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c0lo writes:

The Oncotarget journal (open access) publishes an article (CC Attribution license - full text PDF and HTML available) which shows that 5 classes of antibiotics, already known and approved, can be used to fight 8 types of cancers; as such, the authors literally propose to treat cancer as any infectious disease. Abstract follows:

Here, we propose a new strategy for the treatment of early cancerous lesions and advanced metastatic disease, via the selective targeting of cancer stem cells (CSCs), a.k.a., tumor-initiating cells (TICs). We searched for a global phenotypic characteristic that was highly conserved among cancer stem cells, across multiple tumor types, to provide a mutation-independent approach to cancer therapy. This would allow us to target cancer stem cells, effectively treating cancer as a single disease of “stemness”, independently of the tumor tissue type. Using this approach, we identified a conserved phenotypic weak point – a strict dependence on mitochondrial biogenesis for the clonal expansion and survival of cancer stem cells. Interestingly, several classes of FDA-approved antibiotics inhibit mitochondrial biogenesis as a known “side-effect”, which could be harnessed instead as a “therapeutic effect”. Based on this analysis, we now show that 4-to-5 different classes of FDA-approved drugs can be used to eradicate cancer stem cells, in 12 different cancer cell lines, across 8 different tumor types (breast, DCIS, ovarian, prostate, lung, pancreatic, melanoma, and glioblastoma (brain)). These five classes of mitochondrially-targeted antibiotics include: the erythromycins, the tetracyclines, the glycylcyclines, an anti-parasitic drug, and chloramphenicol. Functional data are presented for one antibiotic in each drug class: azithromycin, doxycycline, tigecycline, pyrvinium pamoate, as well as chloramphenicol, as proof-of-concept. Importantly, many of these drugs are non-toxic for normal cells, likely reducing the side effects of anti-cancer therapy. Thus, we now propose to treat cancer like an infectious disease, by repurposing FDA-approved antibiotics for anti-cancer therapy, across multiple tumor types. These drug classes should also be considered for prevention studies, specifically focused on the prevention of tumor recurrence and distant metastasis. Finally, recent clinical trials with doxycycline and azithromycin (intended to target cancer-associated infections, but not cancer cells) have already shown positive therapeutic effects in cancer patients, although their ability to eradicate cancer stem cells was not yet appreciated.

BK writes:

The Telegraph reports "The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"

From the article:

"When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified."

It seems that the norm in science may well be to cherry pick the results, but the story points to evidence that some climate data may have been falsified to fit the theory.

Sure, it's clickbait, but we've recently discussed cases where science and scientific consensus has gotten it so very wrong. Can we trust the science if we can't trust the data?

buswolley writes:

[At the time of this submission] There are only 3 stories in the queue.

Discuss.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

A group of researchers has announced that a phytochemical (plant chemical) found in numerous fruits and vegetables, in particular certain red grapes, appears to create metabolic changes in the human liver and fat cells that may help fight obesity. The authors of the study exposed lab-grown human tissue to four chemicals found naturally in the dark red muscadine grape native to the southeastern US. One of the four, ellagic acid (EA), was found to dramatically decrease the growth rate of existing fat cells, and the creation of new ones.

From the paper (Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry):

One of the paper's authors, Oregon State biochemist Neil Shay, explained in an interview that the research was, in part, an extension of a previous study in which Shay and others researched the effect of extracts of ellagic acid on mice, using extract of Pinot Noir grapes. In that study, the mice were divided into three groups: a control group fed ordinary (10 percent fat) "mouse chow", a second group administered a high fat (60 percent) diet, and a third group given the high fat diet plus EA supplements. Shay says that at the end of the 10 week study, as expected, the second group exhibited high blood sugar and diabetic symptoms, similar to obese humans. However, the third group had less fat in their livers compared with the second group, and their blood sugar was almost as low as the control group. Shay says the mice in the third group were found to have higher activity levels of PPAR-alpha and PPAR-gamma, proteins which metabolize fat and sugar.

Ellagic acid is a phytochemical present in numerous fruits and vegetables. It is currently sold as a dietary supplement in the USA, but is outside the regulatory jurisdiction of the US Food and Drug Administration; the American Cancer Society warns that the cancer-fighting benefits, and safety for human consumption, of these supplements have not been proven.

martyb writes:

According to Alex Knapp at Forbes, SpaceX DSCOVR Launch Postponed To Monday. From the article:

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch scheduled for this evening has been postponed. The reason stated for halting the launch is “due to loss of the Air Force’s Eastern Range radar, which is required for launch,” said a company spokesperson.

The Falcon 9 was set to deliver NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite. When launched, this spacecraft will stay between the Earth and the Sun and it’s mission is to provide early warning of potential dangerous solar winds, which can affect infrastructure like communications systems. It will also be used for scientific investigations of the Sun.

[...] The next opportunity for the SpaceX launch is Monday, February 9 at 6:07pm ET.

It also mentions an another attempt at landing the booster on a sea-based platform, but it is expected to be much more difficult due to additional force and heat.

[Update: This should be the SpaceX Webcast of Falcon 9 DSCOVR Launch.]

"gewg_" writes:

The Huffington Post reports

In our Petition for Investigation of Time Warner Cable (TWC) and Comcast, we point out that TWC's High-Speed Internet service has a 97 percent profit margin and a number of people asked how that statistic was derived. Simple. Time Warner Cable provides the information, (with some caveats).

Below is the actual financial information excerpted from the Time Warner Cable, 2013 SEC-filed annual report. (Please note that this same mathematics is also used by Comcast and probably Verizon and AT&T, though they do not explicitly detail their financials in this way.)

Moreover, we need to put this financial information in context to what customers are paying, and more specifically with the Time Warner Cable Triple Play bill that's been featured in previous articles.
[...]
  Net Neutrality, Competition, and Fees to Competitors

In the current FCC proceeding about Open Internet, commonly known as "Net Neutrality", one of the issues surrounds what the competitors and content providers, such as Netflix, are paying to connect to the cable networks. On the other side, the 'slow-lane-fast-lane' discussion is all about charging end-user customers more or getting your service slowed down in some way.

To put it bluntly, with a 97 percent profit margin for High-Speed Internet, TWC has given its own services 'priority' favoritism, a sweet-heart deal,--call it what you want--but any other company would never, ever [be allowed to pay just] $1.32 a month to use the TWC networks to offer competitive High-Speed Internet, but this is what it costs Time Warner Cable's ISP, the part of the company offering the Internet and broadband service, to offer end users High-Speed Internet service. Competitors would most likely have to pay about 50 percent or more of the 'retail' average price of $43.92 to offer their service as a competitor.

If customers have been 'defacto' investors, paying an extra $5.00 a month since 2001 under the "Social Contract" to fund upgrades of the cable networks for High-Speed Internet, why shouldn't these networks be open so we can choose who offers us Internet or cable service over these wires?"

frojack writes:

ArsTechnica is reporting that the the guy behind various "Swatting" incidents around the country has been arrested in Las Vegas. Going by the grandiose on-line name of "Famed God", the alleged perpetrator's computers contained evidence from several Swats around the country.

Only time will tell if the arrests reduce the incidence of swatting or emboldens more copycats with better hiding skills. Also un known at this time is what types of law enforcement resources or three letter agencies were used to track this guy down.

Famed God could get five years if convicted.

The incident raises some questions about Swatting in general.

To date, its not clear that anyone was hurt in any such swatting, although significant time resources were wasted, and swat victims are often abused and mistreated by SWAT officers, when caught red handed in possession of nothing more serious than a laptop and mouse and empty pizza boxes.

Sending heavily armed and armored police with battering rams bashing through doors with automatic weapons on the strength of a single phone call via the internet seems like a silly thing to do, and a silly deployment policy. What ACTUAL event necessitating SWAT response comes in via exactly one internet call (which does not have geo location data)? What is the likelihood that there will only be one complaint on any such event?

So what say ye Soylentils?

Do local police break out the SWAT gear too quickly? Wouldn't simply calling the target, or sending a single car with officers (wearing vests) be sufficient to determine if a full SWAT operation was required?

How will this alleged perpetrator be viewed by the general public, vs the internet community?

Will he be vilified by press, over prosecuted? Or will he get his just rewards?

Will the internet Illuminati jump to his defense, anointing him as the second coming of the "internet's own boy"?

Will it trigger a national discussion about the over reliance on militarized police?

Is this too many questions for one Soylent News Post?

ah.clem writes:

Physicists in Australia claim to have simulated time travel using fairly standard optical equipment on a lab bench. They say they have prepared photons that behave as if they are travelling along short cuts in space–time known as "closed time-like curves", and add that their work might help in the long-sought-after unification of quantum mechanics and gravity. Others, however, argue that the research does little or nothing to establish whether time travel is possible in nature.

Although everyday experience suggests the impossibility of travelling backwards or forwards in time, Einstein's general theory of relativity does not rule it out. The theory allows for loops in space–time called closed time-like curves that could be created by very powerful sources of gravity such as black holes. These structures would bring an object back to a place and a time that it had already passed through, typically via a short cut between the two separated regions of space–time known as a wormhole.

The extraordinary claim can be found at physicsworld, here.

The original paper was published at Nature Communications; an abstract is available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1501.05014 with links to the full article available there.

[Editor's note: tip of the hat to the AC who provided better link information; this story has been updated accordingly.]

Hugh Pickens writes:

Google has long offered a Pro version of Google Earth for $399 per year that includes some pretty cool extras not found in the free version. Now Rick Broida reports at Cnet that you can get Google Earth Pro absolutely free. All you have to do is download the installer, run it, then sign in using your e-mail address (as your username) and license code GEPFREE. Features include: Advanced measurements: Measure parking lots and land developments with polygon area measure, or determine affected radius with circle measure; High-resolution printing: Print images up to 4,800 x 3,200 pixel resolution; Exclusive pro data layers with Demographics and traffic count; Spreadsheet import: Ingest up to 2,500 addresses at a time, assigning place marks and style templates in bulk; and Movie-Maker: Export Windows Media and QuickTime HD movies, up to 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution. If you’ve ever been involved in a property dispute, you’ll know how acrimonious they can get. Google Earth Pro includes parcel data that definitively defines property boundaries. "Do you really need this? Probably not, as Pro was created with business/enterprise users in mind," writes Broida. "Let's be honest, [Google Earth Pro has] entertainment value that's virtually impossible to measure."

The Mighty Buzzard writes:

It's a pretty slow news day but Michael Larabel over at Phoronix brings us news of the Linux 3.19 kernel release and some of its more shiny features.

Last Sunday when releasing Linux 3.19-rc7, Linus Torvalds mentioned he was looking at doing the official 3.19 release in one week. It seems to have been a relatively calm week to end out 3.19 development with no nasty regressions turning up, so chances are in a few hours he'll have the new release out the door.

If you haven't been keeping up with the dozens of Phoronix articles about Linux 3.19's development and features, here's another look at some of the Linux 3.19 features/changes that excite me the most... At the bottom of the article is a more exhaustive list of both popular and niche features for this next kernel update.

Me, I'm interested in the improvements in the OSS Radeon side of things and Btrfs. What's your pick/beef?

LoRdTAW writes:

Found this on Phronix: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Xfce-4.12-Finally-Weeks-Away

It looks like the release of Xfce 4.12 is finally about to materialize!

Xfce 4.12 is running about two years behind its original schedule but there's now a concerted effort underway to get out this lightweight GTK+ desktop environment out around the end of February or early March.

Simon Steinbeiß wrote on the xfce4-dev list, "we're writing to you [core Xfce component maintainers] proposing a concrete release date for 4.12 about a month from now, the weekend of February 28 and March 1. As we have discussed the status and progress of core components with many of you individually, we feel confident that the state of Xfce is good enough to polish some final edges and push more translations until then."

I myself have been waiting for a new Xfce but have since moved on to Mate. I am a bit eager to see what they have done to improve Xfce.

darkfeline writes:

A psychology paper covered by Ars Technica suggests that upper-class individuals are more likely to cheat for themselves, and lower-class individuals are more likely to cheat for others. Social class was extrapolated from income and education. The article is easy to read and informative, so RTFA.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/02/the-powerful-cheat-for-themselves-the-powerless-cheat-for-others/

TGV writes:

Mobile phones have become a part of our life style, but trying to give your new phone street cred in a rap video does not seem a smart move:

Video, lyrics and more at http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/03/htc-hip-hop-video/

martyb writes:

I found this fascinating story The Fundamental Constants Behind Our Universe at medium.com's "Starts with a Bang" column. Ethan Siegel posits:

But the Universe itself experiences continual growth, constant change, and new experiences all the time, and it does so spontaneously.

And yet, the better we understand our Universe — what the laws are that govern it, what particles inhabit it, and what it looked/behaved like farther and farther back in the distant past — the more inevitable it appears that it would look just as it appears.

[...] We’d like to describe our Universe as simply as possible; one of the goals of science is to describe nature in the simplest terms possible, but no simpler. How many of these does it take, as far as we understand our Universe today, to completely describe the particles, interactions, and laws of our Universe?

The answer? "Quite a few, surprisingly: 26, at the very least." He then goes on to explore what these are and how they are computed.

Sadly, we don't know enough to be able to predict everything. As the article notes, there remain problems with explaining CP violations, matter-antimatter asymmetry in our Universe, cosmic inflation, and what dark matter actually is.

Separately, but related: many years ago I came upon a site that provided interactive exploration of the scale of things in the universe from Planck length on up to the the visible universe. (And, no, it was not powersof10.com) I have a niece who is curious about such things and I would love to share such a site with her. Sadly, I can no longer locate a link. Any suggestions?

ghost writes:

You wouldn't think adding lldb (llvm debugger) support to gud.el, the emacs debugger front-end, would be that difficult. After all, the point is to support multiple debuggers (including gdb but also non-GPL ones). But wait until Richard Stallman hears about it!

It looks like there is a systematic effort to attack GNU packages. The GNU Project needs to respond strategically, which means not by having each GNU package cooperate with each attack. For now, please do NOT install this change.