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Comment by Pope Beanie on December 13, 2014 at 5:48pm

Link between vitamin D and dementia risk confirmed

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with a substantially increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in older people, according to the most robust study of its kind ever conducted.

An international team, led by Dr David Llewellyn at the University of Exeter Medical School, found that study participants who were severely Vitamin D deficient were more than twice as likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Comment by Pope Beanie on March 3, 2014 at 3:48am

UCLA study finds robotic-assisted prostate surgery offers better cancer control

By Shaun Mason February 27, 2014

Dr. Jim Hu

An observational study from UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found that prostate cancer patients who undergo robotic-assisted prostate surgery have fewer instances of cancer cells at the edge of their surgical specimen and less need for additional cancer treatments like hormone or radiation therapy than patients who have traditional "open" surgery.

 

(read whole article)

 

The team also assessed the use of additional cancer therapies — a hormone therapy known as androgen deprivation, as well as radiation — after robotic surgery and open surgery.

 

They found that robotic prostate surgery was associated with 5 percent fewer positive margins (13.6 percent vs. 18.3 percent); this difference was greater for patients with intermediate and high-risk prostate cancer. Patients who had robotic surgery also had a one-third reduction in the likelihood of needing additional cancer therapies within 24 months after surgery.

 

Despite the greater up-front cost of robotic surgery, the findings show that the procedure may translate into less downstream costs and fewer side effects from radiation and hormone therapy, the researchers said.

Comment by CelestialTeapot on July 18, 2013 at 12:59pm

Check out our science issue: Science: the Good, the Bad & the Weird! We've got: Noetic Science, Stem Cells & the Future, Immortal Jellyfish, Bad Medicine, Atheist Stereotypes & more. 

http://www.celestialteapotmagazine.com/

Comment by ɐuɐz ǝllǝıuɐp on July 2, 2013 at 6:53pm

Comment by RockyTIJ on March 7, 2013 at 11:21pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locard%27s_exchange_principle

Comment by Pope Beanie on November 27, 2012 at 1:17pm

Humanity’s last invention and our uncertain future

A philosopher, a scientist and a software engineer have come together to propose a new centre at Cambridge to address developments in human technologies that might pose “extinction-level” risks to our species, from biotechnology to artificial intelligence.

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In 1965, Irving John ‘Jack’ Good sat down and wrote a paper for New Scientist called Speculations concerning the first ultra-intelligent machine. Good, a Cambridge-trained mathematician, Bletchley Park cryptographer, pioneering computer scientist and friend of Alan Turing, wrote that in the near future an ultra-intelligent machine would be built.

This machine, he continued, would be the “last invention” that mankind will ever make, leading to an “intelligence explosion” – an exponential increase in self-generating machine intelligence. For Good, who went on to advise Stanley Kubrick on 2001: a Space Odyssey, the “survival of man” depended on the construction of this ultra-intelligent machine.

Fast forward almost 50 years and the world looks very different. Computers dominate modern life across vast swathes of the planet, underpinning key functions of global governance and economics, increasing precision in healthcare, monitoring identity and facilitating most forms of communication – from the paradigm shifting to the most personally intimate. Technology advances for the most part unchecked and unabated.

While few would deny the benefits humanity has received as a result of its engineering genius – from longer life to global networks – some are starting to question whether the acceleration of human technologies will result in the survival of man, as Good contended, or if in fact this is the very thing that will end us.

Now a philosopher, a scientist and a software engineer have come together to propose a new centre at Cambridge, the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER), to address these cases – from developments in bio and nanotechnology to extreme climate change and even artificial intelligence – in which technology might pose “extinction-level” risks to our species.

Read rest of article here.

With so much at stake, we need to do a better job of understanding the risks of potentially catastrophic technologies."

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—Huw Price

Comment by Pope Beanie on September 16, 2011 at 2:01am

Bioethicists Offer Reward For Proof On HPV Vaccine Claim

Even as Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann backs off some from an inflammatory claim that a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer led to mental retardation in a young girl, two bioethicists are turning up the heat.

...

...Dr. Steven Miles, a bioethicist at the University of Minnesota, has ponied up $1,000 if the mother Bachmann talked about can produce medical proof that her daughter suffered mental retardation from the HPV vaccine, the Star Tribune reports. "These types of messages in this climate have the capacity to do enormous public health harm," Miles told the paper. "It's an extremely serious claim and it deserves to be analyzed."

And Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania has placed what amounts to a $10,000 bet on the issue. He, too, wants proof of the claim and described his wager with Bachmann on Twitter...

Read and/or listen to whole story here.

 

Comment by Jaume on July 15, 2011 at 5:51am

When we find an arrow head we can see that something created it. The chances of an arrow head being created by some rocks falling down a cliff and hitting each other just right are just astronomical so we assume that it was created by man an intelligent designer.

 

When we find Jesus' face on a dog's butt we can see that something created it. The chances of Jesus' face on a dog's butt being created by some hair growing around its ass and being colored just right are just astronomical so we assume that it was created by man an intelligent designer.

Comment by RockyTIJ on July 14, 2011 at 5:40pm

Dallas,

Mind-boggling, ain't it?

Six words:

    Blinded by the veil of faith.

Take care,

Rocky

Comment by Jon van Rooyen on June 16, 2011 at 12:40pm

Currently reading "The Canon: The beautiful basics of Science" by Natalie Angier. Awesome book so far! Just wanted to share a quote I came across in it that I particularly like. Natalie is speaking of how a lot of people (including many scientists) dispute certain theories because they believe it is a matter of opinion or bias.

The quote:

"Those of us who are not overly philosophical believe that there is a reality to nature but that it can be very hard to see it and understand it, given all our biases" - Elliot Meyerowitz

It's a simple thing really, but I think if more people understood the difference between scientific fact (supported by evidence) and opinion, we may just break through to the next level in our understanding of the universe. I fear we as "intelligent" humans may be quite far off from that, however.

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