Cancer breakthrough?

I find this article from The Independent to be borderline astonishing.  If true, it sounds like there was a giant leap forward in the treatment of prostate cancer…

Two patients with inoperable prostate cancer have made dramatic recoveries after receiving one dose of an experimental drug that is creating excitement among cancer specialists.

he results were so startling that researchers decided to release details of the two cases before the drug trial – in which the patients took part – was complete. Doctors said their progress had exceeded all expectations. The men were treated at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota in the US, one of the top medical centres in the world.

Let’s not get our hopes up yet, however, as this drug (Ipilimumab) has not experienced the same results in previous studies.  Also, further researcher is expected this fall with larger patient groups.

One thing to note, it very well may NOT be the experimental drug Impilimumab providing the results:

The other cautionary note is that both men received hormone therapy, which in some instances causes dramatic reductions in tumour size by itself.

It will be interesting to watch.

Times Reporter Held by Taliban Escapes

Apparently David Rohde, a New York Times reporter, was captured by the Taliban roughly 7 months ago as he was researching a book outside of Kabul last November. You did hear about this?  Neither did I, apparently the Times had an information embargo concerning the capture due to safety concerns.

“From the early days of this ordeal, the prevailing view among David’s family, experts in kidnapping cases, officials of several governments and others we consulted was that going public could increase the danger to David and the other hostages. The kidnappers initially said as much,” said Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times. “We decided to respect that advice, as we have in other kidnapping cases, and a number of other news organizations that learned of David’s plight have done the same. We are enormously grateful for their support.”

I’d say this gives the concept of book research a whole new meaning.

Prototype Nokia phone recharges without wires

Now this is just… well… sexy.  A new prototype phone from Nokia is able to recharge without the need for a wired power source.

Nokia, however, has taken another baby step in that direction with the invention of a cell phone that recharges itself using a unique system: It harvests ambient radio waves from the air, and turns that energy into usable power. Enough, at least, to keep a cell phone from running out of juice.

This has the potential to be game changing.  A dead cell phone, or other small electronic device, could easily be a thing of the past.

Simply harvesting radio waves and converting the the collected waves into energy is brilliant.  The funny thing is that genius electrical engineer Nikola Tesla managed to do something very similar to this very thing over 100 years ago.  Even more impressive, Tesla managed to light bulbs over large distances, without wires, in Colorado Springs by using the Earth’s surface.

It’s too bad that the world had to wait over 100 years to put some of Tesla’s research to work.