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Jan 6, 2019

Can Cancer Care Be Industrialized? Vanderbilt And GE Are Teaming Up To Find Out

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, business, neuroscience

By the time he was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma, Luke Simons, now 83, had already watched his wife and his longtime business partner struggle with cancer. His wife had chemo for her breast cancer 20 years ago. His business partner with multiple myeloma died 5 years ago. “I was obviously aware of what it could do,” he says of cancer. And of chemo, “my God, that can be just horrible what that can do to you.”

As soon as he got the diagnosis, Simons’ doctor at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (where his wife is on the board) told him about how president Jimmy Carter’s metastatic melanoma had just become undetectable after taking Merck’s new drug Keytruda, which enables a person’s immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells. The doctor gave Simons the option of Keytruda, and he took it.

After his first dose, Simons developed pneumonitis, which he aptly describes as a “fever in my lungs,” that made his doctor question whether to continue the treatment. He did, and the cancer that had spread to Simons’ brain and pancreas is not showing up on scans, three years later.

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Jan 6, 2019

Wash U scientist helps launch telescope from Antarctica to see bright objects in space

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Just before the new year, a Washington University professor was among a group of scientists who launched a telescope from Antarctica that could observe bright, massive objects in space, like black holes.

The international team of researchers, which included Wash U physics professor Henric Krawczynski, wanted to collect data on black holes and neutron stars, a very dense collapsed core of a giant star.

Studying such celestial phenomena helps astrophysicists test the fundamental laws of physics, Krawczynski said.

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Jan 6, 2019

Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s ‘The Physicists’

Posted by in categories: ethics, physics

On January 5, 1921, Swiss author and dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt was born. Dürrenmatt was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author ‘s work included avant-garde dramas, philosophical crime novels, and macabre satire. Especially his play “The Physicists” ( 1961 ) deals with questions of scientific ethics and humanity ‘s ability to handle its intellectual responsibilities.

“A story is not finished, until it has taken the worst turn.” (Friedrich Dürrenmatt)

Friedrich Dürrenmatt was born in Konolfingen, a small town about thirteen miles from Bern in the Emmental in Switzerland, the son of a Protestant pastor. The family moved to Bern in 1935. Dürrenmatt began studies in philosophy, German language and literature at the University of Zurich in 1941, but moved to the University of Bern after one semester. It was here that he first became interested in playwriting after becoming a regular patron of the operettas. Among his favorite playwrights were Aristophanes and Thornton Wilder.[3] In December 1943 he was on the point of transferring from the University of Zürich to the University of Bern, where he intended to write a doctoral dissertation on “Kierkegaard and the Tragic ”, when he suddenly decided to turn to writing as a career and dropped his academic career. In 1945–46, he wrote his first play It is Written, which premiered to great controversy.

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Jan 6, 2019

Gravitational Waves Might be the Key to Finding Dark Matter

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Exotic dark matter theories. Gravitational waves. Observatories in space. Giant black holes. Colliding galaxies. Lasers. If you’re a fan of all the awesomest stuff in the universe, then this article is for you.


Jan 6, 2019

Meet the Filipina Engineer Who Struggled in Math But Now Works at NASA

Posted by in category: mathematics

“Push your limits, get out of your comfort zone, and pick tasks that are harder than what you’re used to,” she says.


Science wasn’t always her first choice.

By Christa I. De La Cruz

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Jan 6, 2019

A Physics Breakthrough Could Lead to a New Generation of Advanced Electronics

Posted by in categories: computing, particle physics

Get ready to get excited about excitons.

Excitons are quirky quasiparticles that exist only in semiconducting and insulating materials. Recently, a team of researchers in Lausanne, Switzerland discovered a way to control how excitons flow. Not only that, they also discovered new properties of the particles which they claim could lead to a new generation of electronic devices with transistors that lose less energy as heat. The results of their study were published this week in the journal Nature Photonics.

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Jan 6, 2019

Elon Musk’s vision of spaceflight is gorgeous

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel

The image here come from Elon Musk and is concept art of the Starship test vehicle SpaceX is currently assembling at its Boca Chica, Texas launch facility. The real thing will be even better. This test vehicle is shorter and lacks the windows of the production ship that will eventually go into production.

Starship test vehicle under assembly will look similar to this illustration when finished. Operational Starships would obv have windows, etc. pic.twitter.com/D8AJ01mjyR

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Jan 6, 2019

The science stories likely to make headlines in 2019

Posted by in categories: cosmology, policy, science

Scientists in Europe and the United States face an uncertain political landscape in the new year, which could affect funding and collaborations. The threat is most acute in the United Kingdom, which plans to exit the European Union in March but has not settled on the terms of its departure. Some big research findings could share the headlines, however, including the first clear images of the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy, from astronomers in an international collaboration called the Event Horizon Telescope. Science’s news staff forecasts other areas of research and policy likely to make news this year.


Science’s news editors and writers predict this year’s biggest developments.

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Jan 5, 2019

Approaching the Uncanny Valley

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Simulative Emotional Expression Robot

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Jan 5, 2019

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Goes Vertical for First Test Launch

Posted by in category: transportation

It could end American dependence on Russian transportation.

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