The Earth’s atmosphere, and magnetic fields protect us from the damaging, and potentially deadly effects of gamma rays. But in space, and in some earthly disaster scenarios like a nuclear meltdown, it takes several feet of concrete or lead to keep us safe. But a new vest of flexible light material might solve the gamma ray problem as we try to figure out ways to set up shop on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Researchers are developing a blood test that can tell not only whether someone has cancer, but in what organ the tumors are lurking. The test could mean more prompt, potentially life-saving treatment for patients.
Researchers describe their blood test as a kind of dual authentication process. It is able to detect the presence of dying tumor cells in blood as well as tissue signatures, to signal to clinicians which organ is affected by the cancer.
There already are tests that screen for traces of DNA released by dying cancer cells. Such blood tests show promise in the treatment of patients to see how well anti-cancer therapies are working.
But researchers at the University of California, San Diego discovered a new clue, using organ-specific DNA signatures, that leads them to the particular organ that is affected.
The finding makes the new blood test potentially useful as a screening tool in people suspected of having cancer.
UC-San Diego bioengineering professor Kun Zhang is senior author of a paper in Nature Genetics about the experimental test.
“So when you try to do these kinds of early screening or early detection [tests], these people are healthy. So if you take a blood draw and then you do a test, and you find some signature of cancer, that is not enough because you do not know what to do next,” Zhang said. “And so, in this case, we developed a method where we can say whether there is a cancer growing in the body and if the answer is ‘Yes,’ we can also say something about where does it grow.”
The test screens for a DNA signature called a CpG methylation haplotype, which is unique for each tissue in the body.
When a cancer grows in an organ, it competes with healthy tissue for nutrients and space, killing off healthy cells, which release their DNA into the bloodstream.
The haplotype signatures, identified by the blood test, could tell doctors what cells are being destroyed, and therefore what organ is being invaded by cancer. Zhang says knowing a tumor’s location is especially crucial for early detection and treatment.
Researchers created a database of complete CpG methylation patterns for 10 different normal tissues: the lungs, liver, intestine, colon, brain, pancreas, spleen, stomach, kidney and blood. To put together the genetic marker database, the investigators also analyzed tumor and blood samples of cancer patients.
They screened the blood samples of 59 patients with lung or colorectal cancer, comparing those findings to people without cancer.
“It could be potentially used as a screening test,” Zhang said. “So I think that is the real potential. We need to do a few more rigorous clinical observations before we can get to that point.”
Zhang envisions eventually using the blood test to look for markers of cancer as part of routine blood work.
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Gorging on bacon, skimping on nuts? These are among food habits that new research links with deaths from heart disease, strokes and diabetes.
Overeating or not eating enough of 10 specific foods and nutrients contributes to nearly half of U.S. deaths from these causes, the study suggests.
”Good” foods that were undereaten are nuts and seeds; seafood rich in omega-3 fats, including salmon and sardines; fruits and vegetables; and whole grains.
”Bad” foods or nutrients that were overeaten include salt and salty foods; processed meats including bacon, bologna and hot dogs; red meat including steaks and hamburgers; and sugary drinks.
The research is based on U.S. government data showing there were about 700,000 deaths in 2012 from heart disease, strokes and diabetes, and on an analysis of national health surveys that asked participants about their eating habits. Most didn’t eat the recommended amounts of the foods studied.
The 10 ingredients combined contributed to about 45 percent of those deaths, according to the study.
More detail on risks, benefits
It may sound like a familiar attack on the typical American diet, and the research echoes previous studies on the benefits of heart-healthy eating. But the study goes into more detail on specific foods and their risks or benefits, said lead author Renata Micha, a public health researcher and nutritionist at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.
The results were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Micha said the foods and nutrients were singled out because of research linking them with the causes of death studied. For example, studies have shown that excess salt can increase blood pressure, putting stress on arteries and the heart. Nuts contain healthy fats that can improve cholesterol levels, while bacon and other processed meats contain saturated fats that can raise levels of unhealthy LDL cholesterol.
In the study, too much salt was the biggest problem, linked with nearly 10 percent of the deaths. Overeating processed meats and undereating nuts and seeds and seafood each were linked with about 8 percent of the deaths.
The Food and Drug Administration’s recent voluntary sodium reduction guidelines for makers of processed foods is a step in the right direction, as are taxes that some U.S. cities have imposed on sugar-sweetened beverages, Micha said.
A journal editorial said public health policies targeting unhealthy eating could help prevent some deaths, while noting that the study didn’t constitute solid proof that ”suboptimal” diets were deadly.
The study’s recommended amounts, based on U.S. government guidelines, nutrition experts’ advice, and amounts found to be beneficial or harmful in previous research:
‘Good’ ingredients
— Fruits: 3 average-sized fruits daily
— Vegetables: 2 cups cooked or 4 cups raw vegetables daily
— Nuts/seeds: 5 1-ounce servings per week — about 20 nuts per serving
— Whole grains: 2½ daily servings
— Polyunsaturated fats, found in many vegetable oils: 11 percent of daily calories
— Seafood: about 8 ounces weekly
‘Bad’ ingredients
— Red meat: 1 serving weekly — 1 medium steak or the equivalent
— Processed meat: None recommended
— Sugary drinks: None recommended
— Salt: 2,000 milligrams daily — just under a teaspoon.
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Researchers at New York University’s School of Medicine found that diabetes increased the risk of cancer death among Asians by an average of 26 percent, a statistic similar in the West.
Data for the new study drew on an analysis of 770,000 people with Type 2 diabetes throughout East and South Asia. Diabetics were followed for an average of 13 years to see if they developed cancer and what types. During that time more than 37,300 cancer deaths were identified.
Yu Chen, an epidemiology professor at the NYU School of Medicine’s Department of Population Health who was the study’s lead author, says Asians with Type 2 diabetes are more likely to be diagnosed with rarer cancers than Westerners, including cancers of the liver, thyroid and kidney which was double the risk compared to non-diabetics in Asia.
There was also a more than two and a half times increased risk of cancer of the endometrium and a 1.7 times higher risk of breast cancer among diabetic Asians compared to those who were not diabetic.
The number of cancers of the gallbladder and bile ducts in Asia were comparable to those in the West, according to Chen. Those sites are closer in the body to the pancreas, where insulin is made.
Chen thinks there may be several mechanisms at work, but data suggests that insulin may in some way stimulate the growth of cancer.
“Patients with diabetes that have high levels of insulin, some cancers are very sensitive to insulin, so it may promote the tumor growing,” she said.
The findings were published in the journal Diabetologia.
Chen said the study was undertaken because there’s been little research on an association between diabetes and cancer in Asia.
She said the research suggests Type 2 diabetes should be added to the list of cancer risk factors, along with diet and cigarette smoking.
“Cancer prevention needs to take into account for diabetes the lifestyles related to diabetes – [which] may reduce the risk of diabetes and also cancer,” she said.
Chen suggested that diabetics should receive more cancer screenings, in addition to medical interventions to reduce the risk of diabetes overall.
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Brazil’s federal environmental agency, Ibama, launched on Tuesday a centralized database to track timber from source to sale, a vital step in the fight against illegal logging in the Amazon.
The system, known as Sinaflor, allows individual trees to be electronically tagged and monitored as they are cut down and pass through the supply chain, with regulators able to check the database via their cell phones while on patrol.
With built-in satellite mapping, timber being sold as legal can be checked against the exact area of licensed commercial production it is claimed to originate from.
The system marks a step change from the current system, which environmentalists criticize as being open to fraud and human error as databases are isolated, poorly managed and cannot be easily accessed to verify documentation attached to timber.
“The new system offers a much more comprehensive process of control,” Suely Araújo, president of Ibama, said in an interview in her office in Brasilia. “What’s not in Sinaflor will be illegal timber.”
The system is the result of four years of work and was envisioned under the forest code passed into law in 2012, which gave the federal government power to create and manage a national system to regulate the supply chain of timber.
Illegal logging is one of the greatest threats to the preservation of the Amazon. In the year until July 2016, Amazonian rainforest six times the size of Los Angeles was cut down.
That was the second rise in two years, ending a 10-year period in which deforestation was dramatically reduced. Brazil’s Environment Ministry, under which Ibama falls, has vowed to reverse the trend.
Sinaflor has already been piloted in the state of Roraima and is being introduced this week in Rondonia. The states are legally obliged to use the system, and Araújo expects to have it up and running across the country by the end of the year.
“When we manage to implement it in the whole country, I think it will be a step change in terms of control,” Araújo said.
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Minor floods caused by rising sea levels may end up costing U.S. coastal communities as much money and resources as major hurricane disasters, U.S. scientists said.
As climate change causes sea levels to rise, such “nuisance flooding” is expected to become more frequent and costly for cities like Washington, San Francisco, Boston and Miami, researchers said.
Over the last 20 years, Washington has endured more than 94 hours a year of nuisance flooding. By 2050, the capital could see as many as 700 hours of flooding a year, the scientists estimated in a study published in the American Geophysical Union journal Earth’s Future.
“Since these events are not extreme, they don’t get a lot of attention,” said Amir AghaKouchak, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California-Irvine and co-author of the study.
Inconvenience to public
The National Ocean Service defines nuisance flooding as “flooding that leads to public inconveniences such as road closures” but rarely causes death or injury. Such floods can overwhelm storm drains, slowly degenerate infrastructure and strain city resources.
Roads and sidewalks were not built to be under saltwater for hours on end, and cities usually have to close roads and send in trucks to clean them up, the scientists said.
“They definitely can’t withstand this,” said lead author Hamed Moftakhari, also of UC-Irvine. And the damage leads to “long, drawn-out costs,” he added.
In Boston specifically, “king tides” overwhelm walkways and roads several times a year. The East Coast city is predicted to see up to 100 hours of such nuisance flooding a year by 2030, the UC-Irvine scientists said.
Residents have already noticed the semifrequent inconvenience, according to Mia Goldwasser, Boston’s climate preparedness program manager.
“There are always people sending pictures to the city, saying, ‘Look at all the flooding happening with very little rain,’ ” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview this week. The city has already noted several waterfront hot spots where “it’s going to be worse [in the future] if there’s already flooding.”
More awareness
The flooding has raised awareness among the general public to the everyday realities of climate change, Goldwasser added: “It’s an inconvenience to people when they’re walking and driving and biking, moving around their neighborhood.”
The scientists are using the data as a “call to action” for coastal cities to examine the issue and decide on the best ways to respond to rising sea levels.
“We believe that if you have information on the type of hazard, the potential cost, then you can plan,” said AghaKouchak.
Boston has begun to come up with ideas to mitigate the effects of rising seas on infrastructure, which include floodproofing properties and potentially building a massive seawall.
Some roads and buildings may become corroded by nuisance floods, while others could end up completely under water, Goldwasser said.
“There’s still a lot that we don’t know, that we’re trying to figure out,” she said. “What are the most effective solutions? … How do we actually implement them?”
As for the total cost of the floods over the next few decades, Goldwasser said that’s still to be determined, though it’s expected to be “pretty significant.”
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