The Daily Scan

when slide rules ruled

Perhaps many of you are too young to remember, but back in the day the humble slide rule was a key piece of experimental paraphernalia in science...  this great article from the Scientific American commemerates the era: when slide rules ruled.  Enjoy!

Yes, I am that old - although just barely...

store 4,000 digital slides for $189

Today I was at Fry's Electronics and found an acomdata 1TB external hard drive for $189.  There was one per customer so I bought two :)

A typical digital slide is about 250MB, so this drive can hold 4,000 digital slides.  That works out to about four cents per slide, to store them forever.  The little blue light along the front even flashes purple as the drive is accessed, so you get a free light show to go with your inexpensive bits.

One of the key factors in the adoption of digital pathology is the way advances in basic computer technology have driven the cost down.  Really great 24" monitors are now $600.  High-bandwidth DSL connections are available just about everywhere for $50/month.  Servers cost a fraction of what they did five years ago, and a smaller fraction of what they did ten years ago.  And the biggest factor is the incredible increase in storage capacity and corresponding decrease in storage cost.  This 1TB drive isn't an outlier, it is just the latest data point in a steady curve.

Cancer death rates stay stagnant

USNews reports Cancer death rates stay stagnant.

Cancer death rates seem to have stagnated, a new report shows, as the smoking prevention and mammography screening efforts that fueled recent declines appear to have leveled off. The trends, detailed in the American Cancer Society's annual report, Cancer Prevention & Early Detection Facts and Figures 2008, point to a need for more effort.

There is a lot of good news in this report, too.  Substantial progress has been made, and it is behavioral factors that matter the most.  Obesity, especially among young people, is the next biggest hurdle in terms of lowering the risk factors for cancer.

Renewing the war on cancer

Lance Armstrong, writing in the Boston Globe: Renewing the war on cancer.

Now, what is our government's victory plan?

After six years on the President's Cancer Panel, I can say with reasonable certainty that there isn't one. Few of our leaders, with the exception of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, are still devoted to this fight. And to be fair, cancer is one of many causes competing for resources and attention in Washington.

Still, you'd expect the number one killer of Americans under 85 to merit more outrage, more opposition, more resources. But funding for the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health is static or declining in recent years. There is no central command, no general who looks over the broad spectrum of this disease and is able to deploy resources where they will save lives and advance this fight. A pessimist would say that cancer is winning. Luckily, I'm not one.

Lance is one of my personal heros, not only for his personal and athletic accomplishments, but because he has channeled the fame and fortune those accomplishments created into this critical fight.  Let's hope he is successful, but more than that, let's all support him in any way we can.

Effective Colon Cancer Prevention Treatment Discovered

ScienceDaily reports Effective Colon Cancer Prevention Treatment Discovered.

"Using a combination of a targeted cancer-fighting agent called DFMO and a low dose of an anti-inflammatory drug, UC Irvine researchers have reduced the risk of reoccurring colorectal polyps, an early sign of colon cancer, by as much as 95 percent with fewer toxic side effects. The study marks a breakthrough in the effort to combat colon cancer, the third leading cause of cancer in men and fourth in women, according to Dr. Frank L. Meyskens Jr., the Daniel G. Aldrich Chair at UC Irvine and director of its Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center."

This is excellent.  And in addition to the efficacy, the study also found no side effects or increased toxicity among the study group, vs patients taking a placebo.

‘Cautious Optimism’ Over Cancer Vaccine

WebMD reports ‘Cautious Optimism’ Over Cancer Vaccine.

"Vaccines that rev up the immune system to seek out and destroy tumor cells are showing promise for the treatment of cervical and breast cancer.  One vaccine significantly cut deaths in women with an aggressive type of breast cancer. A second vaccine curbed or stopped the growth of tumors in women with cervical cancer.

Excellent!  These therapies work by telling the immune system to attack cancer cells as if they're foreign invaders.  A very promising technique...

Medicine 2.0 at the digital pathology blog

Keith Kaplan is hosting this weeks' Medicine 2.0 blog carnival; if you have a chance please give him a click.  This is a great compilation of forward-looking articles on a whole bunch of different blogs and websites; in addition to being interesting reading, they are also a great introduction to a lot of new sites to follow.

the odds of dying different ways

Speaking of the odds of dying somehow, this great chart shows that the odds of dying from cancer are 1 in 7; compare that to a car accident (1 in 84) or a bicycle (1 in 5,000).  Heart disease is still the worst at 1 in 5.  (Yeah, I know you can't read it; click it to enlarge.)  Good to know.

I find it very weird that suicide is 1 in 119.  Wow.  Can that be right?  Also weird: earthquakes (1 in 117,000) are worse than floods (1 in 144,000).  Not shown, but found in the table of the linked National Safety Council report: cataclysmic storms (e.g. hurricanes) are much worse, at 1 in 4,300.

I guess we'll have won the war on cancer when your odds of dying from it are less than your odds of dying while riding a bike.  So be it.

Cancer rates decrease for some groups

Good news from the front, the LA Times reports Cancer rates decrease for some groups.

"The Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, released in October, found that cancer incidence rates have stabilized and, for many of the most common forms of cancer, are actually dropping.

Among men, incidence rates for lung cancer (the leading cause of cancer death in men) decreased by 1.8% a year from 2001 to 2004, and rates for colorectal cancer fell by more than 2% annually. Perhaps most impressive were the changes in the incidence of breast cancer, the second-leading cause of cancer death in women, behind lung cancer. Those rates for women dropped by 3.5% a year during this period."

Excellent.  As people live longer, more will get cancer - it tends to be the thing that kills you in the end - but we are now increasing the quality of life for the average person.

Many Scientists using Performance Enhancing Drugs

I honestly don't know what to make of this: Many Scientists using Performance Enhancing Drugs.

"A new poll published in Nature shows unprecedented levels of cognitive performance-enhancing drug abuse by top academic scientists. The poll, conducted among subscribers to Nature, surveyed 1,400 scientists from 60 nations (70% from the US).  20% reported using performance-enhancing drugs. Among the drug-using population, 62% used Ritalin, 44% used Provigil, and 15% used beta-blockers like Inderal.  Frequency of use was evenly divided among those who used drugs daily, weekly, monthly, and once a year.

Well why not – whatever works…  perhaps one of these performance-enhanced scientists will find a cure for cancer.

However for me I’m sticking with the tried and true performance enhancers like caffeine and chocolate!