vitamin C sourced from Scotland,” all, to “boost the immune systems” of patients “harmed” by chemotherapy.

So what happened? This:

File this in the category of “no good deed goes unpunished.” After making a nationwide pledge to donate large volumes of immune-supporting vitamin C dietary supplements to victims of Dr. Farid Fata’s criminal cancer treatment fraud, I have now been directly threatened by the delusional leaders of the Patients and Families Treated by Dr. Fata group for daring to offer humanitarian assistance to their members.

Over the last eight weeks, since announcing my Nutrition Rescue donation program, myself and my staff have been repeatedly and persistently attempting to donate over $20,000 worth of non-GMO, laboratory verified vitamin C dietary supplements to victims of Dr. Farid Fata, the criminal cancer doctor now serving 45 years in prison for committing massive medical fraud.

Despite my long track record of making huge non-profit donations to victims all around the world (see the timeline and links below), the response to our attempted donations from the self-proclaimed “leaders” of the Dr. Fata victims group has been nothing short of sheer derision bordering on psychopathic lunacy. Today the leaders of the group hilariously threatened to report me to the FBI for daring to try to donate nutritional supplements to them.

Again, forgive me, dear readers, if I can’t help but note the irony here, given that Adams reported me to the FBI and my state attorney general two months ago for…what? Don’t ask. It was incredibly ridiculous. Now Adams is complaining when someone threatened to report him to the FBI? Delicious. I’ve never met any of the leaders of this group, but now I sure as heck would like to. As much as they’ve suffered at the hands of the quack Dr. Fata, they appear not to have lost their appreciation for science- and evidence-based medicine.

Of course, this being Mike Adams, he just can’t leave well enough alone and let it go, even though he should. These are, after all, patients and families who have suffered enormously at the hands of a greedy and evil doctor. Some died as a result. Let’s just put it this way. Adams brags about his “long track record of year after year of making very large donations of food, nutrition and food education grants to children, expectant mothers, families in developing nations and victims right here in the United States” and how he had “reached out with a sense of compassion, healing and a selfless attempt to help fellow brothers and sisters who had been victimized by a treacherous cancer fraudster,” while as the same time referring to cancer patients who have suffered enormously the “bedrock of victimhood insanity.” Stay classy, Mike. Stay classy.

Adams isn’t finished, though:

These cancer fraud victims, you see, have been told by some ignorant doctor that vitamin C is worthless. And they’ve been so brain damaged by Dr. Fata that they still believe whatever medical lies brainwashed doctors tell them. Nobody has told them that chemotherapy strips vitamin C and other nutrients from the body leaving patients in a state of nutritional deficiency. They aren’t interested in hearing that. They just want to be victims for as long as possible, it seems, while attacking and threatening anyone who might actually try to help them.

It makes me genuinely wonder: Just how badly did Dr. Fata’s illegal chemotherapy damage these people, anyway? (Seriously, that’s not a flippant insult. I am genuinely concerned that “chemo brain” side effects have damaged the brains of these people beyond any ability to reason, and I don’t know how to help them anymore…)

And keep in mind that if McDonald’s had offered to donate $20,000 in Chicken McNuggets to this group, they would have no doubt welcomed it with open arms, celebrating the McDonald’s corporation as being “compassionate” to cancer fraud victims.

I’m not that doctor who told Dr. Fata’s victims that vitamin C is useless for the simple reason that I’ve never met any of them. However, if any of them had approached me, I would have told her that Adams was massively overselling any potential benefits of vitamin C and, also, to run, not walk, away from him. Notice, though, how it’s not enough to refer to Dr. Fata’s victims as the “bedrock of victimhood insanity,” but Adams has to say they are brain damaged due to the chemotherapy they received. He is just that narcissistic. He really can’t imagine that someone who isn’t insane and/or brain damaged would turn him down. He really can’t imagine that someone who isn’t insane or brain damaged would see through his offer, which appeared to me to be nothing more than some very obvious self-promotion, a means of promoting himself and his website by attacking the “cancer industry” and doing something that can be sold as doing something good for Dr. Fata’s victims.

Of course, it never occurs to Adams that these are people who have been horribly wronged. They trusted Dr. Fata, and he betrayed them. Some have had family members die because of their trust in Dr. Fata. No doubt, since then, they’ve likely been approached by all manner of opportunists and fraudsters with glib promises. It would be not be the least bit surprising (to me, at least) if they were very cautious about people approaching them for anything—even to the point of being a little paranoid, because they don’t want to be victimized again or even just taken advantage of or used as a promotional tool. It would be completely understandable if that were true. One has to wonder how Adams approached them. Reading between the lines, it sounds as though he and his staff were relentless, which to me would send up red flags right there. Also, if you’ve ever seen Adams in his videos, you know he puts out a creepy vibe that instantly makes one not want to trust him. Whatever happened, I’d be very curious to hear the other side of the story.

Not satisfied with calling the victims of a cancer fraudster insane and brain damaged for having had the temerity to turn down his offer, Adams next pivots to urging the members to get rid of the leaders of their group, referring to the victims of Dr. Fata as a cult:

Some people just want to be victims, it turns out. Or they want to rule over victims they can control. It’s sick, demented and even cult-like in its influence over whatever human victims can be preyed upon. For whatever reason, the cancer industry seems to attract the most sick-minded victim predators of all, which is exactly why Dr. Farid Fata was able to get away with earning millions of dollars by exploiting innocent patient victims in the first place. Somehow, the cancer industry just seems to attract people who are willing to play an active role in their own victimization… and I really don’t get it. Doesn’t compute!

And then actively trying to shame leaders of a group of cancer patients defrauded by a greedy cancer quack before lecturing them that they should be thanking him for being such a fantastically generous guy:

To those leading the Dr. Farid Fata victims group, you should be ashamed of yourselves. You are fools — if not psychopaths — and you betray the interests of the 1400 victims you falsely claim to be assisting. You have taken 1400 victims of the cancer industry fraudsters and have made it worse for them. Do you have no ethics or morals whatsoever?

Funny, but that’s exactly the same question I’d ask Adams to his face if I were ever to meet him. Unfortunately, I know what the answer is, given his willingness to attack cancer patients defrauded by Dr. Fata because they appear to have seen through his “generosity.” In fact, it’s hard for me to decide who is worse: Dr. Fata or Mike Adams.



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/29bihsD

Forgive me, dear readers.

Ever since Mike Adams, the crank who runs and “alternative health” empire and a website with as much traffic as the NIH website, started targeting me two months ago with a series of libelous posts, I haven’t mentioned him much, for the simple reason that I don’t want to drive any traffic his way. Also, after his having posted 25(!) articles targeting me over the last two months, the most recent just this weekend, I realized that addressing him directly is too much like wrestling a pig in mud. You get dirty, and the pig likes it. However, yesterday, Adams outdid himself in a way that I had never seen before and in so doing revealed that families of patients wronged by a different kind of quack than the alternative medicine quacks usually discussed here recognize an opportunist when they see one. Adams’ reaction to these patients’ rejection of his offered “help” provided me with the most deliciously intense sensation of schadenfreude I can recall feeling in a long time.

The “different kind of quack” to whom I refer is Dr. Farid Fata. Dr. Fata, as you might recall, is an oncologist who was caught three years ago scamming Medicare and Medicaid by administering chemotherapy to patients for far longer than they needed it or even by administering chemotherapy to patients who didn’t need chemotherapy at all, many of whom didn’t even have cancer. Incredibly, he pulled in tens of millions of dollars a year with his scam. Fortunately, Dr. Fata was convicted and locked up for a very long time, never to practice medicine again. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of patients harmed by Dr. Fata out there, and the legal proceedings on behalf of these patients seeking compensation continue to grind on.

The most frustrating thing about Adams’ tirades against me have not been his actual tirades. After all, that he saw fit to post 25 attacks against me in a little more than two months is something that a skeptic can only view as a badge of honor, regardless of the problems it caused me. Even Adams’ explicit attempts to drag my cancer center’s name through the mud in his rants against it, his intent obviously to prod my cancer center leadership into pressuring me into shutting up. (It has not done so.) No, what’s been most despicable is that, over and over, Adams has tried to link me with the evil that is Dr. Fata. Never mind that I never met the man, much less worked with him. Never mind that Dr. Fata never had privileges at my cancer center. Never mind that I have nothing but contempt for Dr. Fata for what he has done and have publicly expressed that contempt. Unfortunately, another reason for my contempt is that Fata could not have provided a more useful greedy, chemotherapy-pushing villain for cancer quacks every where to point to if he had tried.

As a result, Adams has been relentless in trying to link my name to Dr. Fata. This, perhaps, will allow you to understand why I found Adams’ latest post, Health Ranger threatened by Dr. Fata chemotherapy victims group after attempting to donate immune-boosting nutritional supplements to its members, so hilarious. To understand why, you need to go back 8 weeks or so, when Adams, perhaps inspired by me, perhaps not (I don’t know, although he was in the middle of his first, most intensive wave of attacks on me), decided that he would offer to Dr. Fata’s patients his Nutrition Rescue Vitamin C from his Natural News Store in powder or capsule form, which he advertises as “100% non-GMO, China-free vitamin C sourced from Scotland,” all, to “boost the immune systems” of patients “harmed” by chemotherapy.

So what happened? This:

File this in the category of “no good deed goes unpunished.” After making a nationwide pledge to donate large volumes of immune-supporting vitamin C dietary supplements to victims of Dr. Farid Fata’s criminal cancer treatment fraud, I have now been directly threatened by the delusional leaders of the Patients and Families Treated by Dr. Fata group for daring to offer humanitarian assistance to their members.

Over the last eight weeks, since announcing my Nutrition Rescue donation program, myself and my staff have been repeatedly and persistently attempting to donate over $20,000 worth of non-GMO, laboratory verified vitamin C dietary supplements to victims of Dr. Farid Fata, the criminal cancer doctor now serving 45 years in prison for committing massive medical fraud.

Despite my long track record of making huge non-profit donations to victims all around the world (see the timeline and links below), the response to our attempted donations from the self-proclaimed “leaders” of the Dr. Fata victims group has been nothing short of sheer derision bordering on psychopathic lunacy. Today the leaders of the group hilariously threatened to report me to the FBI for daring to try to donate nutritional supplements to them.

Again, forgive me, dear readers, if I can’t help but note the irony here, given that Adams reported me to the FBI and my state attorney general two months ago for…what? Don’t ask. It was incredibly ridiculous. Now Adams is complaining when someone threatened to report him to the FBI? Delicious. I’ve never met any of the leaders of this group, but now I sure as heck would like to. As much as they’ve suffered at the hands of the quack Dr. Fata, they appear not to have lost their appreciation for science- and evidence-based medicine.

Of course, this being Mike Adams, he just can’t leave well enough alone and let it go, even though he should. These are, after all, patients and families who have suffered enormously at the hands of a greedy and evil doctor. Some died as a result. Let’s just put it this way. Adams brags about his “long track record of year after year of making very large donations of food, nutrition and food education grants to children, expectant mothers, families in developing nations and victims right here in the United States” and how he had “reached out with a sense of compassion, healing and a selfless attempt to help fellow brothers and sisters who had been victimized by a treacherous cancer fraudster,” while as the same time referring to cancer patients who have suffered enormously the “bedrock of victimhood insanity.” Stay classy, Mike. Stay classy.

Adams isn’t finished, though:

These cancer fraud victims, you see, have been told by some ignorant doctor that vitamin C is worthless. And they’ve been so brain damaged by Dr. Fata that they still believe whatever medical lies brainwashed doctors tell them. Nobody has told them that chemotherapy strips vitamin C and other nutrients from the body leaving patients in a state of nutritional deficiency. They aren’t interested in hearing that. They just want to be victims for as long as possible, it seems, while attacking and threatening anyone who might actually try to help them.

It makes me genuinely wonder: Just how badly did Dr. Fata’s illegal chemotherapy damage these people, anyway? (Seriously, that’s not a flippant insult. I am genuinely concerned that “chemo brain” side effects have damaged the brains of these people beyond any ability to reason, and I don’t know how to help them anymore…)

And keep in mind that if McDonald’s had offered to donate $20,000 in Chicken McNuggets to this group, they would have no doubt welcomed it with open arms, celebrating the McDonald’s corporation as being “compassionate” to cancer fraud victims.

I’m not that doctor who told Dr. Fata’s victims that vitamin C is useless for the simple reason that I’ve never met any of them. However, if any of them had approached me, I would have told her that Adams was massively overselling any potential benefits of vitamin C and, also, to run, not walk, away from him. Notice, though, how it’s not enough to refer to Dr. Fata’s victims as the “bedrock of victimhood insanity,” but Adams has to say they are brain damaged due to the chemotherapy they received. He is just that narcissistic. He really can’t imagine that someone who isn’t insane and/or brain damaged would turn him down. He really can’t imagine that someone who isn’t insane or brain damaged would see through his offer, which appeared to me to be nothing more than some very obvious self-promotion, a means of promoting himself and his website by attacking the “cancer industry” and doing something that can be sold as doing something good for Dr. Fata’s victims.

Of course, it never occurs to Adams that these are people who have been horribly wronged. They trusted Dr. Fata, and he betrayed them. Some have had family members die because of their trust in Dr. Fata. No doubt, since then, they’ve likely been approached by all manner of opportunists and fraudsters with glib promises. It would be not be the least bit surprising (to me, at least) if they were very cautious about people approaching them for anything—even to the point of being a little paranoid, because they don’t want to be victimized again or even just taken advantage of or used as a promotional tool. It would be completely understandable if that were true. One has to wonder how Adams approached them. Reading between the lines, it sounds as though he and his staff were relentless, which to me would send up red flags right there. Also, if you’ve ever seen Adams in his videos, you know he puts out a creepy vibe that instantly makes one not want to trust him. Whatever happened, I’d be very curious to hear the other side of the story.

Not satisfied with calling the victims of a cancer fraudster insane and brain damaged for having had the temerity to turn down his offer, Adams next pivots to urging the members to get rid of the leaders of their group, referring to the victims of Dr. Fata as a cult:

Some people just want to be victims, it turns out. Or they want to rule over victims they can control. It’s sick, demented and even cult-like in its influence over whatever human victims can be preyed upon. For whatever reason, the cancer industry seems to attract the most sick-minded victim predators of all, which is exactly why Dr. Farid Fata was able to get away with earning millions of dollars by exploiting innocent patient victims in the first place. Somehow, the cancer industry just seems to attract people who are willing to play an active role in their own victimization… and I really don’t get it. Doesn’t compute!

And then actively trying to shame leaders of a group of cancer patients defrauded by a greedy cancer quack before lecturing them that they should be thanking him for being such a fantastically generous guy:

To those leading the Dr. Farid Fata victims group, you should be ashamed of yourselves. You are fools — if not psychopaths — and you betray the interests of the 1400 victims you falsely claim to be assisting. You have taken 1400 victims of the cancer industry fraudsters and have made it worse for them. Do you have no ethics or morals whatsoever?

Funny, but that’s exactly the same question I’d ask Adams to his face if I were ever to meet him. Unfortunately, I know what the answer is, given his willingness to attack cancer patients defrauded by Dr. Fata because they appear to have seen through his “generosity.” In fact, it’s hard for me to decide who is worse: Dr. Fata or Mike Adams.



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/29bihsD

Imagine the ecliptic, or sun’s path

Ready? Set? Let’s try to imagine the ecliptic, or sun’s yearly path across our sky. Then I’ll point out some planets in the evening sky that can help you find the ecliptic, in your night sky.

The video below does a good job at showing the ecliptic for what it really is. It’s really a function of Earth’s orbit around the sun, but appeared to the early stargazers as simply the sun’s yearly path in front of the backdrop stars. They thought the Earth was stationary, while the sun revolved around it. But of course Earth goes around the sun, and the sun’s apparent motion through the heavens is a reflection of our planet’s orbit.

Image top of post via pics-about-space.com

So astronomers use the word ecliptic to mean both the imaginary great circle etched onto the surface of an imaginary celestial sphere, and also to mean the plane of Earth’s orbit around the sun. The ecliptic is a projection of Earth’s orbital plane onto the stars. We call those special stars and constellations along the sun’s annual path the Zodiac.

Look here for dates of sun’s entry into Zodiac constellations.

Because the solar system planets orbit the sun on nearly the same plane that the Earth circles the sun, practiced sky gazers know to look for the planets on or near the ecliptic.

Planets in late June, early July, 2016. If you're in the S. Hemisphere, turn this chart upside down and face north!

Planets and stars on the ecliptic in late June and early July, 2016. If you’re in the S. Hemisphere, turn this chart upside down and face north!

Look westward at nightfall for the dazzling planet Jupiter, the brightest star-like object in the evening sky, and the star Regulus, the brightest in the constellation Leo the Lion'.

The bright star Regulus, near Jupiter, is also on the ecliptic, but it sets in early evening. Look soon after sunset.

In summer, 2016 – or winter, 2016 if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere – three brilliant planets (Jupiter, Mars Saturn) and three bright stars of the Zodiac (Regulus, Antares, Spica) can introduce you to the ecliptic in your night sky.

First, look westward for dazzling Jupiter, the brightest starlike object in the evening sky. Below Jupiter, fairly low in the sky, you’ll find Regulus, brightest star in Leo the Lion. Regulus sinks below the horizon as evening deepens, so catch this star at nightfall, if you can.

Next, look for Mars. It’s the second-brightest “star” to grace the nighttime, after Jupiter. From the Northern Hemisphere, Mars shines relatively low in the southern sky at nightfall and early evening. From the Southern Hemisphere, it appears high in the north, nearly overhead by mid-evening.

Finally, star hop from Mars to the nearby planet Saturn and the ruddy star Antares. They are located to Mars’ east. Then, in between Mars and Jupiter, look for sparkling blue-white Spica, the only bright star to shine in between these two brilliant worlds.

Practiced sky gazers might even want to try finding Zubenelgenubi, the modestly-bright star to the west of Mars.

Now … draw a line between all of these objects. That imaginary line on your sky’s dome will mark the ecliptic or sun’s path, shown in green on our charts.

Have fun!

Bottom line: Spot three brilliant planets and three bright stars. Then use your mind’s eye to imagine the ecliptic, or sun’s path, crossing your night sky.



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/296NlYb

Ready? Set? Let’s try to imagine the ecliptic, or sun’s yearly path across our sky. Then I’ll point out some planets in the evening sky that can help you find the ecliptic, in your night sky.

The video below does a good job at showing the ecliptic for what it really is. It’s really a function of Earth’s orbit around the sun, but appeared to the early stargazers as simply the sun’s yearly path in front of the backdrop stars. They thought the Earth was stationary, while the sun revolved around it. But of course Earth goes around the sun, and the sun’s apparent motion through the heavens is a reflection of our planet’s orbit.

Image top of post via pics-about-space.com

So astronomers use the word ecliptic to mean both the imaginary great circle etched onto the surface of an imaginary celestial sphere, and also to mean the plane of Earth’s orbit around the sun. The ecliptic is a projection of Earth’s orbital plane onto the stars. We call those special stars and constellations along the sun’s annual path the Zodiac.

Look here for dates of sun’s entry into Zodiac constellations.

Because the solar system planets orbit the sun on nearly the same plane that the Earth circles the sun, practiced sky gazers know to look for the planets on or near the ecliptic.

Planets in late June, early July, 2016. If you're in the S. Hemisphere, turn this chart upside down and face north!

Planets and stars on the ecliptic in late June and early July, 2016. If you’re in the S. Hemisphere, turn this chart upside down and face north!

Look westward at nightfall for the dazzling planet Jupiter, the brightest star-like object in the evening sky, and the star Regulus, the brightest in the constellation Leo the Lion'.

The bright star Regulus, near Jupiter, is also on the ecliptic, but it sets in early evening. Look soon after sunset.

In summer, 2016 – or winter, 2016 if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere – three brilliant planets (Jupiter, Mars Saturn) and three bright stars of the Zodiac (Regulus, Antares, Spica) can introduce you to the ecliptic in your night sky.

First, look westward for dazzling Jupiter, the brightest starlike object in the evening sky. Below Jupiter, fairly low in the sky, you’ll find Regulus, brightest star in Leo the Lion. Regulus sinks below the horizon as evening deepens, so catch this star at nightfall, if you can.

Next, look for Mars. It’s the second-brightest “star” to grace the nighttime, after Jupiter. From the Northern Hemisphere, Mars shines relatively low in the southern sky at nightfall and early evening. From the Southern Hemisphere, it appears high in the north, nearly overhead by mid-evening.

Finally, star hop from Mars to the nearby planet Saturn and the ruddy star Antares. They are located to Mars’ east. Then, in between Mars and Jupiter, look for sparkling blue-white Spica, the only bright star to shine in between these two brilliant worlds.

Practiced sky gazers might even want to try finding Zubenelgenubi, the modestly-bright star to the west of Mars.

Now … draw a line between all of these objects. That imaginary line on your sky’s dome will mark the ecliptic or sun’s path, shown in green on our charts.

Have fun!

Bottom line: Spot three brilliant planets and three bright stars. Then use your mind’s eye to imagine the ecliptic, or sun’s path, crossing your night sky.



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/296NlYb

Secret to safer stem cell therapy or cure for cancer? [Life Lines]

Nacktmull.jpg

Image of a naked mole rat By Roman Klementschitz, Wien – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, http://ift.tt/291RBK0

Researchers trying to find cures for cancer find naked mole rats rather interesting. Not only are these animals long-lived by rodent standards, they are also resistant to the development of cancer. By long-lived, we are talking up to 30 years! A team of researchers from Hokkaido University and Keio University in Japan have now isolated stem cells from the skin of naked mole rats and induced them to revert back to pluripotent stem cells, the type capable of developing into any tissue in the body. The problem researchers experience when working with these cells from other animals is that they can become tumors after they are transplanted.

Stem cells from naked mole rats are different. Unlike transplanted pluripotent stem cells from humans and mice, cells transplanted from naked mole rats do not develop tumors. Through further research, the team discovered that a gene responsible for suppressing tumor growth stays active in the stem cells from naked mole rats whereas it is suppressed in cells from mice and humans.  In addition, they found that naked mole rats have a dysfunctional gene that in mice causes tumors to develop.

The hope is that this exciting research will lead to advancements in stem cell therapy that will make the process safer by avoiding tumor growth as well as perhaps lead to advancements in cancer therapy.

Source:

Medical Press

Miyawaki S, Kawamura Y, Oiwa Y, Shimizu A, Hachiya T, Bono H, Koya I, Okada Y, Kimura T, Tsuchiya Y, Suzuki S, Onishi N, Kuzumaki N, Matsuzaki Y, Narita M, Ikeda E, Okanoya K, Seino K, Saya H, Okano H, Miura K. Tumour resistance in induced pluripotent stem cells derived from naked mole-rats. Nature Communications. 7:11471, 2016. doi: 10.1038/ncomms11471



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/291Q7e5
Nacktmull.jpg

Image of a naked mole rat By Roman Klementschitz, Wien – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, http://ift.tt/291RBK0

Researchers trying to find cures for cancer find naked mole rats rather interesting. Not only are these animals long-lived by rodent standards, they are also resistant to the development of cancer. By long-lived, we are talking up to 30 years! A team of researchers from Hokkaido University and Keio University in Japan have now isolated stem cells from the skin of naked mole rats and induced them to revert back to pluripotent stem cells, the type capable of developing into any tissue in the body. The problem researchers experience when working with these cells from other animals is that they can become tumors after they are transplanted.

Stem cells from naked mole rats are different. Unlike transplanted pluripotent stem cells from humans and mice, cells transplanted from naked mole rats do not develop tumors. Through further research, the team discovered that a gene responsible for suppressing tumor growth stays active in the stem cells from naked mole rats whereas it is suppressed in cells from mice and humans.  In addition, they found that naked mole rats have a dysfunctional gene that in mice causes tumors to develop.

The hope is that this exciting research will lead to advancements in stem cell therapy that will make the process safer by avoiding tumor growth as well as perhaps lead to advancements in cancer therapy.

Source:

Medical Press

Miyawaki S, Kawamura Y, Oiwa Y, Shimizu A, Hachiya T, Bono H, Koya I, Okada Y, Kimura T, Tsuchiya Y, Suzuki S, Onishi N, Kuzumaki N, Matsuzaki Y, Narita M, Ikeda E, Okanoya K, Seino K, Saya H, Okano H, Miura K. Tumour resistance in induced pluripotent stem cells derived from naked mole-rats. Nature Communications. 7:11471, 2016. doi: 10.1038/ncomms11471



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/291Q7e5