The Daily Scan

Google Scholar

I know, I know, this is old news: Google Scholar.  I didn't want to post about this 'till I had a chance to use it.  So now I have; I was doing some research on Vector Quantization, an interesting mathematical technique for compression bitstreams which has applications in pattern recognition.  Well guess what?  It works.  Nicely. 

Another great new tool, courtesy of the Internet :)

Stem cells feed brain tumors

Wired: Stem cells feed brain tumors. 

"Researchers have identified stem cells in brain cancer tumors that replenish the tumors and keep them growing.  Snuffing out these cancer stem cells could lead to a raft of new treatments for various cancers.

"Scientists previously identified cancer stem cells in breast cancer tumors, and in leukemia tumors. But no one had found proof of cancer stem cells in other solid tumors until now

Excellent!

And in other stem cell news, FuturePundit report "Sonic hedgehog gene triples brain stem cell growth".  That is "Sonic hedgehog" as in the video game character.  You'll just have to read the article :)

California OKs stem cell measure

So, Proposition 71 passed in California, and a new $3B institute for stem cell research will be established.  Whether this will be a boon to medical research or a boondoggle for the fiscally-challenged state remains to be seen.  Naturally a phalanx of researchers are writing grant applications in realtime to get a piece of the pie.  This could be, as Wired Magazine notes, The Stem Cell Gold Rush.