Stuff below the fold

Snide FARK remark of the day:


Bill Gates pledges to re-invent the condom. Because Bill Gates has such a great track record preventing viruses with his products.
(Linked to this.)

via  Dustbury

----------------------------------------------------The Endangered Easter Egg

increased demand and plant disease means more expensive chocolate. The Bill Gates foundation blame the lack of a decent condom to protect the plants from disease.
whoops wrong story: Bill Gates blames it on global warming.

TaDA:...GM Chocolate to the rescue..

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DIY project of the week: Turn your hard drive into a cotton candy machine.

via Gizmodo  

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and it sounds like scientists are running out of names:

Behold the Hamburger Galaxy:

A 

Bob and Janice Fera captured this image of NGC 3628, also known as the Hamburger Galaxy, on March 10-11, 2013, from Eagle Ridge Observatory in Foresthill, Calif. CREDIT: Bob and Janice Fera

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Scientists have discovered a new super antibody that will kill lots of different cancers(?)

Pubmed has this summery.

Stanford has this summary.

Summary: They transplanted human cancer into mice, and this anti body killed the human cancer in mice.
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This article explains it nicely in ordinary English:  it destroys cancer's "cloaking device", so the immune system can destroy the cancer.

This new treatment hinges on a protein found in our body’s cells, called CD47. This is otherwise known as the “do not eat” protein, simply because it tells the immune system not to attack. So it’s certainly something you’d want your healthy cells to carry in large quantities.
On the flip side, you certainly wouldn’t want cancer cells bulletproofing themselves in the same way. But unfortunately, researchers have discovered that’s exactly what they do.
The realization actually happened 10 years ago, when Irving Weissman, a biologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, discovered that CD47 resided in leukemia cells. This essentially allows the malignant cells to hide in plain sight, as the immune system doesn’t recognize a threat.

The study is very preliminary, but human trials could start in one to two years.


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